They Create Worlds

TCW Podcast Episode 253 - Masanobu Endō   Masanobu Endō is one of Japan's most important game designers, yet remains relatively unknown in the West. Starting from an uncertain role at Namco, he first made his mark by turning Dig Dug play notes into an official strategy booklet, then shifted into programming work where he learned from Namco's maze games, including Pac-Man. Assigned as a programmer on Xevious, he stepped into the lead role when the original planner left, pushing for a coherent world where every enemy and structure had a purpose in a larger mythology. The secrets, patterns, and hidden elements he built into Xevious encouraged dedicated players to map routes, chase glitches, and hunt for new techniques in a way that feels very similar to how modern communities approach speedrunning and score optimization today. Endō then expanded these ideas in The Tower of Druaga, fusing Dungeons and Dragons style dungeon crawling with Babylonian and Sumerian myth, cryptic treasure requirements, and a real endin