Gamification of the agriculture: agriculture game for iOS "Sanchoku!"---which can buy genuine farm products

Japanese mobile game developer Zoysia released agriculture game for iOS "Sanchoku!" which linked real agriculture.

This is a simulation game to be able to do simulated experience of the agriculture at the virtual farms of 50 partner farmers. All the farms in the game link with a real farms. Players help with farming and bring up rice, vegetables, fruits and stock raising animals according to the advice of farmers. After all work was over, players can get "stars" from farmers. Stars are virtual currencies, and players can buy farm products which themself brought up using this.

Game system of this is almost not different from other agriculture simulation games. However, this can be called gamification of the agriculture in a point linking real farms and farmers.
After 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, interest in agriculture increases in Japan. The reason is radioactive contamination. Many Japanese want to manage the safe food by oneself. However, all people cannot engage in agriculture. Particularly, the city dweller cannot have even a private vegetable garden. Therefore they are curious about farm products in detail. This game plays a role to narrow the distance of country farmers and the city dweller.

mixi released native game apps after LINE

mixi was social networking service most popular in Japan once. However, it's down and out now. They lost in the social game in GREE and Mobage and lost in the communication in LINE. Therefore they bet revival on native game apps.

Today, mixi released first native game apps for smartphone "spinan".

spinan is the casual cards game that adopted the rule of "speed" and "solitaire". Time for one game is 90 seconds. Players can compete with a friends for score and present items each other. Interestingly, we can play a game with a friends in Facebook as well as a friends in mixi.

You might notice. Well... this looks just like game apps of LINE and Kakao Talk. To be frank, there is not the novelty at all. The number of the active users of current mixi is miserable. When there are not some active users on a platform, the social game does not become active. I think that more different measures are necessary for mixi's games.

Exciting News: Japanese major publishing company holds licensing examination of Cthulhu Mythos

A Japanese is eager in qualification and a licensing examination. Penmanship, calculation on the abacus, musical instrument performance, the martial arts, etc...the people challenge various examinations since the days of a primary schoolchild. And Japan will have very rare licensing examination. This is "Cthulhu Mythos".

Japanese major publishing company NIPPON SHUPPAN HANBAI INC. holds licensing examination of Cthulhu Mythos in Tokyo and Osaka in December 1.

The works of H.P. Lovecraft are very popular in Japan. Many artists were affected by him. Arts, games, musics, movies, novels, comics, figures... they produced the many works which assumed Cthulhu Mythos a motif. They form one end of the J-pop culture surely.

The level is two kinds of the second grade and the third grade. NIPPON SHUPPAN HANBAI examines the basic knowledge of Lovecraft works by a examination. The questions form is mark sheet of four person choosing one.They publish a official text on August 24.

Examination summary is here
http://www.kentei-uketsuke.com/cthulhu/

By the way, I have one question. Will the level of this licensing examination be useful for anything? Usually, levels of qualification and licensing examination list these in resume(and they are useful for job hunting). What is the occupation that a level of Cthulhu Mythos is useful?

News Flash: Anonymous Japan attacks Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority

Tokyo will host the 2020 summer Olympics. However, Japan has many problems. It is radioactive contamination to be the most serious in them.

Today, Anonymous Japan announced that they assumed Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority a target. The reason is concealment of the information. They said,

The purpose of this operation protests about a nuclear power plant problem of Japan. Information leaks the contents of activity and make exact information release. A protest is begun first!.

However, this operation is begun from social networking service such as Twitter and legal method. The scheduled starting date of the operation is October 1.

Source
http://anon-media-japan.blogspot.jp/2013/09/opleakagejp.html?m=1

Casual game for iOS that can become Japanese sword blacksmith---"Swordsmith"

This is a really simple casual game. However, a theme and the sound are cool!

Japanese smartphone game developer STUDIO SHIN released casual game for iOS "Swordsmith" that can become Japanese sword blacksmith.

Swordsmith is a tap game to build a Japanese sword. At first, a sword is red-hod iron plate. We clap this and make a sword.

We tap a screen according to an arrow displayed at-random. When we hit a number accurately, we can make good sword. Whenever we clap it, a light metallic sound sounds.

You may think that this is simple. However, reflexes are necessary for this.

When we clap the wrong point, we are scolded.

When we clap it many times, it gradually changes to a Japanese sword.

Let's check the sharpness of the finished sword!

We clapped it a lot exactly and become the good sword. We can share the score in LINE, Facebook and Twitter.

This is good to slight time killing! :)