Konami game design contest

It seems as if the trend of the recent years in the huge success of retro-style games with hand-drawn (or -alike) pixel art, mainly driven by a rising number of passionate independent game developers has reached a level to convince some management to test new - or rather - *old* terrain and build on that.

Konami is now attempting a promising path after a series of (supposedly homemade) setbacks in its game development department during the past years, starting with the unexpected cancellation of a work-in-progress title in the Silent Hill franchise, the split from the Kojima Productions Studio, negative publicity in their treatment of workers, and the latest release- and PR-disaster with the launch of the new eFootball series.

A contest is now held by Konami in cooperation with Shueisha Game Creators CAMP, a platform to gather creators, artists and developers and helping them to team up for creating new games. The challenge is about presenting a game plan to create a new game based on classic Konami IPs (intellectual properties) in the form of remakes, sequels, or creating new stories based on characters from old games in cross-overs and even merging of different worlds.
The CAMP's website shows a list of the series that are allowed for the contest:

• Ganbare Goemon series
• Yie Ar Kung-Fu series
• Gradius series
• Star Soldier series
• Twin Bee series
• Various single action titles
• Various single shoot-em-up titles

The official start of the campaign was September 30, 2021 and runs until January 6, 2022. The initial reviewing of the documents shall be completed by end of January. In the second round of the review, interviews with the best candidates will be conducted, and participants are allowed to send in images, videos and demos to further express their vision. A third round is planned to start around July, with the final results being expected by September. The results of the rounds will be publicly announced at the end of each round on the Shueisha Game Creators CAMP website.

If Konami finds that the plan has the potential for a commercialization of the project, they will reward that idea monetarily with a prize of 2 million yen and is planning to invest another 30 million yen for the development and realization of the project. In addition to that, they are offering support to the winning team by providing access to their infrastructure and services to make the production in a quality for which Konami is undisputedly well known - for decades.

Many people who are old enough to remember the Konami classics are coming to an age where things that bring back good memories from their childhood are very welcome, and are also willing (and can afford) to support such development. From that perspective, this is a brilliant move, and definitely something that many of us wished since the "official" MSX era ended in the 90s: Konami continuing to do what they could do best.

And, who knows, maybe a certain H. Kojima is participating in that contest...

Shueisha Inc. is a large Japanese publisher for print and digital media.
Konami is known to most of us for being a game developer for MSX since the very early days of the system.

Relevant link: Shueisha Game Creators CAMP web page
Relevant link: Youtube trailer