Hiroki Asai, the producer, has created something truly special with Heavenly Guitars after starting with a simple idea of making the electric guitar the most collectible item in music history.

As they prepare for a Steam launch, Hiroki explains the concept of Play-To-Collect design, the pitfalls of blockchain gaming, and what he believes is the most revolutionary aspect of game design. Making players fall in love with a single instrument.

The landscape of Web3 gaming is littered with the remains of games that have faded into obscurity. Many were announced with great excitement during the blockchain boom of 2021 and 2022, but when the market cooled, so did interest. This left behind a trail of abandoned servers and frustrated players. As a result, the industry’s overall sentiment has shifted to skepticism and exhaustion about blockchain gaming.

Hiroki Asai was watching all of it.

As Executive Director and COO of Tokyo-based PANDOLOR Inc., Asai spent the height of the Web3 gaming frenzy doing something unusual. He refused to let the technology define the game.

The result is Heavenly Guitars, a competitive, 1v1 music battle game built around electric guitar authenticity, launched on browser-based platforms in May 2025 in partnership with So-net Entertainment Taiwan and MOCHIRON Co., Ltd., and now approaching a Steam release planned for Spring 2026.

The “Play-To-Collect” Eureka Moment

The game is situated within three expanding markets. First, the rhythm game genre is expected to reach $2.5 billion by 2025, growing at an annual rate of 12 percent. Second, the Web3 gaming sector is projected to reach $48.55 billion by 2026, with strong yet unpredictable growth potential.

Lastly, there is a collector culture surrounding real-world musical instruments, primarily driven by people’s emotional connections to these items rather than speculation.

What makes Heavenly Guitars unusual is not its technology. Asai and his team clearly understand the difference between what a blockchain can do and what it should do in a game. That distinction, harder to execute than it sounds, is exactly what most of the Web3 gaming graveyard got wrong.

With wishlist registrations now live on Steam across North America, Asia, and Oceania, and a confirmed roster entry for BABYMETAL’s “Gimme Chocolate!!” signaling serious music licensing ambitions, Heavenly Guitars is positioning for its broadest push yet. KoreaGameDesk sat down with Asai to talk about the ideas that shaped the game, the mistakes he’d undo, and what the rest of the industry still doesn’t understand about making players care.

“The defining characteristic of an NFT is that, despite being digital, it possesses uniqueness and collectibility. So we asked ourselves: what is the most inevitable thing to turn into an NFT?”

— Hiroki Asai, COO, PANDOLOR Inc.

Play-To-Collect: Rethinking What an NFT Is For

KoreaGameDesk (KGD): You built an entire competitive game around electric guitar authenticity when the obvious path was to follow the broader rhythm game formula. Where did that conviction come from?

Asai: When we started development, “Web3 gaming” was attracting enormous attention. Companies were announcing new titles constantly. But in most cases, I felt the technology and mechanisms were prioritized over the actual gameplay experience. That led us to fundamentally rethink why we were building with Web3 or NFTs at all.

What really makes an NFT special is its uniqueness, even in the digital realm. We started to think about what could be the next big thing to transform into an NFT, and the electric guitar popped into our minds. It’s not just an instrument; it has its own story and character, and collectors worldwide cherish each one for its unique quirks.

Imagine having a favorite guitar in a game, one that you can play, polish, and care for until it feels like an extension of yourself. That guitar would take on its own identity as an NFT, allowing you to truly make it yours. This sparked a whole new idea for us: a rhythm game that focuses on this feeling of personal attachment and ownership. We called it “Play-To-Collect.” And that was our moment of inspiration!

The framing is significant. Rather than designing around token economics or market speculation, PANDOLOR’s approach, which gutted most Web3 gaming projects, started with an emotional truth: people form deep attachments to musical instruments. The NFT layer exists to formalize that attachment, not to manufacture scarcity for its own sake. It’s a subtle but structurally important inversion.

Battle of the Bands, Reimagined

KGD: The Audience Gauge system — replacing traditional scoring with a live crowd reaction meter in real-time 1v1 battles — is a significant departure from rhythm game conventions. Was there internal resistance?

Asai: The competitive battle format was born out of a desire to create a platform where players can truly showcase their guitars. We believe the magic of an instrument goes beyond just owning or admiring it; it comes alive when you play it for others, earn recognition, and bring joy to an audience.

There’s a natural connection between competition and band culture, reminiscent of the “Battle of the Bands” tradition. Picture yourself on stage with your rivals, pouring your heart into your performance and letting your guitar shine. It’s all about captivating the crowd and feeling the energy of their reaction. What truly matters is the memory of that specific moment, it’s not just any guitar; it’s the one that helped create something unforgettable.

