of his father's death in interviews, and the subsequent financial hardship faced by his family. He enrolled at university to study economics, and it was there that he decided to join the video game industry. He wrote fiction while studying, even including a short story in his thesis. Career Early career At the beginning of his career, Kojima was initially searching for a way into film production. He hoped that, if he were to win awards for his written fiction, he would be approached about directing a film. Although Kojima said that he had no friends interested in cinema to encourage him, his friends were not supportive when he announced he intended to enter game development. He would frequently lie about his occupation in the early days of a career, when a word for game designer did not exist in the Japanese language, and instead told people he worked for a financial firm. Kojima joined video game publisher Konami's MSX home computer division in 1986. He applied to Konami because it was the only games developer listed on the Japanese stock exchange. He was disappointed with the job initially, hoping to make games for the Nintendo Entertainment System, and feeling that the 16 colour palette of the MSX was too restrictive. The first game he worked on was Penguin Adventure, the sequel to Antarctic Adventure, as an assistant director. It significantly expanded upon the gameplay of Antarctic Adventure, adding more action game elements, a greater variety of levels, role-playing elements such as upgrading equipment, and multiple endings. In 2019, Polygon's Julia Lee wrote that for "a game made over 30 years ago, Penguin Adventure had some in-depth features". After Penguin Adventure, Kojima started to design a game called , but the game was canceled when it was found to be too complex to run on the MSX. Metal Gear and Snatcher (1987–1990) Kojima was asked to take over a project, Metal Gear, from a senior associate. Hardware limitations hindered the development of the game's combat, and Kojima altered the gameplay to focus on a prisoner escaping instead of fighting, inspired by The Great Escape. It was released on July 13, 1987, for the MSX2 home computer in Japan, and on September in that year for Europe. The player controls a special forces operative codenamed Solid Snake, who is sent to the fortified state of Outer Heaven to stop a nuclear-equipped