The creator of Sonic the Hedgehog has released a hyper-casual game reminiscent of 2048
Yuji Naka, one of the authors of Sonic the Hedgehog, presented his first mobile game as an indie developer. This is a hyper-casual puzzle SHOT2048. Naka made it alone on the Unity engine after the failure of the previous project and leaving Square Enix.
Source: Twitter Yuji Naki
The Japanese developer announced the release of SHOT2048 on December 18. “For the first time in 37 years of my career in the gaming industry, I made a game entirely on my own,” Naka wrote on Twitter.
According to the mechanics, the game resembles the mobile hit 2048, the prototype for which in turn was Threes. In SHOT2048, the player needs to shoot polyhedra at the other end of the playing field, trying to hit objects with the same numbers. The ultimate goal is to assemble a polyhedron with the number 2048.
Yuji Naka spent six months developing the project. In the process of creating SHOT2048, he was helped by children with whom he discussed ideas.
[#SHOT2048]It’s been a while since I’ve programmed and made a hyper casual game. I’m making it all by myself, but I did discuss ideas with my sons. It’s fun to create with my sons. I would appreciate it if you could play it and spread the word. https://t.co/vuWmoxO0sj pic.twitter.com/8NSWaMKrtX
— Yuji Naka / 中 裕司 (@nakayuji) December 21, 2021
“It’s easy to create a hyper—casual game – it’s difficult to configure all the functions, including support for different devices, billing, advertising, reviews, etc. I think mobile games will become even more popular in the future. If I have ideas, I will be able to make another project,” Naka said in an interview with the publication PocketGamer.biz .
Yuji Naka started his career in the gaming industry as an assistant programmer at SEGA. He gained fame as one of the creators of the Sonic the Hedgehog platformer. He also headed the Sonic Team studio, but left the company in 2006.
In 2018, Naka joined Square Enix, founded the Balan Company team. He worked on the creation of the action platformer Balan Wonderworld. The game was released in March 2021, but received extremely low ratings from critics and users.
As a result of the failure, Yuji Naka left Square Enix. Now he admits that he simply could not find a job in the industry after leaving the Japanese company. That’s why the developer decided to go to mobile and try to make the game alone.
SHOT2048 is available in the App Store and Google Play. Now the game has generally positive ratings among users.
