Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin devs discuss the challenge of fitting multiple genres into one game

Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin brings together a lot of different genres into a single experience, which certainly made for a daunting development process. In an interview with GamesIndustry, Edelweiss director Nal and CG artist Koichi opened up about the process of meshing these gameplay worlds together.

"Combining an action platformer with RPG elements -- such as character customization -- and a rice-growing simulator felt like making three games in one, and finding the right balance took a lot of trial and error over a very long period of time. It would make me happy if people came away with the impression that these genres make a perfect match." - Nal

"We struggled to intertwine the various elements and parameters of the action and simulation sections, as well as balance the passage of time in-game. Neglecting any of these issues would cause the player to progress through the action or simulation sections too quickly. The passage of time proved particularly difficult to handle because of how it affects the story. But once we set aside the story for a bit, and focused entirely on solidifying the gameplay cycle between the action and simulation sections, everything else came together much more easily." - Koichi