Anodyne will be making its way to PlayStation 4 next month, so I got in touch with Analgesic Productions to talk about the game’s development for its PS4 release. Come check it out!
PS4Blog: Good morning! Thank you for joining us for this interview. Could you please get us started by telling our readers a bit about yourself and your work?
I’m Sean Han Tani. I’m an indie game developer, composer and college teacher of game design & game music.
I’m known for works like Anodyne and Even the Ocean, which have traditional gameplay with experimental flairs and a focus on character-driven storytelling, as well as experimental works like All Our Asias, which combines lo-fi PSX art styles with heavily layered narratives about race and Asia. Anodyne is quite popular, but Even the Ocean and All Our Asias deserve your love as well! Do check them out.
PS4B: Anodyne is finally making its way to the PlayStation 4 next month. How would you describe the game to someone who’s never heard about it?
You explore the dream world of a person named Young and encounter surreal urban, natural and abstract areas. Sometimes, things get quite weird. It’s a minimal, nightmarish take on classics like Link’s Awakening and Oracle of Seasons, with a lot of interesting surprises!
PS4B: How long did it take to develop the game? Were there any particular hurdles or challenges you’ve had to overcome during the whole process?
In 2012, I worked for three months alone then seven months with Marina Kittaka. We had to balance development with finishing college as well as our summer internships, and we worked remotely. Needless to say, it was tough! But, we pulled through!
PS4: With Anodyne pretty much ready to go on consoles, what are you currently working on?
I’m working on Anodyne 2: Return to Dust, due early 2019. In it, you explore the dream world of Nova, who finds herself traveling a surreal, 3D open world, meeting characters and shrinking into their minds (which are 2D Zelda-like dungeons) to clean out dangerous Nano Dust. It’s a bit more story driven than Anodyne, but it has a lot of strange settings and characters.
I’m also preparing for my game music composition class at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago this fall, where I teach undergrad and graduate students how to write music for games! And I’m very slowly working on a new 3D solo game about masculinity, youth, and race in the USA. I hope it manages to see the light of day.
PS4B: And that’s all the time we have for today. Is there something else you’d like to add before we end this one?
Please check out and buy Anodyne when it’s out on September 18-19 for PS4! We worked very hard on it! Also, my studio Analgesic Productions has a few other cool games! You can stay up to date by joining our newsletter right here. We’re also on Twitter, and I’m on Twitter as well. Thanks for reading!
