Toei Games to Publish Yatara's Ballpoint Pen Horror-Adventure HINO
HINO marks Toei Games' entry into indie publishing with a title that adapts a social-media-born art style into a full game, while the developer's approach of animating static illustrations by hand-part separation could set a template for similar artist-to-game collaborations.
Reporting from 2 sources: 4Gamer.net, Game Spark.
Toei Games will publish HINO, a 2D action-adventure game developed by UnGloomStudio and based on the ballpoint pen monster illustrations of artist Yatara. The game follows a girl named Hino and her companion Monimoni Skeleton as they explore a dark world seeking a place of rest. The project began when UnGloomStudio producer and animator Aury, a fan of Yatara's work, created a demo of animated monsters from Yatara's X illustrations and approached the artist with the idea. Yatara agreed, and the team expanded to six members including engineer Menchi. The game's scenario is an "if story" distinct from Yatara's original illustrations, though the protagonist and her companion retain their core designs. Monsters are one-hit kills, and the player uses a light bulb staff and other items to survive. The game was playable at BitSummit 2026 in Kyoto, where a demo is also available on Steam. A 2026 PC release is planned.
UnGloomStudio has six members. Director and animator Aury, who has worked as a game engineer for more than 10 years, founded the studio for this project. He previously handled all weapon animation on a major company's AAA title, his first professional animation work. The team includes programmer Menchi, designer Yatara, effect designer Inato, music designer Tomokazu Shoji, and sound designer Kuwa-pon.
Aury called the monsters' movements "creepy." Yatara said he had never seen his illustrations animated before and that the actual movement "exceeded my imagination." Aury separates the parts of each illustration by hand, draws in missing pieces, and animates them. He made a playable demo before approaching Yatara, animating monsters from Yatara's existing X posts emerging from darkness. Yatara said he immediately imagined how they would move as a game and agreed to the project.
The game's scenario is an "if story" distinct from Yatara's original illustrations. The protagonist Hino and her companion Monimoni Skeleton retain their core designs but have different motivations. In the game they seek "a place of rest" where monsters will not attack them. The character called "Hat-sensei" in the original illustrations is renamed "Hat Man" with changed settings. Aury said everything in the game is connected and "a completely different atmosphere emerges" by the end.
Hiroaki Nagashima from Toei Games first encountered HINO at an event in Osaka last year. He was drawn to the key visual and approached the team after playing. The contract was signed in March 2026, though Toei Games has been providing support for about half a year. The publisher handles promotion, QA, and debugging but respects the studio's creative decisions. Nagashima noted there are no depictions of killing or blood in the game.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 2 cited sources below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.