He was interested in design from a young age, developing a hobby of drawing maps of imaginary towns as a child, and eventually moved to Tokyo to study animation at Tokyo Designer Gakuin College.
[1] After graduating, he took a job as a graphic artist at the video game developer NMK, later becoming a programmer for the company.
[2] In 1997, Ayabe resigned from K-Idea to establish the game studio Millennium Kitchen.
[4] Since then, Boku no Natsuyasumi 2 (2002) and Bokura no Kazoku (2005) were selected as juror-recommended works at the Japan Media Arts Festival,[5] and Attack of the Friday Monsters!
A Tokyo Tale (2015) was selected as an honorable mention for Best Narrative at the Game Developers Choice Awards.