Vanillaware

Vanillaware Ltd. is a Japanese video game developer based in Osaka. An independent company, it was founded in 2002 under the name Puraguru by George Kamitani, a game developer who had previously worked at Capcom and Atlus, and directed Princess Crown (1997) for the Sega Saturn. Beginning as a small studio developing Fantasy Earth: The Ring of Dominion for Enix, in 2004 the company moved to Osaka, Kansai, and changed its name. Kamitani wanted Vanillaware to create successor projects to Princess Crown, beginning with Odin Sphere. The company is noted for its use of two-dimensional artwork, with character models having jointed hand-scripted movements similar to Flash animation. Later titles have experimented with layered levels and 2.5D graphics. Kamitani based many of his games on the classic beat 'em up game titles he worked on while at Capcom, which had similarly influenced Princess Crown. Vanillaware debuted with two games in 2007; Odin Sphere, which was delayed by publisher Atlus; and GrimGrimoire, a real-time strategy game for Nippon Ichi Software. They have worked with many different publishers, though most frequently with Atlus.