Masanobu Endō

TCW Podcast Episode 253 - Masanobu Endō Masanobu Endō is one of Japan's most important game designers, yet remains relatively unknown in the West. Starting from an uncertain role at Namco, he first made his mark by turning Dig Dug play notes into an official strategy booklet, then shifted into programming work where he learned from Namco's maze games, including Pac-Man. Assigned as a programmer on Xevious, he stepped into the lead role when the original planner left, pushing for a coherent world where every enemy and structure had a purpose in a larger mythology. The secrets, patterns, and hidden elements he built into Xevious encouraged dedicated players to map routes, chase glitches, and hunt for new techniques in a way that feels very similar to how modern communities approach speedrunning and score optimization today. Endō then expanded these ideas in The Tower of Druaga, fusing Dungeons and Dragons style dungeon crawling with Babylonian and Sumerian myth, cryptic treasure requirements, and a real ending instead of an endless loop. The result helped shape how Japanese designers approached action adventure, including early thinking around what would become "The Legend of Zelda." A Super Basic Summary of Gundam: Blockade (Gremlin 1976): Atari Football (Atari Arcade): Battlezone (Atari Arcade): TCW 029 - 50 Years of Namco: TCW 116 - The Atari Games You Are Looking For: Dig Dug (Atari): Pole Position (Atari/Namco): Learn Assembly in 10 minutes: Scramble (Arcade): Galga (Stupidly Explained): Space Runaway Ideon: The Nazca Lines (SciShow): The Nazca Lines Part 1 (Astonishing Legends): The Nazca Lines Part 2 (Astonishing Legends): Xevious (Arcade): Haruomi Hosono - Video Game Music: Xevious (Famicom): Dungeons & Dragons ET: Pac Man Ghosts: Tower of Druaga (Arcade): New episodes are on the 1st and 15th of every month! TCW Email: feedback@theycreateworlds.com Twitter: @tcwpodcast Patreon: Alex's Video Game History Blog: Alex's book, published Dec 2019, is available at CRC Press and at major on-line retailers: Intro Music: Josh Woodward - Airplane Mode - Music - "Airplane Mode" by Josh Woodward. Free download: Outro Music: RoleMusic - Bacterial Love: Copyright: Attribution:

You can listen to Masanobu Endō online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Masanobu Endō is an episode from They Create Worlds by Alex Smith, and Jeffrey Daum.

This episode is 77:51 long.

This episode was published on Mar 1, 2026.

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