Hey there! I'm Yoshinori Ono, CEO at Lasengle.
Welcome to my blog and thanks for dropping by!
It's been a few weeks since the holidays ended and work started back up at Lasengle. We kept up the tradition of visiting a shrine for our first prayers of the year, something we've been doing since the Delightworks days.
Last year, we made our visit in the middle of a snowstorm. But this year, the weather was much more friendly.
With our office newly refurbished, we're ready to give it our all again this year and inject Lasengle's unique brand of "doki doki" and excitement into everything we do!
In past blogs, I've shared info about the latest openings at Lasengle. Last year, we had a lot of talented people show interest in our positions, and we were super thrilled to welcome a couple of them to the Lasengle team.
Every month, we like to hold an official welcome ceremony for all the new members. I really appreciate this chance to talk with our new team members about the future of Lasengle, and it always gives me a new sense of energy and excitement about what we're doing.
Which leads nicely into our first ever recruitment drive for new university graduates. We're now accepting entries for April 2024 starts, and you can find out more from the dedicated website (in Japanese only).
If you're keen to take on the challenge of bringing "doki doki" and excitement to the entertainment industry, and benefits like a flexible work style, professional development opportunities and achievement bonuses appeal to you, then why not consider adding Lasengle to your options? Check out our latest openings here.
Moving on, my featured game for blog #26, Tick Tock: A Tale for Two
The cold, dark days of winter are not yet over in Japan. At this time of year, as the night draws in and the crows start cawing, I remember a pandemic winter where I was looking for a game to play remotely with my friend, and came across this gem.
Tick Tock: A Tale for Two is a mystery adventure game for two players (not to be confused with the video sharing platform 'TikTok'!).
To play, both players start up the game on their devices. One player is assigned the older sister's pocket watch, and the other the younger, and you both travel in time to unravel the mystery of the younger sister's disappearance.
The game needs both players to work together to solve the mystery by talking about what's on their screens. Each player sees a different view of the game, and to advance, you have to glean hints from your friend's screen, to solve the puzzle on yours and vice versa.
Of course, you could just show each other your screens, but where would be the fun in that? In fact, trying to describe what you can see, and work out what your friend can see is what made this game such a blast to play.
What makes it even more interesting is that despite being a co-op game, Tick Tock: A Tale for Two doesn't require players to be online. As long as you can communicate with each other, you can progress the game whether you're in the same room, talking on the phone or texting in an app. Me and my friend chatted via text.
I really enjoyed the challenge of conveying what I was seeing, and trying to work out how to solve the puzzle from what my friend was describing. The puzzles are at just that right level that everytime it clicks into place, it feels awesome.
It's a co-op game, but depending on who you're playing with, there's a little bit of competitiveness as you pick at the clues and try to solve the puzzle before the other person. At least that's how I played it (Competitive? Me? Never!).
The game is packed with cool little details in the background and the object designs, so as well as the puzzles and clues, I found that we were talking a lot about some of the other stuff that we noticed as we tried to piece together the story. Time really flew by.
Tick Tock: A Tale for Two is a very different experience to playing a mystery game solo, or reading a novel. There were times when I was lost in a dark and spooky forest, desperately searching for a hint and feeling despair creep in, but then I'd remember that my teammate was in it with me and it helped me keep pushing through to solve the puzzle.
It's not just encouragement. The fact that you've got someone counting on you adds a nice element of pressure which amps up the excitement. Tuning the busted-up radio, both of you racking your brains to try and make sense of the bits and pieces of news about the disappearance. Hands trembling as you investigate an old book, uncovering more and more unnerving facts.
The ending is not what I expected. It's not your typical "Yay, we did it! Happy ending!" feeling. In fact, after we cleared the game, me and my friend were so shaken that we looked up on the internet to see if there were any other endings--that's how unexpected it was!
Playing this game made me think about how we've all got the same 24 hours, and how games are there to divide up that precious time. I chose this game thinking we were going to kill time with a casual and fun mystery game, but the dark, deep story totally flipped my expectations--in the best way possible!
That's my take on Tick Tock: A Tale for Two.
Thanks for reading.
The next game is calling my name so gotta go--till next time!
Yoshinori X（Twitter）