Game Freak’s upcoming free-to-play game Ame Nochi Hare Onna is a big change from the Pokémon titles the studio is best known for. Director and producer Shigeru Ohmori has now shared how the project came together. In a recent interview with Famitsu, he explained why he chose to combine the magical girl genre with real-time weather.

After finishing development on Pokémon Scarlet and Violet in 2022, Ohmori began working on game ideas outside the Pokémon series. One idea came from his early days at Game Freak, when he placed grass patches in Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, and it later became Pokémon Pokopia. Another idea, developed at the same time as Pokopia, came from watching his wife do laundry. Along with his wish to pursue “forms of expression that can only be achieved in a completely original game,” that idea became the basis for Ame Nochi Hare Onna.

Ohmori said he pictured a game where magical girls change into outfits that give them different abilities depending on what they wear. This led to his desire to fully explore the concept of bishojo characters, which became one of the core parts of the game.

The team also wanted the game to be rooted in real life and carry a sense of everyday reality. Because many people in Japan regularly use their phones to check real-time data about the weather and their surroundings, Game Freak saw a chance to combine that data with the idea of magical girls. Ohmori said the weather data fit the core gameplay experience “most beautifully.”

Ohmori also said the game is designed so it does not get in the way of players’ daily lives. It is meant to be played in the small moments when people check the weather or do similar tasks, and a standard patrol takes roughly 5 to 10 minutes. His goal was to fit the game smoothly into players’ daily routines, and he gave the example of taking out a rain-type Hare Onna on a rainy day to gain an advantage in combat. Ame Nochi Hare Onna is scheduled to release this winter for iOS and Android.