Develop: Famous music artists signed up for Lumines II - Mizuguchi

A number of famous artists have been signed up to supply music for the forthcoming Lumines II, acclaimed game designer Tetsuya Mizuguchi has revealed - with details of the talent involved likely to be emerge in the coming weeks.

Speaking at the Develop conference in Brighton yesterday, the creator of titles including Sega Rally, Rez and Space Channel 5 revealed that the follow-up to his well-received PSP puzzle title Lumines will feature a number of "pretty famous artists" on the soundtrack.

The game, which has been ported to platforms including mobile phones and Xbox Live Arcade since it appeared as a PSP launch title, allows players to dynamically add to the soundtrack with their in-game actions. The first title featured music from popular Japanese group Mondo Grosso.

Mizuguchi was speaking in a session titled "Creativity Led Production: How to bring new ideas into line," where he discussed the elements which had inspired all of his games to date.

Among the more unusual influences cited by the designer were the musical Stomp!, which he said was a major inspiration for popular rhythm action title Space Channel 5, and the paintings of Kandinsky - whose concepts of synthenasia were an inspiration for cult hit action title Rez.

Mizuguchi also discussed his Xbox 360 title, Ninety-Nine Nights, on which he served as producer while the game itself was developed by Korean firm Phantagram.

He revealed that the idea for the game's storyline was inspired by the media coverage of the Iraq war, and his fascination with the belief that it's impossible to rationalise the many viewpoints on the war into a single truth - hence the storytelling style of Ninety-Nine Nights, which tells the story of a conflict from two opposed angles.