Hi! First, here’s where my writing used to be;

2012-2020: Wordpress https://meloshantani.wordpress.com/

2020-2023: Neocities/Zonelets: https://melodicambient.neocities.org/

2023-2025: Substack https://melodicambient.substack.com/

I’m a Taiwanese/Japanese/Irish-American composer (My music is on all streaming Bandcamp) and game designer based in Tokyo. My independent games studio, Analgesic Productions, has been nominated for international awards for our games like Anodyne 2: Return to Dust and Angeline Era!

What do I write about? Well, a number of things:

• Culture/Game Design Critique: I like to discuss game design trends or issues within the field, sometimes citing historical interviews, referring to games from a wide period of time. For example - thinking about trends in game design (and their addictiveness), or the relation of places like Costco to spaces within game design.

• Game Development Logs: Updates on the games I’m working on. I try not to write perfunctory devlogs: instead, I like to go deep and discuss the design thinking behind my decisions. I’ve been working amongst small teams 10+ years, so if you’ve ever been curious about what exactly goes into making games, check these out!

• Short Fiction: I like to write short stories now and then. These rarely fall into existing genres, and are often ways for me to explore ideas that are harder to express in the form of an essay. For instance, in “Aloesian Mode” I think about the process of music creation, although in a loose, fantasy manner.

• Personal Essays: These sometimes overlap with the “Culture/Game Design Critique”, but often my writing has overlap with thinking about life in the USA/Japan as well.

• New game announcements/merch: I’ll post announcements of my new games (or console releases), as well as merch releases.