Reportedly Takeshi hated the idea of videogames so much that he wanted to create one so irritating and poorly-designed that it shocked its players into a realisation of the futility of their hobby.

One of the games, Takeshi no Chōsenjō (Takeshi’s Challenge) was released for the Nintendo Famicom in 1986. The title screen bears the text: “This game is made by a man who hates videogames.” Over the course of the game players are presented with a succession of increasingly ludicrous, near-impossible and vague tasks. One of the earliest missions in the game is to sing karaoke for exactly one hour (utilising the second Famicom controller, that has a built-in microphone) in order to progress. If you manage to do this successfully everybody else in the bar then attacks you without provocation.

It gets better. After this Takeshi dispenses with all metaphor and has you literally sit and do nothing in front of your TV for, wait for it, four hours before you can progress to the next level. No cheating though: to ensure you really are sat in front of your warming Famicom and not off sleeping to pass the time, the game requires you hold down the ’select’ button for the full duration.