Spotlight: MAKAI CITY CHI-BA, One Office Worker's 10 Years

Working alone from the first idea, an office worker spent about ten years turning the place names, history and folklore of Chiba Prefecture into an RPG. MAKAI CITY CHI-BA launched on PC (Steam) in November, with English on-screen text. Its Steam page pitches the game to anyone curious about Japan outside Tokyo.

Monsters show up in Chiba, and four high school students stand against them with help from spirits born from local folklore, such as Tekona and Don Taro. The story heads toward the truth behind “CHI-BA,” and anomalies begin to appear: some towns get harder to reach, and people’s memories stop lining up.

Combat is turn-based with random encounters. At the start of each turn, you choose the actions of all your allies at once, and the enemy has already chosen its actions for that turn. You read who moves in what order, then build the four characters’ moves around it. Special moves cost MP (Material Points), and the four fight in different ways: kendo finishing strikes, science experiments, cheering, and healing items.

In one town, you defeat the monster blocking the entrance and rescue the teacher and students trapped in a room. Once you’ve been to a place, a card you receive in the story lets you fast-travel back to it.

The Steam version adds three new towns and their events to the earlier release, plus an extra dungeon to take on after you clear the game. Autosave keeps your progress, and some dungeons now end with an emergency exit. Accessories are new too, and the presentation and controls have been reworked. English on-screen text is new in this version as well. Playtime is estimated at 3 to 6 hours, and the game is single-player.

With turn order to read and all four moves locked in before anything happens, each turn looks set to give you something to plan, even over a short 3-to-6-hour run.

Koyurugi Kobo developed and published the game. Its creator, Sadayuki Nagahori, built it in RPG Maker MZ. Nagahori is also working on a new game set in his home prefecture, Hyogo. Of CHI-BA, he said he spent ten years on it with a single wish: to preserve Chiba’s history and folklore for later generations in the form of a game.

Language: English
Players: Single-player
As of November 15, 2026