Take a look at Sweet Hamster Days, a mix of live-action, story sim, and first-person adventure from Kodansha, where you play as a literal hamster after reincarnation. As a little creature, you live with three beautiful Japanese sisters who were once your childhood friends and now care for you as their new pet.

The genre of full-motion video is growing in popularity in Asia, and Kodansha Creators' Lab teamed up with Japanese photo magazine FRIDAY and created their take on FMV games. They cast models Sayaka Tomaru, Momoha Takatsuru, and Shiori Ikemoto as the three sisters, aiming to match their characters: Sayaka Tomaru as the mature and forgiving eldest, Momoha Takatsuru as the hardworking middle sister, and Shiori Ikemoto as the youngest, chosen for her youthful presence.

The idea for the project came from two unexpected sources. Developer Katayama shared (via Automaton) that the concept traced back to their part-time job wearing mascot costumes, where they noticed that people who would normally keep their distance suddenly became warm and friendly. "If I took on a form different from my usual self, wouldn't I experience that same kind of joy and fun?" Katayama said.

The other source of inspiration was perhaps even more surprising – Grand Theft Auto 5. Katayama drew on its structure with switching between three protagonists: "As I was having fun switching between the lives of other people, lives that weren't my own, I had this idea that it might be nice to have a hamster as one of the options instead of a human."

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