Sonic the Hedgehog Creator Yuji Naka’s New Game SHOT2048 is His First Solo Title in Decades

Sonic the Hedgehog creator Yuji Naka has revealed his first indie game since going freelance, the “hyper casual” game titled simply SHOT2048.

“I created a hyper-casual game called SHOT2048. This is the first time in my 37 years as a game creator that I, Yuji Naka, have made a game all by myself,” Naka said in a new post. “I would appreciate it if you could play it and spread the word. Thank you very much.”


After going freelance, Naka announced he would begin making smartphone games, but the scope and scale of what he would eventually make wasn’t clear. His career was largely started as the original programmer for the first Sonic the Hedgehog games, so it makes sense he is programming and producing smartphone games by himself.

Previously, Naka was at Sega for most of his career and then had a few independent studios with Rodea the Sky Soldier developer Prope and later the studio behind Balan Wonderworld.

Despite the big push from Square Enix for Balan Wonderworld, Naka warned that if it didn’t do well he would likely stop making platforming games, and that he might exit games development altogether.

The game unfortunately sold poorly and also got middling reviews at best, our own review for Balan Wonderworld, we found the game fun for fans of platformers while it felt like an “unpolished game oozing with wasted potential.”

Naka’s new game SHOT2048 is available to download as a free game for iOS (via the App Store) and Android (via the Google Play Store) under his independent studio, Prope.

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