This is where Heavenly Guitars takes an intriguing approach. Instead of a traditional points-based scoring system, the game uses a crowd energy system, transforming how players engage with their instruments. It’s not just about hitting the right notes; it’s about performing in a theatrical way. Your guitar becomes more than just a collection of stats; it becomes an extension of your artistry and expression.

Strategic Risk, Not Accessibility Crutch

KGD: The mid-performance difficulty adjustment system — where players can switch difficulty live during a song — reads as either a brilliant risk/reward mechanic or an exploitation vector. How did you resolve that tension?

Asai: We introduced the system for two reasons. First, to create strategic depth based on the battle situation. If you’re losing, you can raise the difficulty to hype up the crowd and turn the tide. If you’re leading, you can play it safe. The tactical decision is entirely the player’s.

Second, it focused on broadening play styles. If you aren’t a rhythm game expert, you can still win by nurturing your guitar and leveraging its traits. Conversely, even with weaker gear, pure skill can shift the match. Balancing these two dimensions — investment depth and raw skill — defines the competitive identity of Heavenly Guitars.

The core mechanic came together quickly. The prototype was ready early. But we spent significant time on how to help players understand these novel mechanics and on balancing the complex interplay among multiple systems.

We made repeated data adjustments during development and major updates after release. We still encounter gameplay scenarios that exceed our initial expectations — and we view that as a feature, not a failure. Emergent gameplay driven by player choice is far superior to forcing a fixed solution.

“We still encounter gameplay scenarios today that exceed our initial expectations. We believe embracing emergent gameplay — where player choice dictates the outcome — is far superior to forcing a fixed solution.”

— Hiroki Asai

Building for the World: The WebGL Call

KGD: You chose browser-based WebGL over native-first development. That’s a counterintuitive choice for a competitive game. How did that decision age?

Asai: From day one, we developed with a worldwide release in mind. To transcend national and platform boundaries and deliver a consistent experience to as many people as possible, browser-based WebGL was the ideal choice.

Given our extensive experience with Unity and WebGL, we encountered a few unexpected technical hurdles. It wasn’t that there were “no hurdles” — it was that we designed the entire architecture with a clear understanding of WebGL’s capabilities and limitations from the outset.

We are currently live on mobile platforms, and the Steam release is planned for Spring 2026. Given that the development foundation is Unity, we don’t foresee significant obstacles to expanding to other platforms. We expect the rollout to proceed smoothly.

The decision reflects a studio that knew its toolset deeply and designed to its strengths. For a game with global ambitions but a compact team, browser-first WebGL — paradoxically — offered a more reliable path to multi-region reach than chasing platform-specific native builds.

The Three-Layer Business Model: F2P + Gacha + NFT

KGD: Heavenly Guitars sits at the intersection of free-to-play, gacha monetization, and Web3. Managing player trust across all three simultaneously is genuinely difficult. How do you hold that together?

Asai: We see blockchain and NFTs as tools to enhance the gaming experience rather than an end goal. Players can start for free and grow through gacha mechanics, and, if they choose, engage with NFTs to take ownership of a guitar that feels uniquely theirs. Our primary focus is to ensure the game is enjoyable and fully functional, regardless of NFT ownership. However, we aim for NFT ownership to create a genuine sense of belonging, making players feel like this instrument is truly their own.

We understand that the Web3 gaming landscape is currently facing tough challenges. While we have the technology ready to mint NFTs, we’re being cautious about when and how to introduce them, given the current market environment. Our priority is to make any NFT decisions that always keep the player experience front and center.

This approach sends a strong message to the industry. We have the technical infrastructure in place and ready to go, but at PANDOLOR, we’re intentionally choosing when to move forward. This sets us apart from other Web3 studios that rushed to launch token systems under challenging conditions and ultimately lost player trust.

Real Guitars, Real Brands, Real Culture

KGD: The JACKAL pedal from Limetone Audio suggests real-world music industry partnerships. How do you approach that bridge between gaming and guitar culture without it feeling like product placement?

Asai: For JACKAL specifically, we reached out directly to Mr. Imanishi, a well-known Japanese influencer, to make that collaboration happen. All other gear in the game is currently original to us — but we have confirmed collaborations with several real-world manufacturers and plan to roll them out over time.

Collaborations are a standard marketing strategy in the modern gaming industry. We’ve conducted many with famous IPs — anime, film, manufacturers from other industries. But we place equal importance on properly conveying the charm of our partners to our user base.

This is especially true for music industry collaborations. Mr. Nagata, the producer from So-net Entertainment Taiwan, is himself a guitarist. He holds a deep passion for guitars and band culture. We do not want these to be name-dropping exercises or cosmetic tie-ins. If this game inspires players to develop a genuine interest in real instruments and music, that would be the greatest reward.

