NPCs in the WiFisland. Development Contact was developed by Grasshopper Manufacture as the company's first RPG on the DS. The game's main designer and director, Akira Ueda, a former Square graphic designer and a prominent contributor to the Shining Soul games, described the game's main story line as providing a "framework of diversions" such as combat, item collection, and monster hunting. The game uses the touchscreen in several ways through the game. "We've endeavoured to use as many of the DS' features as we could, but not in an obvious way," Ueda explained. "Our philosophy was 'How can we use these fantastic features properly?' We wanted them to work for the story rather than dictate it, which is something we feel is incredibly important for an original concept like Contact." Contact features Apple IIe-style fonts on its title screen and 8-bit mini-games. However, the main graphical draw of Contact is its contrast in art styles between the two DS screens. A simple, pixelated style makes up the top screen, while the bottom screen has a pre-rendered, detailed art style. These styles clash when the Professor transitions from one screen to the other. Ueda originally developed the game for the Game Boy Advance; producer Takeshi Ogura revealed that the two art styles were to switch back and forth. However, when development moved to the DS, the team decided to take advantage of the dual screens by showing them simultaneously. According to Ueda, this differentiation "underlines how the player and the Professor are aliens to each other. They must make contact, communicate and co-operate to make it through the game" and "creates feelings of nostalgia; just like the interplay between the 'real' and 'game' worlds." Contact was picked up for a North American release by Atlus USA prior to its Japanese launch. The company's localization director, Tomm Hulett, was attracted to the game's art style and humor, comparing it to the cult-classic EarthBound. As per the company's translation policy, the game's content was not altered from the original Japanese release beyond the English localisation. This was a slight challenge. According to Hulett, it was difficult to figure out which parts of the dialogue were serious and which were comical. Also, the files did not show which character was speaking, which was a problem when multiple characters conversed. Reception According to Media Create, Contact performed poorly on the Japanese market with just 8,102