After the crowdfunding campaign raised 1690% of its original goal due to being "too successful," publisher ILLUMINATION delayed the game's release from spring 2026 to summer, and recently announced that Super Real Mahjong P: Venus Returns will launch on Steam on August 27.
Super Real Mahjong is one of Japan's classic "strip mahjong" game series. Originating in arcades during the 80s, the series later expanded to consoles and PC platforms. Now, it makes a major comeback with its first title supporting 3D VR, Super Real Mahjong P: Venus Returns. In a recent interview with Famitsu, producer Kentaro Matsui and director Yoshi-K discussed the intricacies of the game's development, particularly the process behind creating the undressing animations for the four main heroines.
According to Yoshi-K, before implementing the motions into the game via motion capture technology, the development team members personally tested various undressing actions in real life. "We put a lot of effort into making the undressing process entertaining. This time, we used motion capture to create the undressing sequences, but for testing purposes, all of us game designers gathered together and actually tried taking off our own clothes. We would seriously critique how we old men removed our clothes, saying things like, 'Mr. Yoshi-K, you're pulling your zipper down a bit too fast' (laughs). That's how the motions were gradually refined," Yoshi-K commented.
The animation process itself was incredibly meticulous, especially for the scenes where clothes are removed. While motion capture was primarily used to record the undressing actions themselves, Everythinggj else, including the stretching effects of the clothing, was hand-crafted. "From a technical standpoint, our production method is very similar to claymation. The designers poured immense determination and effort into animating the 3D models of the clothing, manually adjusting their movements bit by bit," said Yoshi-K.
The team experimented with various 3D animation techniques, such as physics simulations, to automate and simplify the production process. However, achieving natural and fluid animations proved quite difficult, so they decided the best approach was to create all animations by hand. To pay homage to the classic Super Real Mahjong titles, the developers attempted to follow the same production workflow, such as drawing actual storyboards and using them as blueprints for animation creation.
Super Real Mahjong P: Venus Returns will launch on PC (Steam) on August 27.