Horii’s game career began in 1983, but before that, he was kicking around as a freelance writer. But his love of games led him to enter an Enix game design contest in 1982, the same contest that Koichi Nakamura, another part of the Dragon Quest team, would enter. Horii’s entry was a game called Love Match Tennis. Both his and Nakamura’s games ended up published, and from there, Horii was in it to win it.