With 80 million players worldwide, Love and Deepspace has become a rare success story for a romance game that transcends cultural boundaries. The mobile title, developed by the woman-led team at Infold Games, has captivated audiences across Japan, Europe, the United States, and beyond—a feat rarely achieved by the otome genre outside its native markets.
The game's appeal lies in a carefully engineered blend of character design, sci-fi storytelling, and psychological engagement. Players develop romantic relationships with five male love interests while navigating gritty combat scenarios that frame intimacy as a shared struggle. But beyond the emotional appeal, the development team has grounded their approach in behavioral science, particularly around the concept of love at first sight.
At the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco this March, Infold Games offered rare insights into their design philosophy. Producer Lizi Cheng sat down with IGN Japan to discuss how the studio created characters that resonate across cultures, why they refuse to localize their designs for Western audiences, and the surprisingly scientific approach behind every interaction.
Universal Appeal Without Compromise
When asked how a Chinese development team managed to create male characters that appeal to women across vastly different cultural contexts, Cheng pointed to something more fundamental than regional preferences. "If girls from different cultural backgrounds all think the same guys are hot, I think there's some commonality in terms of universal beauty standards," she explained. "Then again, each of the love interests has his own personalities and characteristics."
This approach—maintaining the original character designs without adaptation—stands in stark contrast to other otome games that have replaced Japanese characters to appeal to Western players. Cheng acknowledged the risk but rejected it outright. "Our development team is a purely Chinese team, and we really have not conducted in-depth research about other cultures. So we think it would be very dangerous for us to adapt the characters in that way. We want to focus on what we are good at."
The strategy appears to have paid off. Rather than chase regional preferences, Infold Games invested heavily in what they knew: strong character development, compelling narratives, and technical excellence in voice acting and visual presentation.
Voice performance receives obsessive attention. Writers attend every recording session to monitor tone and line delivery in context. Some lines are re-recorded more than 50 times to achieve the desired emotional impact. This level of iteration extends to the game's technical systems as well.
The team gathers continuous feedback through player surveys and data analysis to inform their content roadmap. This data-driven approach governs everything from new story content to feature additions, ensuring that development priorities align with what players actually want.
The Science of First Impressions
One of the most revealing aspects of Infold's design process involves their explicit framework for
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