\i{rehosted from a 2022 https://web.archive.org/web/20250106203000/https://cohost.org/ywy/post/505448-on-land-maker-vs[cohost]}
## on "land maker" vs "landmaker"
by now some folks have probably noticed that
y insists on referring to this game as "land maker" with a space,
but anyone that looked up the game, like, ever, probably saw something like
\https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Landmaker
## Landmaker - Wikipedia
Landmaker (ランドメーカー) is an isometric arcade puzzle video game developed and released by Taito in 1998. It is a versus action puzzle game similar in appearance to Taito's own Puzzle Bobble,
\i{ah,} you think. \i{that must be the correct spelling. i know better than to listen to someone that can't even afford to spell their own name with more than one letter,}
well...
here's the arcade title graphic
!https://qcs.shsbs.xyz/api/File/raw/land-maker-title[272x32;TLAND01 "LAND MAKER" title]
it's a little hard to tell with the font, but there is absolutely a space between words there...
!https://qcs.shsbs.xyz/api/File/raw/title-closeup2[493x122;Land Maker title graphic close-up with letter spacing marked]
and also in the credits:
!https://qcs.shsbs.xyz/api/File/raw/landmakr-credits-title[150x26;LAND MAKER as written in credits scroll]
spaced is how the original arcade service mode spells it as well:
\spoiler[service menu screenshot]{
!https://qcs.shsbs.xyz/api/File/raw/landmakr-service-menu[320x232;Land Maker service menu, with the build version "LAND MAKER VER 2.02 O" written near the bottom]}
this is where mame and others got their full title/build ids of
`Land Maker (Ver 2.01J 1998/06/01)` and `Land Maker (Ver 2.02O 1998/06/02)` from.
\spoiler[digression]{this of course applies to all regions, as the build version is just a printf format string:
`%s VER %d.0%d %s`
where the arguments are
- the string `LAND MAKER`
- the major build version number
- the minor build version number
- a region code, based on the region word at `0x1FFFFE`: " ", "J", "A", "O" for unknown/invalid, japan, americas, or [y doesn't remember what o is for sure. overseas?] respectively.
}
\spoiler[(edit 2022-12-12)]{y forgot a few more:
for non-japanese regions, the placeholder for win quotes has the player referred to as a "GREAT LAND MAKER"
!https://qcs.shsbs.xyz/api/File/raw/youaregreat[320x232;YOU ARE GREAT LAND MAKER!]
and the credits refers to a few people as "LAND MAKERS," (stage pattern creation? or playtesting?)
!https://qcs.shsbs.xyz/api/File/raw/credits-land-makers[320x232;LAND MAKERS: seiji kawakami, keppel maekawa, nobuaki kuroki, naomitsu abe, yousuke tsuda, youichiro kugimiya]
- seiji kawakami (character design, planning on various, later producer)
- keppel maekawa (planner on light bringer, puzznic, bubble symphony, twin qix, director for the psx release of land maker)
- nobuaki kuroki (designer on some puzzle bobbles and fighters' impact)
- naomitsu abe (planning support on dino rex, designer on some puzzle bobbles)
- yosuke tsuda (planning support on dino rex, designer on elevator action returns)
- youichiro kugimiya (marketing/pr)
- takayuki tsuchiya (marketing/pr starting with psychic force 2012)
- naoto omura ("location test" on elevator action returns, programmer/designer on darius gaiden and fighters' impact)
}
...wait, that seems pretty unambiguous. so where does the spaceless name come from?
---
in 1999 taito made the mistake of releasing land maker for the sony playstation.
apparently taito, and really arcades as a whole, were seeing a decline by this point, and other taito f3 games like puzzle bobble 4, cleopatra fortune, and arkanoid returns had also seen home console releases shortly after their arcade versions.
so land maker gets a playstation release too, except... it's weird? they present two completely original (and more bland looking) 3d "puzzle" and "battle" modes by a different dev team, different composers, and then, like, also the arcade version is there too. as if it's bonus.
it's like taito gave two different teams seiichi nakakuki's puzzle mechanics and then they worked in isolation. and then at the end the playstation team got to see what the arcade team was doing and put that in too. y can't prove any of that, but that's what it feels like.
the arcade port part has all these little implementation differences. rng is different, some animation and timing-related stuff is different, tile bags aren't synced... all these little things that feel like someone went to a lot of trouble copying the appearance but didn't quite ensure all the logic was the same.
anyway, there's the "arcade" land maker and an "original" land maker (it's called "original" in the game's files, too) on this playstation version.
which is still called "land maker," with a space.
it's on the case spine...
