His work is known for recurring themes of contrasting hope and despair, luck and talent, truth and lies, and mixing tragedy with dark humor, as well as using numerous plot twists.
[1] He described his childhood saying that he had very few friends and spent his free time after school watching anime, though he would have wanted to be popular among his peers.
[5] The concept was similar to that of Danganronpa, a battle royale style death game in a closed environment between high school students, but the idea was too gruesome and was consequently scrapped.
[6] The game hit 85,000 sold copies roughly three months after the release, which was enough for the CEO of Spike Chunsoft to call it a success.
The company's goal, according to Kodaka, was to create new intellectual properties and for the staff to make their own indie games.
[11] In November 2021, Master Detective Archives: Rain Code was announced as a collaboration with Spike Chunsoft, with Kodaka writing alongside Takekuni Kitayama.
Furthermore, Kodaka has specified on how he refreshes his mind when he is stuck with his writing, saying he does it by watching movies, anime, and reading manga, while paying attention to what interests him in those stories.
Kodaka named David Lynch,[13] Quentin Tarantino, and the Coen brothers as his primary influences.