During the 1998/1999 Shenmue Premiere showings in various cities across Japan, ahead of the game's original release on the Dreamcast, a 36-page art book was available as merchandise. It featured concept art, photographs, design diagrams, and other materials related to the game's development.
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| Cover of the Shenmue Premiere Art Booklet |
In past posts on this blog we have analyzed some of the fascinating snippets of early design documents that can be glimpsed in this booklet, such as:
- Ryo's Arrival in Hong Kong: Shenmue II Design Document Translation
- Earning Money to Meet Ren: Shenmue 2 Flowchart #2 Translation
- Shenmue 1 Start of Game Flowchart: Early Design Document Translation
This booklet makes creative use of charts and drawings as decorative images to accompany the pages describing the making of the game.
Unseen Maps in the Art Booklet
On one page of the booklet, two maps can be found that don't match any of the places Ryo has visited so far in his journey. One map sits at the top left in blue ink, and the other, which lies to the right further down the page, is in black. (The maps are partially obscured by an image of an early map of Aberdeen/Wan Chai, and a photo of a computer monitor displaying a map of Dobuita).
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| The page containing the mysterious maps |
In this post, the first in a two-part series, we will start to examine the maps and labels in detail to uncover hints about Ryo's initially-planned or potential future travels.
Image credits: thanks to James Brown for providing the booklet page images
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