Horii, Yuuji

Horii Yuuji (born January 6, 1954 in Awaji Island, Japan) is a Japanese video game designer and scenario writer best known as the creator of the Dragon Quest series. He has been said to have created the blueprint for the console role-playing game by gaming magazine Nintendo Power.

Horii graduated from Waseda University's Department of Literature. He also worked as a freelance writer for magazines, newspapers, and comics. He placed in an Enix-sponsored game programming contest with a tennis computer game, motivating him to become a video game designer. His works include the Dragon Quest games, The PORTOPIA Serial Murder Case, and the Itadaki Street series.

Horii was also a supervisor of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System game, Chrono Trigger. Chrono Trigger had multiple game endings and Horii appeared in one of the endings with the game development staff.

Horii currently heads his own production company, Armor Project, a company that has an exclusive production contract with Square Enix, a contract established with Enix before the company merged with Square. He is currently working on Dragon Quest IX for the Nintendo DS, the first game in the main series released primarily for a handheld.

(Source: Wikipedia)