Hey there! I'm Yoshinori Ono, CEO at Lasengle.
Welcome to my blog and thanks for dropping by!
Hard to believe it but Lasengle is now entering its fourth financial year! It was 2021 when we split off from Delightworks and joined the Sony Music Entertainment and Aniplex Group as Lasengle. Time sure flies.
Moving the game devs and ops to Lasengle from Delightworks resulted in a couple of structural changes, and we're beyond grateful that so many Masters stuck with Fate/Grand Order during the move. Your support means the world to us!
On April 1st, we kicked off the new financial year and welcomed our new university graduate hires. We're excited to have this fresh talent join our team and can't wait to see what they'll bring to gaming development at Lasengle.
Meeting all these new team members, I can't help but picture the day they'll release their own amazing titles--and that's what makes it so much fun for me to welcome them on board the Lasengle ship.
We opened up applications for 2025 university graduates not so long ago. We've had an incredible response, and have just started the second round of recruitment.
We're always actively hiring people at other stages of their careers as we push forward with new projects. If you read this and you're thinking, "I'd love to know more about Lasengle," or "Whoa, this isn't what I expected--I might just apply!" then I guess I can consider my blog a success.
In 2022 and 2023, we tried a lot of different initiatives to improve communication at Lasengle. Things like departmental seminars, offsite meetings, in-house Game Jams, BBQ parties, management retreats, a year-end party, employee awards, in-house conveyor-belt sushi competitions (yep, we really did that!). As the photos show, we kept an open mind about what might work, and had a lot of fun trying.
At Lasengle, we've normalized our flexible working option, which lets team members choose between working from home or the office. Still, we're aware that a hybrid setup has some challenges, and we're using technology to try and strengthen connections within the team. Each team member has an iPad which they use to log into our virtual office. More recently, we're looking into the newly launched Apple Vision Pro to see if we can integrate this too.
Still, we're aware that nothing quite beats good old-fashioned face-to-face interaction when it comes to boosting communication. That's why we completely revamped our in-house communication space at the end of March this year.
Drinks at the company café are completely free, and this space has become a hub for breaks and meetings. It's also been a place for Office Style and Home Style members to come together and connect, helping to foster relationships and building trust throughout the company.
Lasengle is still a work in progress, but as we head into our fourth financial year, I'm committed to creating the best possible in-house development environment.
The better the environment I create, the better the games the team can create, and the better we can be at delivering our best work to all the Masters who love playing Fate/Grand Order.
Here's to another fantastic year together!
Right, next up, my featured game for blog #38, Rogue Legacy 2.
Rogue Legacy 2 is a side-scrolling action game.
Legacy is a word that is used in quite a few games, so it kind of loses its impact. But in Rogue Legacy 2, this word is central to the gaming mechanic.
Unlike in other games, where game over means you die and then respawn, in this game, it's your heir that carries on after you. Every time you start a new run, you're not playing as the original character, but as a descendant of the recently fallen hero who is carrying on the legacy.
Of course, this means that when your character dies, they really die. "Nooooo! Not Emily!!!" you'll scream as your valiant hero meets their untimely death. Then, as you choose the heir to follow in their footsteps you'll be thinking "Emily, such a heroic warrior. Who will carry on the legacy? What name will they bear?". The naming of the heir also did a great job of reflecting the legacy concept which I enjoyed.
So, when you die, you get a choice between three descendants with varying abilities. These heirs inherit some of the accomplishments of their predecessors, but you don't necessarily get exactly what you'd hope for. It's a reverse of the "Well, you can't choose your parents" trope.
Rogue Legacy 2 has a huge range of classes, and the maps are randomly generated, keeping the experience fresh and engaging every time. I also liked the castle feature, where you can extend the castle and pass it down to your heir. Seeing it get bigger across the generations was a lot of fun.
The comic graphics and cheerful art style make it an accessible game for most players. And despite the wild characters, you get a real sense of progression and character development.
The start screen portrait gallery, which shows all your past characters, is a cool idea. Everytime I loaded up the game, the portraits gave me a feeling of nostalgia for all my fallen heroes, while also making me want to jump right back in and continue the legacy with the next heir.
Interestingly, the game even sparked a little curiosity about my own Ono-family legacy, and now I'm wondering how far I could trace it back.
That's my take on Rogue Legacy 2!
Thanks for reading.
The next game is calling my name so gotta go--till next time!
Yoshinori X（Twitter）