JRPGs, Westernization, & Other Valuable Lessons

After Don't Be Squared was published and development on the project came to an end, I started getting involved in some of the company's more experimental initiatives. These included adapting games originally developed for Asian markets to Western audiences, as well as creating adult-oriented versions of existing mainstream games for the Nutaku platform.

It was quite a change from my previous work. Until then, I had mostly been involved in designing levels, working with gameplay mechanics, and supporting the development of games built for a particular audience. Now, I was starting to work on products that already existed, trying to understand what made them successful in their original markets and what could be changed to make them more appealing to a different audience.

One of the first games I remember working on was Go Go Osawari Island, which had been a big hit in Japan.

Working on this project introduced me to some interesting differences between Japanese and Western gaming audiences. Things that might feel natural or familiar to players in one market don't necessarily translate as well to another, and adapting a game involves more than simply translating its text.

We experimented with changes intended to make the experience more suitable for its new audience while preserving the elements that made the original game appealing (especially chanced around the UI/UX). The results were encouraging. Our changes helped keep the game alive considerably longer than we had initially expected, which made the effort a success from our perspective.

It was also a valuable lesson for me: sometimes improving a product doesn't mean rebuilding it or introducing an entirely new set of mechanics. Understanding the audience and making the right adjustments to an existing experience can be just as important.

Pirate Legends TD

At some point, I was given another interesting challenge: developing a plan to create an adult-oriented version of one of the company's existing games, Pirate Legends TD, for the Nutaku platform.
This time, I was involved in the project as both Game Designer and Producer, which meant that, besides working on the design itself, I also had to deal with the practical challenges of bringing that design into production.

The original game was a tower defense title, and the idea was to adapt it for a different audience without rebuilding the entire product.

Pirate Legentds TD is no longer available on the App Store, but you can still find its original 

App Store listing link here

Original Game Trailer:

From the beginning, we had to work within technical and budget constraints, so I needed to find a solution that would make use of the existing gameplay rather than require extensive development.My approach was to introduce a visual novel layer on top of the original game, connecting its progression to the existing gameplay. Players would earn a dedicated currency through playing the tower defense game, which they could then spend to unlock new stages of the visual novel content.
It wasn't a particularly complicated solution, but that was precisely the point. We needed something that could add value to the existing experience without requiring us to rebuild the game from scratch.

Unfortunately, things didn't quite go according to plan. :))

As development progressed, the project's budget kept getting reduced. Each new cut meant having to reconsider what we could realistically deliver, until eventually there was very little left to work with.
In the end, the project wasn't successful.

It was frustrating, especially because we had already approached the design with the available constraints in mind. But there is only so much you can achieve when the resources needed to develop a product keep disappearing.

Working on Pirate Legends TD taught me something that I would encounter again later in my career: a reasonable design solution doesn't guarantee a successful product if the conditions required to execute it aren't there.
And having to approach the project as both Designer and Producer made that lesson particularly memorable.

Looking Back

These projects taught me a few things that would become increasingly useful throughout my career.
First, understanding the audience matters just as much as understanding the game itself. A product that performs well in one market may need adjustments before it can find similar success elsewhere.

Second, existing games often offer more opportunities for improvement than we initially realize. Sometimes the challenge is not to invent something completely new, but to identify what can be changed or added without disrupting the experience that already exists.

And finally, working within constraints can lead to some surprisingly practical solutions. Having limited time, budget, or technical resources forces you to think carefully about what is actually necessary to achieve a particular goal.
I didn't think of these experiences in terms of product strategy back then. I was simply doing my job as a Game Designer, trying to solve the problems in front of me.

But looking back, they were among my first opportunities to think beyond individual mechanics and consider how design decisions could help an existing product reach a different audience or extend its lifespan.