Editing Flicky (section)

==Development==
The spark to develop ''Flicky'' came from Sega's desire to exceed [[Namco]]'s ''[[Mappy]]'' (1983) which had become very popular in Japanese arcades. Sega game designer Yoji Ishii's boss wanted him to design a similar "dot eater" game but better.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=The Untold History of Japanese Game Developers Vol. 3|last=Szczepaniak|first=John|publisher=SMG Szczepaniak|year=2018|pages=274–276}}</ref>

''Flicky'' was developed over the course of one year and was designed by Yoji Ishii in collaboration with artist Yoshiki Kawasaki.<ref name="hcg" /><ref name="interview" /> The game evolved from a simple game that Kawasaki first envisioned where the player would catch dots in a maze. He took inspiration from a popular song about sparrows on [[Electric power transmission|power lines]] from a 1970s Japanese variety show, ''Migoro! Tabegoro! Waraigoro!'',{{efn|The show is titled みごろ！たべごろ！笑いごろ！in Japanese. The particular song about the sparrows is called 電線音頭.}} and so made the main character a sparrow and the platforms and walls wires. However, he found the power line theme boring, and thus changed the background to an apartment building after taking inspiration from one outside his office window.<ref name="interview" /> Kawasaki felt that anyone who is around children has experienced the emotion of wanting to keep children safe from the outside and returning them safe to their home. From this, the team wanted to imbue a message to "protect the children" with the game, and according to Kawasaki, "it's that emotion that drives ''Flicky''".<ref name=":0" />

Kawasaki used a poorly calibrated [[graphics tablet]] to draw all the game graphics. The Chirps were originally ambiguous dots that would disappear when collected. Kawasaki changed this so the dots trailed the player, then increased their size to 8x8 pixels to make way for a more interesting design. The size was just large enough for a simple chick design. To add difficulty to the game, some Chirps were programmed to behave more unpredictably when touched by an enemy. These Chirps were given sunglasses and deemed the "bad" Chirps. When game testing began, the team had created 100 levels but only four background designs, and there was barely any space left in the game. Kawasaki was able to change the colors of the backgrounds to create more variety. After testing, Iggy was added to the game.<ref name="interview" />

''Flicky'' was originally titled "Busty", but an American Sega branch asked the team to change it because of the term's slang usage in English.<ref name=":0" /> The game was then titled "Flippy" but this was changed shortly before release.<ref name="interview" /> In 2002, Ishii stated this was because of trademark issues in the United States,<ref name="interview" /> but in 2018 said it was because "Flippy" was too similar to "Mappy".<ref name=":0" /> ''Flicky'' was released in arcades in May 1984.<ref name="hcg"/>