Masaaki Yamada
What you do at Tango?
As a game designer, I work on creating things that directly impact the game’s fun factor and quality level such as game systems, battle designs, and level design… would be a fancy way of saying it, but I pretty much work on whatever needs to be done to make the game more fun and interesting. We used to be called “planners.”
How do you describe Tango’s development environment?
We can work remotely if we want, but a fair number of people come into the office because they prefer it. Want to discuss something? There’s someone right there to talk to. Want feedback on something you made? You can just show it to somebody. You can read the room and get an idea of how things are going, you know?
Of course there will be disagreements, but I think working things out and finding the best solution together can really help improve the final product that the user sees.
What do you think makes Tango unique as a game studio?
I’ve heard it said that there are lots of different styles of game development: treating the director’s word as absolute and working to make it a reality, or dividing everything up between a bunch of people while trying to mitigate risk and avoid confusion, that kind of thing.
I don’t think that those styles are inherently wrong, but you could say that Tango’s style is to avoid locking everyone into a single “correct” way of doing things. There’s a lot of trial and error, finding the best way to do things as we go. What, does that sound like we’re just disorganized? Not at all! Our final goal never changes, we just continue looking for the perfect dev environment that lets everyone flex their creative muscles, and we have no plans of stopping.
What are your thoughts about the type of people who work at Tango?
We have a lot of people who are good at their jobs and care deeply about what they’re making. Everyone has their idiosyncracies, but talking things out helps us to make something great together.
Looking to the future, what are you excited for when working at Tango?
I feel like our horizons have expanded. I’m looking forward to seeing what we can do and what we can make in the future.
What’s something you’d like to tell someone interested in the company or working with your team?
I’ve been doing this job for 30 years now, and I’ll say this: the most important thing is knowing what you like, and working to make it a reality.
Beyond that, if you can learn to work as part of a team, then you’ve got what it takes to become a full-fledged creator at Tango! Come on, what are you waiting for!?