“We had some discussion and came up with the setting and the main character through the association of Rolling => Armadillo => Texas => Western, and Vanpool also liked that idea. And so, a new IP, ‘Dillon’ was born.”

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“We don’t have armadillos in Japan,” Vanpool’s Jun Tsuda added over e-mail, “so the staff and I did some research about their habitat and were a little disappointed when we found out that they just dig holes and eat grubs and worms. Still, the thought of making an animal like that seem cool sounded fun, and that motivated us to put some polish on Dillon’s claws and shell.”

Tanabe said the rolling gameplay idea merged in his mind with ideas he had about tower defense games after working with Q-Games on Starship Defense, another prototypical high-quality, low-profile hidden Nintendo game for the Nintendo DSi. Most tower defense games, including Starship Defense, involve placing towers that can shoot down creeping enemies. Tanabe was interested in a tower defense game in which the player could run around on the battlefield while the towers fired overhead.

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In Dillon’s Rolling Western, which was released on the 3DS in 2012, players do indeed use slingshot controls to roll Dillon into a ball and then fire him around besieged towns. Dillon can set up towers that shoot lumbering enemies, or he can roll into battle and do a variety of spin and claw attacks in direct combat. The second game plays similarly, but the new third one ditches the slingshot controls and moves the setting from wild west to post-apocalypse. “We got some feedback from the staff inside of the company that people probably don’t know much about Westerns these days,” Tanabe said to explain the shift of setting. “Even though I personally love Wild West movies, I thought they had a point, so I went with a new setting.”

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Dead-Heat Breakers is far bigger than the others and sells for a potentially off-putting $40 rather than around $10 like previous games in the series. It brings Dillon and his squirrel sidekick Russ to a city that has walled itself off from a disaster that has struck outside. Inside, heavily armed yet still somewhat cute animals stand guard or drink away their stress while, outside of it, small settlements call for rescue. In town, players control an animal form of one of the Mii avatar characters on their 3DS, doing odd jobs to make money and chatting with the many oddball characters in town.

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“The post-apocalyptic world is definitely harsh,” Tsuda said, “but what I want players to see is not really how merciless the world can be, but instead how bright and full of life the characters are who inhabit it. I think the cute and fun animals provide a good counter-balance to the look of the world.”

Outside of the city, players control Dillon and do a mix of the old gameplay combined with bouts of combat racing in which Dillon must rev up and chase down enemies that are literally driving themselves into a rage before attempting a final attack. The setting and all that driving show an obvious inspiration. “The Mad Max movies are my favorites set in this kind of world,” Tanabe said. “My goal was to set up Dillon and Russ as a shining beacon of hope to everyone with their strength to keep on living in a ruined world.”

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The addition of racing was initially going to be a full swap of old gameplay with new. “I thought that we could make the game more exhilarating to play than a tower defense game,” Tanabe said. “We concluded that a battle race alone wouldn’t really expand or deepen the game or expand its world, so we reverted back to implementing the action tower defense in the finished game.” Those battles happen at night. Nintendo and Vanpool added the city that players visit during daytime to give a sense of an “expanding world.” The developers at Vanpool cooked up the idea of pulling in players’ Miis from their 3DS and turning them into playable animal characters and recruitable mercs—Amiimals, they called them.

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Tanabe liked that idea a lot. “I really wanted you to see what kind of Amiimal you, your friends, and your family would turn into. ‘Ah! you turned into a sheep!’ and ‘What? You’re a cow?’ That kind of thing.”

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Nintendo isn’t saying how well the game is doing. On the 3DS eshop’s list of best-selling games dominated by Pokémon and Mario games, Dead Heat Breakers is nowhere to be found. Tanabe wants to make more games in the franchise. “I’ve actually been wanting to make an RPG with Dillon as a main character for a while,” he said. “I am hoping this game reaches a wide enough audience that we can make that plan come true in the future.”

Tsuda squared his pride in his work with its apparent obscurity. “I bet the players who like Dillon and the setting actually are pretty secretive about it,” he said, proposing an earnest if imperfect metaphor. “I would like more people to know about the game. It’s not like a popular restaurant, so there won’t be a sudden crowd or a long wait time or anything. So, to any new players who have an interest now after reading this article, please give the game a try. You won’t regret it.”

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Correction - 12:42pm: This article originally stated that Tingle sold maps in The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker. He deciphered them in Wind Waker but sold them in The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask. Apologies for the error.