Fairness, Investment, and the Psychology of Losing

KGD: Your matchmaking system reportedly sometimes pairs players with visibly different equipment power levels — a gacha investment disparity. How do you defend that design decision?

Asai: We don’t view this as a binary choice between perfect fairness and validating investment. While this is a competitive game, we consciously design it so that winning or losing is not the sole purpose of playing.

Even amid short-term wins and losses, we prioritize experiences in which players feel “I’ve improved a little” or “I want to try again with this specific guitar.” These feelings motivate play in the next match. Even if matchmaking isn’t perfectly fair every time, players will continue to engage as long as the experience offers satisfaction and anticipation.

Our ultimate vision is for players to cherish the guitar they’ve nurtured and to enjoy multiple ways to engage with that single instrument. Future content will be built around this premise.

What Beta Testing Revealed — And Changed

KGD: What did your retention data actually tell you that surprised you, and how did it reshape your roadmap?

Asai: Given the theme and complexity, we expected a niche, hardcore audience. Playtests revealed something beyond our assumptions — the level of engagement was far deeper than we imagined. Retention was driven by the joy of collecting and customizing guitars, and by appreciating the sound itself. Players were staying for reasons we hadn’t fully planned for.

But those same results revealed a trade-off: while the core experience resonated strongly with a specific audience, it created a high barrier to entry for others. Since launch, we have worked hard to make the game more accessible — improving tutorials and onboarding — without watering down the depth that core fans love.

Looking ahead, we have expansion plans for additional platforms and regions. We intend to balance quantitative data with qualitative user feedback to reach a wider audience for Heavenly Guitars.

Multi-Studio, Multi-Region: A Lean Model That Worked

KGD: Managing creative work across PANDOLOR, So-net Entertainment Taiwan, and MOCHIRON, across different regions, typically creates alignment issues. What broke down, and what saved you?

Asai: In our development structure, each company leveraged its strengths and clearly delineated responsibilities. Roles across Game Design, Development, and Operations were distinct, with minimal unnecessary overlap. That was the key.

If the team had been significantly larger, stricter governance might have been required. But we operated with a compact structure and a high density of daily communication. Rather than implementing a special management regime, we focused on clarifying “who is responsible for what” while maintaining a relationship where we could speak directly whenever necessary. That simple premise prevented creative misalignment.

The model reads less like a traditional multi-studio co-development and more like a distributed specialist network — an increasingly relevant structure as more independent studios build games of this scope with lean headcounts.

“Rather than leading with technology or trends, if we started again today, we would deliberate much more thoroughly on how to construct the gateway to the experience.”

— Hiroki Asai

The Honest Retrospective: What Asai Would Do Differently

KGD: If you were starting Heavenly Guitars today, in 2025, what would you do radically differently?

Asai: Looking back, I feel we were, to some extent, swayed by buzzwords like “Web3” and “NFT.” And by relentlessly honing the experience for our core fans, we admittedly narrowed accessibility for others.

If we started from scratch today, I wouldn’t change the nucleus — the guitars, the sound, the playing experience. But I would spend much more time designing how to deliver that experience naturally to a wider audience. Rather than leading with technology or trends, we would deliberate more thoroughly on how to construct the gateway to the experience.

If I could offer one piece of advice to other creators: don’t start a project solely because something is trending. Especially in entertainment, we cannot accurately predict hits. But titles that enjoy long-term success always offer an experience that is irreplaceable to their users. We will keep this lesson in mind ourselves.

What This Means for the Industry

Asai’s candor about chasing buzzwords is useful precisely because it’s rare. Most studios in the Web3 space have not yet had their public reckoning. Heavenly Guitars represents something more instructive than a typical post-mortem, it’s a real-time course correction from a studio that caught itself mid-swing and adjusted without abandoning its core vision.

For developers, the takeaway is structural: design for emotional attachment first, then evaluate which technology best supports it. The NFT layer in Heavenly Guitars doesn’t lead the experience — it formalizes one that already exists.

For investors watching the Web3 gaming space, PANDOLOR’s deliberate approach to NFT rollout timing is a model of market patience over token velocity, the inverse of most blockchain gaming failures.

For players, particularly in rhythm-game strongholds across Japan, South Korea, and Southeast Asia — markets where the game has already launched and where Asia-Pacific is projected to be the fastest-growing region in Web3 gaming — Heavenly Guitars offers something genuinely novel: a competitive music game where your opponent isn’t just a player, but a musician with a history.

The Steam launch, scheduled for Spring 2026, is the first real test of whether that vision can scale.

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