In Nintendo’s backyard, foreign indie game devs are thriving

British programmer Dylan Cuthbert found himself in Kyoto unexpectedly.

“I knew nothing about Japan or the Japanese gaming industry when I first came to visit Nintendo back in the summer of 1990,” Cuthbert, 53, recalls. “I was told I was going ‘next week’ and just hopped on the plane.”

While working as a programmer for Argonaut Software in the U.K., Cuthbert says he “developed a fun 3D demo on the Game Boy.” A representative from Nintendo saw it at (a trade show) and was so surprised he set up a meeting in Kyoto with Gunpei Yokoi, creator of the Game Boy.