games could be streamlined if the player character was able to approach and climb the oversized opponents to kill them with a close range weapon. Accordingly, he chose to base the game around the player character's encounters with enormous fictional creatures, a premise that stemmed from Ueda's childhood fascination with monster movies. This led to an emphasis on the inclusion of a large-scale adventure in the title, an element which Ueda regarded as influential in the shaping of the game's stylistic identity. Originally, the team considered Ueda's idea alongside another concurrently-developed game. According to Ueda, the game was unrelated to his former concept, and the team did not give it a working title or outline its design while it was in development. Ueda recognized the finished iteration of Team Ico's second title as, "in many ways, a game for boys and men"; conversely, the separately produced game was fashioned to appeal more to a female audience. Its contents, interface and thematic focus differed significantly from those that would ultimately manifest in the team's next game after Ico. The untitled game did not employ 3D graphics, whereas Team Ico applied them to their published game. The team eventually scrapped their plans for a counterpart title to Ueda's intended game, which was advanced into further development. Prior to the start of the project, Team Ico assessed the opportunity to establish it as a sequel to their first game. This suggestion was opposed by certain staff members who argued that the story and gameplay of their preceding title were largely self-contained, and that the existence of consumer demand for a new Ico game was questionable. According to Ueda, Team Ico assumed that the creation of levels for a single-player game akin to Ico necessitated the construction of elaborate puzzles, a practice that the staff wanted to eschew. Following lengthy deliberations, they decided not to pursue a sequel to Ico and to produce a standalone game provisionally dubbed NICO (a portmanteau of ni, 2 in Japanese, and "Ico"). The team initially agreed to develop NICO as an online multiplayer game that, unlike Ico, "wouldn't require complex level design". Their foundational goal, according to Kaido, was to create a technology demo that represented a tentative rendition of the game's fictional world and features. Development commenced immediately after the December 2001 release of Icos Japanese version. Early prototypes To develop the concept video for NICO, Team