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Japanese Salaryman
Genre: 2D Adventure/Visual Novel
Platform: Windows
Engine: Unity
Duration: Jan 2025 - Ongoing
Team Size: 8
Role: Minigame Designer
​Set in the winter of 1992 in Osaka, Japanese Salaryman (JSM) is a narrative-driven adventure game that combines corporate espionage, life simulation, and strategic hacking. Players step into the shoes of Issei Ito, a security specialist at the Japanese branch of the global megacorporation METTA. Buried in debt and desperate for answers, Issei is assigned to uncover a spy within the company—someone sabotaging METTA from the inside.
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The core gameplay blends investigation, character interaction, and minigames, offering a gameplay loop that balances story progression with strategic challenges and casual downtime. By day, players navigate the satirical grind of office life—building relationships, completing tasks, and surviving the absurdity of corporate culture. By night, they dive into a unique hacking minigame, deploying virtual towers with offensive and defensive capabilities to breach hidden servers and extract vital intel.
🧩 My Role: Minigame Designer – Daytime Gameplay Systems
As the Daytime Minigame Designer, I was responsible for conceptualizing and designing the interactive office activities that define the main character’s daily routine within the corporation. My primary goal was to transform mundane, stressful office work into engaging, fast-paced minigames that reflect the game’s satirical tone and maintain player immersion without compromising on fun.
Key Responsibilities:
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Designed and prototyped multiple arcade-style minigames representing office tasks, such as:
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A file sorting challenge requiring quick pattern recognition and decision-making under a time limit.
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A coffee-making minigame inspired by Overcooked, emphasizing multitasking, timing, and flow state.
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Designed the interconnected progression system linking daytime minigames, nighttime hacking gameplay, and social relationship mechanics with NPCs such as coworkers, a bar gambler, and others. This ensured that performance during the day directly influenced resource access, narrative paths, and strategic options at night, reinforcing long-term player investment.
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Developed gameplay systems that align with each coworker’s personality, ensuring every minigame reflects the narrative tone and character dynamics.
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Created clear design documentation and wireframes, allowing the team to implement mechanics effectively in-engine.
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Contributed to the pacing structure by placing minigames at key moments in the daily loop, ensuring they functioned as narrative and emotional resets between heavier story content.
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Iterated based on internal playtests and feedback, focusing on balancing difficulty, maintaining accessibility, and preventing mechanical fatigue.
Mini game Ideas
- Filing Frenzy
- Brew & Bustle
