Chainsaw Man Director Ryu Nakayama and the Studio Mayflower team discuss their Doors-inspired game including yokai spirits, the creepiness of inns, and their zombie weapons of choice.
Horror long ago sank its roots into Roblox as a fan-favorite genre, with games like The Mimic and Piggy possessing players’ minds alongside other delightfully creepy horror games on Roblox. The genre has grown to such spooktacular proportions, in fact, that it’s attracted anime director and scriptwriter @Tsubugu_mi (Ryu Nakayama)—director of global phenomenon and award-winning anime Chainsaw Man—to debut his first horror game on Roblox’s platform.
Welcome to The Inn, a chilling survival horror where players must navigate a traditional Japanese ryokan* haunted by yokai spirits. Alongside Nakayama, The Inn features some serious voice talent: Players may recognize such acclaimed voice actors as Akari Kito (Demon Slayer, Nezuko), Asami Seto (The Rising of the Shield Hero, Raphtalia), and Megumi Han (Oshi no Ko, Hana).
Inspired by the well-designed game mechanics of Doors, Nakayama launched The Inn as the Chief Creative Officer at Studio Mayflower alongside @Moegami_Tai (Taisei Tateno, CEO) and Captain (CEO, parent company AnotherBall). In this spotlight, we spoke with Nakayama (Ryu) and Tateno (Tai) to chat about The Inn’s inspirations, building their first game, and horror as a storytelling genre.
Thanks for sitting down to speak with us! Could you introduce yourselves?
Tai: I’m Tai, aka @Moegami_Tai. I started my first company at 19 in the character business, (including) the character Syuwatti, which went viral in Japan. I wanted to create more global content that can reach people around the world and that led me to start Mayflower Anime Studio. Now we’re producing TV animation and things like gacha animations for the Pokemon trading card game app.
Ryu: I’m Ryu, aka @Tsubugu_mi — nice to meet you. I studied graphic design in university and began working as an animator. I worked on action scenes for titles like Fate/Grand Order, and I handled scriptwriting for shows like Rising of the Shield Hero. Later I served as a director for Chainsaw Man, and I founded a new company Andraft. I was invited by Cap and Tai-san to join Mayflower, where I now work as Chief Creative Officer and was Creative Director for this game.
This is the first game you’ve made. What inspiration led to The Inn’s creation?
Tai: When we decided to venture into Roblox, we noticed there are a lot of experiences in the horror genre, as well as anime-related content like Blox Fruits. So we decided to make a horror and anime-inspired game.
Ryu: I designed the ryokan* settings and the character designs, focusing on yokai**. Related to what Tai said, I feel recently there are more and more cases where “cel-looking anime”*** are being produced in countries other than Japan. I am sometimes surprised at the high quality, but I think this is the result of their learning from and incorporating what’s been produced in Japan, but I think it is also important for us in turn to learn from our predecessors in content creation like Doors.
Tai: The goal is there are 100 doors in the ryokan, and you need to go from 1 to 100, and there are a lot of yokai that you need to beat. Also there are Japanese-style rooms and gardens and shops that you can enjoy at the same time.
Enjoy a drink (or some dango) at the ryokan’s bar, designed by Ryu Nakayama. Image courtesy of Studio Mayflower.
Captain: We purposely didn’t try to tailor everything for an overseas audience. Instead, we focused on creating an authentic Japanese-style experience. So we’re very happy if players can enjoy the atmosphere of the ryokan hallways, the rooms, and the overall feeling of the yokai as you explore. Some parts can be really tough, but we try to mix together between East and West into a popular Roblox atmosphere.
Why did you decide to build your first game on Roblox?
Captain: Our vision is being a bridge between our Asian region and English-speaking countries. We—the Japanese community—really haven’t noticed until recently that Roblox is growing very, very fast, so why not jump on that fastest- growing platform to be like a bridge? So simply answered: Roblox is the fastest-growing platform, so why not join and jump on?
Tai: We want to expand anime IP in Japan more globally. So that is our mission. And Roblox is the biggest platform that has users—especially young users—compared with other popular places people watch anime or play anime games. Roblox is good in terms of reaching young users to expand anime IP beyond Japan.
Ryu, you’re no stranger to themes of horror and violence in storytelling, having worked on such dark, horror-tinged titles as Chainsaw Man and Jujutsu Kaisen as well as action fantasies like Sword Art Online and Fate/Grand Order. How did your background as an anime director and animator influence the way you approached The Inn’s story and gameplay?
Ryu: I think the thrilling experience of experiencing the attacks of yokai has something in common with the action drawings in animations. I think it’s the same in how to create a sense of surprise for the viewer with the limited resources available. In terms of the overall tempo of the game, I think there are similarities to animation storyboarding: My experience in storyboarding was useful in working backwards from the game design to determine at what point in the game I want the players to feel what I want them to feel. There are many similarities, but as a game creator, I realized that I still have a lot to learn.