!https://qcs.shsbs.xyz/api/File/raw/wiziq[512x24;land maker (japan) spine]
and the title menu,
!https://qcs.shsbs.xyz/api/File/raw/lmpsxtopmenu[320x224;slightly scuffed land maker (japan) (playstation) title screen]
as well as the places (other than the service menu, which doesn't exist anymore) it did in the arcade version, and also the original puzzle mode credits.
there's also a line break in https://youtu.be/0yOQkyPKaiY?t=75[POCKET LAND MAKER], though that one is less definitive.
the only places it /isn't/ spelled with a space are like, a couple internal id strings, and then when displaying the player's rank after puzzle mode:
!https://qcs.shsbs.xyz/api/File/raw/land-maker-rank-kudan[130x89;LANDMAKER 九段 (kudan)]
and in context that's more like. a title for a person, again, maybe? a person can be a landmaker. that's cool, but doesn't have bearing on the title of land maker the game, probably.
## unfortunately
the playstation version got published in other regions... twice.
the game was published in the us by Jaleco USA Inc., where it was renamed
# BUILDER'S BLOCK
of all things. they even went so far as changing the arcade mode title graphic and credits to match the new "BUILDER'S BLOCK" label--
wait.
!https://qcs.shsbs.xyz/api/File/raw/bb-arc-credits[320x224;BZILDER'S BLOCK]
okay well according to the credits maybe this one is "Bzilder's Block" ... (w
anyway,
in pal regions the game was published by EON Digital Entertainment
and, along with some really awful anime-esque cover art [(two of those characters don't even EXIST)], has "LANDMAKER" pretty clearly on the box.
!https://qcs.shsbs.xyz/api/File/raw/shzwi[512x54;landmaker (pal) spine]
well, damn.
...but also: the title menu is unchanged. they didn't go and do anything funny to the arcade title or credits again for this one, either. it's just that the official european title of SLES-02682 is "Landmaker"
y has a *lot* of other problems with the english-language versions, too, but that's a post for another time.
back to the wikipedia article naming...
without linking too many actual intermediate edits, because goodness there's a lot of wrong information in there (and on the current page!), here's a summary of the history
- on 23 august 2005 an anonymous editor creates a stub article at https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Landmaker&oldid=21665958[Landmaker], calling it a "playstation one puzzle game."
- 22 october 2009 the page gets an infobox with specifically the european box art.
- on 13 july 2010 user Necroscourge creates the page at https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Land_Maker&action=history[Land Maker]
- in may 2014 there's some debate over moving and/or merging the pages (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Landmaker). it's a little annoying and not worth reading, but after some points about in-game naming, and inconsistency, seems to more or less come around to 'yeah the game calls itself this even if the packaging doesn't.' then an ip from quebec decides to be annoying about the box art not having a space in it and asking for 'proof.' eventually the move request is closed with "no consensus"
> \i{Nobody here mentioned any Google results or linked to any reviews to argue for the presence or absence of a space; if they had done so the case for moving might have been stronger. ... \i{\b{If there was previously an arcade game called Land Maker that might affect the result but it would need a source, and ought to be mentioned in the article.}}}
nice one. so it's named like that because... 1) eon digital entertainment 2) historical reasons and 3) a research failure, i guess. oh well.
the marketing for this game is kind of just a disaster all around.
to y, though, calling it "landmaker" is just as much of a mistake as calling it "builder's block," or only translating 4 of the 16 win quotes, or making up fake characters for the box art, or pretending the single player puzzle mode is anywhere as deep as the arcade vs puzzle game, or taito pretending the game doesn't exist most of the time. it's just a weird marketing/localization decision.
to y it is an arcade game called "land maker," with a weird playstation sequel-port.