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! :)

Rage of Bahamut maker Cygames ripped off the Pazzle and Dragons

This week, Japanese mobile social game developer known as a developer of "Rage of Bahamut" Cygames released game apps for iOS "Pazzle Battle of the Romance of Three Kingdoms" in Japan.

Unexpectedly this is the first time that they release the game of the native app in Japan. However, this is…

Well... it's COPY of Pazzle and Dragons! Players put five military commanders with five attributes together, make a party and handle a quest. It is identical that characters possess skills, too. All are identical to Pazzle and Dragons...

However, unfortunately this game is fun. Besides, a design and the animation are superior than Pazzle and Dragons. The direction is showy, all characters have a voice and speak lines. Voices are important factors by Japanese social games. The mobile games that popular voice actors were appointed as increase recently.

Pazzle and Dragons has been copied until now by many developers. Most were overseas developers, and the developed copy games were "inferior copies". However, a Japanese major company has copied it at last, and it is superior than Pazzle and Dragons in many points.

The history of the game is repetition of the copies. The many games evolved by adding a new element to it while copying a game released earlier. And the game that continued being copied becomes one of the genres of the game. If RPG did not exist, most of J-RPG was not born.

Pazzle and Dragons might become one of the genres of the game. However, still I cannot understand with Pazzle Battle of the Romance of Three Kingdoms emotionally.