Melos Han-Tani

Find my writing here: https://melodicambient.substack.com/

(I also cross-post devlogs there - consider subscribing!)

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Check out my games Anodyne 1 (2013), Sephonie (2022) IGF Grand Prize-nominated Anodyne 2 (2019), Even the Ocean (2016) and All Our Asias (2018).

I often collaborate with Marina Kittaka. I live in Tokyo, hail from a mix of Illinois suburbs and Chicago, and I'm Taiwanese and Japanese.

Self-descriptions are prone to go out of date, but I'm really interested in the ways games can focus less on trying to live up to or succeed in the broken system of AAA games. I don't believe in scaling up a game studio and I believe in friendships, small communities, and keen eyes towards history (both in the general sense, and in games in particular) as the true driver of interesting, enriching, relevant games. I think the world of game represented by "Corpgames" (AAA Consoles, Gacha Games) are more or less dead, irrelevant, and serve to whittle way our time, money, attention, and emotional/social capacity for each other.

That being said... I tend to prefer story-driven games, especially those with a great sense of control/traditional gameplay systems under a new eye. Whether that be a 30-minute game or a 40-hour JRPG. I think games by smaller teams or single creators are largely better.

Thematically... I guess I like "Asia" as a general place and setting and site of historical research for my games, and I like themes around person-to-person relationships, communities of a few to a dozens of people. Stuff relating to the internet, history in general, how people relate nowadays online... people's relationships with their family and ancestry. I like games that mix realistic settings with well-curated fantasy, blending in the supernatural or surreal but always keeping a strong base in some kind of narrative so that the journey into the game always leaves you with something resonant to have in mind when you leave.

Anyways...

Our games on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/developer/analgesic

updated 2023/04