Concept vs. produced art for a yokai attacking from an onsen (hot spring). Images courtesy of Studio Mayflower.
Was there a particular element of building the game that was a challenge?
Ryu: Making the game itself was a tough and hard challenge for us. And it was hard knowing there’s another layer in designing the player experience: It’s not only about making the game but also about when the player should feel things are difficult, where things should feel easy, and what kind of emotions the players should feel. The emotional level design of the game was very difficult!
Ryu, you were the director for season 1 of Chainsaw Man, where the main characters also get trapped in a hotel haunted by a certain Eternity Devil. Is there something about hotels and inns as temporary waystations that you think lend themselves to horror stories?
Ryu: I think that temporary places of stay, such as hotels and inns, are a great stage for horror. I think there are three main reasons for this: First of all, a hotel is normally a safe place to spend time, but is a temporary space that doesn’t belong to anyone, so it’s easy to feel uneasy at a moment’s notice. Even if it’s neat and clean, it naturally makes you imagine the invisible weight of someone’s past or memories embedded in the environment.
Next, the distance between people is also exquisite: the reception staff, the people in the next room, etc. You can see their faces, but you can’t fully trust them. I think it slowly makes the anxiety grow. In this game, there’s no one like a staff member. The absence of someone who should be there also makes you feel tension.
[Third is] the sense of temporarily losing one’s usual place and sense of trust, which is something we take for granted in everyday life, may elicit an instinctive fear in the audience. In other words, the atmosphere of a hotel is enough to create fear naturally without excessive staging. I think this is why it is an attractive stage for horror pieces.
How did you approach the way you presented Japanese horror motifs and culture/folklore within The Inn’s gameplay, especially for global audiences who might not be familiar with ryokan or yokai spirits?
Ryu: Yokai and ghosts have been handed down as folklore in Japan since ancient times. They’re very familiar to us Japanese. Strangely enough, however, though we’re familiar with them, there aren’t many legends about how they harm humans. So I think the eeriness of them has fascinated people. In Japanese horror games and movies, there are many scary parts, but there are not many actual depictions of why and how the yokai characters attack. In this game, the player needs to be attacked. We had a lot of fun discussing and creating these expressions by asking each other, “If there were actually yokai, what kind of actions would they take?”
Captain: You’ll notice Japanese horror films almost never show a spirit or a monster mounting a direct attack on someone. In contrast, the player has to take damage in our game. So the team sat down and asked if yokai were real, what would they actually do to you? And we made the creatures move around those ideas while also showing respect to Japanese yokai.
From a craft perspective, what do you feel are the most important elements of a successful horror game?
Tai: I think the most important thing is environment. What you see and hear is a foundation of horror games from my point of view. Second is the kind of action, the mechanics, the fun you feel when you play it.
Ryu: A good horror piece should be designed to give the player a sense of helplessness and some room for activating their imagination. It’s important to create a situation where the player or audience can’t completely control the situation and wonder what to do as fear amplifies in their head. It’s not about a simple “startle them with a jump scare”. Let them imagine without showing them everything—that’s what’s important.
Okay, rapid-fire questions! Let’s do this. Favorite horror movie/game/show?
Tai: I would say Higurashi When They Cry, absolutely. Especially the gap between the hostility and the story itself. It’s the kind of horror that really gets under your skin, and I love that.
Ryu: I was traumatized when I saw famous Japanese horror films such as Sadako and The Ring when I was little. I don’t even want to watch them anymore because they scared me so much but my original experience of overwhelming shock is still stuck in my mind.
You’re trapped in a room full of zombies. What’s your weapon of choice?
Tai: I like Biohazard, so I say a minigun.
Ryu: As displayed in my Chainsaw Man background, I like a chainsaw. It would look stronger if they were on the head and both arms as well!
Finally: Greatest fear as a child?
Ryu: I was afraid of ghosts when I was a child because I didn’t like scary things. I was even afraid to go up to my room on the second floor where there was no light because I didn’t like dark places.
Tai: I recall feeling a very big fear about mirrors. When I looked in the mirror, the “other” me was there. So it was kind of strange for me: When I took a bus or showered, the mirror was there, and I had a big fear that I’d get trapped.
Anything you’d like to add?
Ryu: We started working on this game at the beginning of this year with only members who had no experience in game production. We’ve been working on it quickly while learning about Roblox. We’ve finally managed to make it, and although it may be a bit unpolished, I think we’ve managed to pack in a lot of our passion!
Thank you for sitting down and chatting with us, @Moegami_Tai and @Tsubugu_mi! You can follow their journey on X.
