Ingress players draw phoenix on Kobe to celebrate the 20th anniversary of revival from quake

On January 17, 2015, Japan is the 20th year from Great Hanshin earthquake(Kobe earthquake). It's magnitude 7.3, occurred on January 17, 1995, at 05:46 JST in the southern part of Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan, and 6,400 people died by a collapse building and a fire.

Then for 20 years, current Kobe is this.

Therefore Japanese Ingress players drew phoenix on Kobe on the map in commemoration of this. The phoenix is right a symbol of the revival.

This is not the first time that Japanese Ingress players expressed prayer through a game. They prayed for peace in Hiroshima on August 6, 2014 and drew a crane of origami.

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Ingress players of Hiroshima prayed for peace and drew paper crane on the map

These succeed by cooperation of Resistance and Enlightened.

Japanese mobile game company Colopl released the 2nd VR game "Shironeko VR Project"

Japanese mobile game company Colopl released the 2nd VR game that supported the Oculus Rift. The title is "Shironeko VR Project（白猫VRプロジェクト)". (*Shironeko means a "white cat" in Japanese)

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Japanese mobile game company Colopl developed a game for Oculus Rift

Shironeko VR Project was developed based on their popular mobile RPG "Shironeko Project(白猫プロジェクト)". It's released in July, 2014 and passes 20 million downloading in Japan. In addition, it was released in Korea in October, 2014 and released in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao in future.

Shironeko Project is a full-fledged RPG of full 3DCG. Players can bring up a character and enjoy powerful battle with huge enemies. Colopl released the controller apps "colopad" for VR games to experience this comfortably in Oculus Rift. This is controller apps to use a smartphone and a tablet as a game pad. Players can operate the action such as move and attack with one finger by using this. They have yet released only an Android version of this, but release the iOS version in a few days.

Originally Colopl was the startup which developed geolocation social game for Japanese futurephones. However, they are VR game companies as well as a representative mobile game company for smartphones now.

Awesome Collaboration! GungHo announced "PUZZLE & DRAGONS SUPER MARIO BROS. EDITION"

Unfortunately the presence of Nintendo gradually fades in Japan. One of the causes is the prosperity of the mobile game business, but surprising press release was announced. GungHo releases a game for the Nintendo 3DS series "PUZZLE & DRAGONS SUPER MARIO BROS. EDITION" that combined the Mario series of Nintendo with Puzzle &Dragons on April 29. The price is 4,000 yen(about 33.3USD).

Needless to say, Puzzle & Dragons is a popular mobile game of GungHo, passes 33 million downloading in Japan, and passed 6 million downloading in the North America in this month, too. This collaboration is "bitter enemies in the same boat" for Nintendo.

Stages of the games is the mushroom kingdom which is the world of the Mario series. Mysterious "drop" with mysterious power appeared in the mushroom kingdom suddenly, bowser(Great Demon King Koopa) and other Mario's enemies get it and do evil, and Mario Bros. and their friends do the adventure of the puzzle battle to fight against them. According to the screenshot, its rule of game seems to be same as Puzzle & Dragons. However, an outlook on the world is Mario series itself. It is unknown whether this is sold in countries except Japan.

Supercell carried out Japan's original promotion for New Year holidays

Shōgatsu(正月: Japanese New Year festival) is one of the most important event in Japan. Therefore Supercell carried out Japan's original promotion "Hay Day O-mikuji" from January 1.

O-mikuji(おみくじ) are random fortunes written on strips of paper at Shinto shrines(via Wikipedia). Supercell opened a time-limited special site until January 18 emulating this and let players draw Hay Day O-mikuji.

These are kinds of O-mikuji.

Great blessing (大吉: dai-kichi) 
Middle blessing (中吉: chū-kichi) 
Small blessing (小吉: shō-kichi) 
Blessing (吉: kichi) 
Ending blessing (末吉: sue-kichi) 

 Fortunes of this year, characters and items of Hay Day are drawn on each O-mikuji, and players can tweet them to Twitter. Furthermore, players can apply for a present campaign from this site. If we lucky, we can get various Hay Day goods :)

Why did Supercell do such a promotion? Probably because, in The twelve branches(十二支), this year is "the year of the sheep" (What is the twelve branches? via Wikipedia). Players can keep sheep in Hay Day. By the way, next year is "the year of the monkey". Are the monkeys added to Hay Day until the next year?

Next is GREE:Angry Birds cooperates with GREE's mobile game Monpla

Before, I wrote about Angry Birds and LINE's mobile game.

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Next is LINE: Angry Birds gets into the Japanese mobile game more

Rovio Japan makes efforts in the tie-up with Japanese mobile game companies more. Now, they carry out an event about Angry Birds in GREE's mobile game "Monpla".

Monpla is a fantasy RPG that collects various cute monsters and has adventures(well... the view of the world resembles Pokemon...). Originally this is a social game for futurephones and one of the senior titles of GREE. It was provided in GREE for global before, but unfortunately was unpopular among overseas users and has been already shut down. However, it still has many users in Japan.

GREE designed suits for monsters of Angry Birds for this tie-up. Besides, they are 3D models. When players win the fight with the enemy monsters, they can get points. When points save a constant number, they get virtual goods of Angry Birds.

Furthermore, monsters of the enemy wear a suit of Angry Birds!

This is a very elaborate tie-up event. In addition, GREE enforces tie-up events with Angry Birds in another 2 titles "Tsuri-Sta（釣り★スタ)" and "Shometsu-Toshi(消滅都市)".