Niche Spotlight – Dandy Dungeon: Japanese Salaryman Escapes Depressing Reality via DIY RPG

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Indie Japanese studio Onion Games have published their cheeky and self-parodying smartphone RPG Dandy Dungeon: Legend of Brave Yamada in the west. Featured above, you can view the launch trailer for the game (Editor’s Note: It sadly lacks the hilarious Japanese theme song).

The developer has some talented Japanese staff on board, including: Yoshiro Kimura, Tom Ikeda, and Kazuyuki Kurashima. They’ve collectively worked on various games like Chulip, Little King’s Story, Lollipop Chainsaw, Romancing SaGa 2&3, and even No More Heroes.


The free-to-play game features a 36-year old Japanese salaryman that gets laid off from his depressing corporate job, leading him to be inspired and create his own RPG where he’s the protagonist. Originally released in Japan as Brave Yamada-kun, you’ll play as Yamada the knight, tasked with saving the princess.

Yamada has to fight through tile-based dungeons, collect loot and equipment upgrades, as well as fight a variety of baddies. You instruct Yamada on what route to progress through via drawing a path for him to follow. You also live out his day-to-day real-life as a depressed salaryman.

You can find Dandy Dungeon: Legend of Brave Yamada here on Androidhere on iOS and . Here’s a rundown on the game, via publisher DMM:


Yamada-kun is a salaryman who, every night, develops a videogame alone in his apartment. In his videogame, he is a brave, successful hero experiencing trials and thrills within various retro-pixel-arty, chiptuney dungeons. He is the star of his own game. Also, he is the star of our game(, which you should download), which depicts his life, and also contains the entirety of his game.

Yamada-kun (Age 36) is a salaryman working as a programmer at a major game publisher. His job sucks. Deep into every night, alone in his apartment, he works on his own game. One day, the Chairman fires Yamada-kun! Unemployment strengthens Yamada-kun’s game-making resolve: the Evil Chairman will be the final boss!

He falls in love with Maria-chan (Age: 18) next door — he might as well put her in the game, too! It probably won’t even be creepy or weird at all! She can be the princess, and he can rescue her. It’ll be such a simple game — a tale of pure love. Yamada-kun is excited to make his game.


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