Beneath the dragon: the evolving topography and scenography of Kamurocho
- Aug 12
- 1 min read
Barroso, D., & Huang, Z. (2026, August). Beneath the dragon: the evolving topography and scenography of Kamurocho. In Replaying Japan 2026: The 14th International Japan Game Studies Conference.
By analyzing models and architectural drawings across different scales, this research reveals the specific spatial translation strategies employed by RGG Studio. At the macro-urban scale (first modality), drawing upon Kevin Lynch's "Five Elements of the City" framework, our comparative analysis demonstrates that the developers actively executed a process of spatial compression. By altering urban density, redesigning the city's primary axes, and repositioning key visual nodes along the streets, RGG Studio compressed the complex reality of Kabukicho into a structurally dense, small-scale open world. This urban (re)development ensures that the physical translation aligns with the technical constraints of the game engine, optimizing the topological requirements for continuous gameplay and navigation, effectively concealing the city edges, and maintaining high-density interaction. In line with these observations, we may consider the evolution of the game engine (the "Dragon Engine") and the refinement of gameplay mechanics, in line with the coherent evolution of the spatial topological structure of Kamurocho.