Cave is working to bring its bullet-hell shooters to Android

Over on sister site PocketGamer.biz we've been talking to Mikio Watanabe from lauded Japanese developer Cave - the studio behind all those excellent bullet-hell iOS shooters such as Dodonpachi Resurrection, Mushihimesama Bug Panic, and DeathSmiles.

What you probably won't know about Cave, however, is that it's been releasing casual mobile games since 1998. Its first release was a fortune-telling website, but more recently it's had success with a game called Castle Creator (or Build a Castle! as it's called in Japanese), and working with EA on a version of SimCity.

Still, that doesn't mean no more shooters. As Watanabe-san says, "Let me make it clear - Cave won't turn its back on our fanbase.

"We're going to keep making hardcore games, and at the same time we'll be growing our social and casual games divisions."

Part of this will see Cave's iOS games released for Android.

"As you know, Android has some difficult specifications limits, in terms of screen size, CPU and memory, particularly for our games," Watanabe-san explains.

"However, thanks to the achievements of our engineers I think we'll have some good news for people soon."

Cave's casual games such as Castle Creator will also become available in the west as Japanese social platforms such as GREE and Mobage are rolled out.

You can read the complete interview - Cave's COO Mikio Watanabe on the transition from bullet hell to mobile social success with GREE and Mobage - here.