Hey there! I'm Yoshinori Ono, CEO at Lasengle.
Welcome to my blog and thanks for dropping by!
I started this blog with my first post on December 20, 2021, with no idea how long I'd keep it up but somehow, I've made it to blog number twenty! Time flies when you're having fun and I'm having a lot of fun with this blog, with no plans to stop anytime soon. I'll keep writing when the mood strikes, and hope you'll keep checking in when you need a break!
We recently launched a new page as part of our Careers section, with interviews from team members at Lasengle (in Japanese only). The interviews cover a wide scope of jobs and roles, to help give you an idea of what it's like to work at Lasengle. Click the banner below to read the interview with Hiroshige Nobuhisa, General Manager and Producer, and find out what it's like to be a Game Producer at Lasengle.
To check out the latest jobs and career opportunities at Lasengle, head to our Careers page to view a full list of openings. If anything sparks even a little interest, then I hope you'll get in touch and give us a go! See all our latest openings here and find out more about our flexible working style here.
See our latest openings here
Find out more about our flexible working style here.
Look forward to reading your applications!
Next up, the featured game for blog #20, Peglin.
Peglin is a mix of a turn-based RPG and block-breaking game.
The concept is pretty straightforward: damage and defeat the enemy in front of you. What makes Peglin unique, though, is how you clock up the damage.
The more pegs you hit with your orbs, the more damage you deal. The board is lined with pegs, similar to a pinball or pachinko machine, and when an orb hits a peg, the peg disappears. So far, similar to most block-breaking games. What makes Peglin different is that depending on how you're playing, bounce action can be limited. Once you launch that orb, you've just gotta pray it does its thing!
If your prayers are answered, you might get lucky and hit a Refresh Peg. This will reset the board back to its original layout, increasing pegs which'll keep the orbs bouncing and inflicting damage.
The more pegs you hit, the more damage you inflict, and the less pegs on the board. Soon enough, your orb has nowhere to bounce and risks dropping off screen. But, if you get lucky and hit a Refresh Peg, all your pegs come back and your orb will bounce around more. And if you get lucky again, you'll hit another Refresh Peg at the right time and start the cycle again.
It's so satisfying to watch the damage counter going up during these cycles that it's impossible not to whisper a little prayer every time I launch my orb!
The Refresh Peg isn't the only peg with a special effect, and orbs also have effects too. This adds an element of control over gameplay which I really enjoyed. It meant I could choose which orbs to aim at which pegs (as I tried to predict how they'd bounce), and decide which orbs to keep, discard, or upgrade.
It's kinda like putting together a group in an RPG. You can go for an intense-attack formation and stick with damage inflicting orbs like the Multiball orb that splits apart when striking a peg. Or you could choose a defense-strong line-up with things like the Restorb which heals HP? And there's always a balanced team with a nice spread of effects. And as the map changes every time you play, you get to try out lots of different combos.
In one playthrough, I began with an intense-attack formation, and collected orbs which would inflict damage, like the Multiball. Everything was going great in the beginning, but as I got further into the game, I came across pegs that inflict damage when hit. I needed a new strategy, but as I hadn't planned for this, and the whole setup was centered around attack orbs, I could do nothing but sit back and watch my split attacks come back to bite me. Which is just another reason to get back in and try a different tactic, right?
TThe gameplay in Peglin is super simple: launch your orb and hope for the best. But this simplicity means you can forget about what you can't change and focus more on the areas that you can control. Then you can just sit back and enjoy the ride as you watch it all unfold.
That's my take on Peglin!
Thanks for reading.
The next game is calling my name so gotta go--till next time!
Yoshinori X（Twitter）