Tsugiharu raised an eyebrow at that.

"Hm, older siblings then, or is Daidoji-san an only child?" he asked, interest in learning more about her family.

"I'm an only child," she replied, looking to the side. "My birth was a bit of an... adventure, so I can understand why."

If Katsuo had been there, he would've stamped a giant F on the Daidoji's head, squeezed her boobs, and then run off cackling. But he was not, Tsugiharu was. Who filed that information away for possible use later, but only if it proved valuable.

"Well, I'm given to understand from my mother, the first child is always an adventure. You have to get to four or five before it reaches the level of mundane task." he said, brushing away the serious implications with a bit of light humor.

She raised her eyebrows. "True. Do you have that many siblings yourself?"

He nods.

"Four. An older brother, a younger brother, and two younger sisters." he explains. "Large families are pretty common among the Spider. After all, the casualties from ever expanding the Empire are fairly high."

"Hmm... I can understand why they're so different in that light," she mused. "Though there are plenty of Crane families with lots of kids, as well."

Tsugiharu nods.

"I mean, historically the more militant a clan is, the larger it's average family size tends to be. Spider, Crab, Lion, Unicorn...all have tended to favor very large families."

He sipped his tea. He considered making a joke about Shizuka's father practicing the philosophy of 'One strike', but it seemed ill-advised.

"What about cousins Daidoji-san? Any younger near-siblings looking up to their cool and smart 'big sis'?" he asked

She nodded. "Being as... concentrated as we are likely contributes, as well."

"Maybe not looking up to, but I do have some cousins. My parents both had a couple of siblings, and they have their own children."

He looked back at the screen.

"Hm, you could make a whole series of relatives to rescue for sequels. Or even spin off games." he suggested, putting the conversation back on the programmer's game.

She laughed at that, grateful for the subject change. "I think it'd get pretty boring if I just stuck with rescuing relatives for plots on this one. I was actually thinking of making a mystery game next, though I think I'll need voices to do that effectively."

Tsugiharu considered that.

"Hmmm....well, maybe. Or you could make that the gimmick. You could have a protagonist who was deaf, thus you wouldn't need any sound at all for thematic purposes." he suggested.

"Hmm... That's an interesting idea." She taps her fingers a few times, then takes some notes on the laptop. "I hope my art chops are up to it. That's a good one."

Tsugiharu nods.

"I mean art is definitely important, but it's really the gameplay that needs to shine. The tricky part about murder mystery games is that quite frequently the player will hit a wall when their logic derails significantly from the programmers. Of course it makes sense to the programmer that the way to get past the purple door is to fit the brass key in the third statue's left nostril....but that's because the programmer knows the whole mystery, while the poor player just randomly clicks on things wondering what they've missed."