Lukewarm Market Response to P&D W Reveal

Posted 17:16 EST on 21FEB2014 by: indie navi news staff in news » financial reports, gungho, puzzle & dragons w

On February 20th, GungHo announced details of what it has been calling a “large scale update” to its primary earner, Puzzle & Dragons for smartphones. The updated version will be called Puzzle & Dragons W and will feature a new play mode in which the monster-raising elements have been removed so players can focus on solving puzzles.

However, GungHo’s share price has changed little since the announcements of the 20th, remaining near 630 yen ($6.30).

Expectations were high, with many expecting GungHo to announce a follow up to mobile gaming’s first billion dollar earner. Judging from the lukewarm market response, it seems investors were not impressed to learn that Puzzle & Dragons W will be more an upgrade than a proper sequel.

news and image source: Social Game Info

Additional Details From the P&D Press Conference

Posted 18:46 EST on 20FEB2014 by: indie navi news staff in news » gungho, puzzle & dragons, puzzle & dragons battle tournament, square enix, tetsuya nomura

GungHo today held a press conference to celebrate the two-year anniversary of the release of Puzzle & Dragons. The big news of the day was the reveal of a semi-follow up to Puzzle & Dragons. However, GungHo also took the occasion to discuss other information relevant to the franchise.

From Square Enix, Nobuki Kadoi and Masashi Kunisawa were on hand to discuss Puzzle & Dragons Battle Tournament, the arcade version of Puzzle & Dragons that Square Enix is developing.

Players will be able to select from avatars designed by Tetusya Nomura, Square Enix’s chief character designer and the man behind the designs for Kingdom Hearts and the Final Fantasy titles beginning with Final Fantasy VII.

In Battle Tournament, players solve puzzles inspired by those in the smartphone version of Puzzle and Dragons while competing in real time against up to 15 other players across the country online. Square promises the competition in Battle Tournament will be fast and furious, with Nomura’s designs brought to life on-screen by animation by Satelight.

Like Puzzle & Dragons W, release of Puzzle & Dragons Battle Tournament is slated for this coming spring.

Finally, GungHo also released information regarding its upcoming tournaments to determine the number one Japanese players of Puzzle & Dragons and Puzzle & Dragons Z (the Nintendo 3DS entry in the franchise). This will be the second year for the Puzzle & Dragons Japan Cup (as GungHo is calling it) and the first year for the Puzzle & Dragons Z Colosseum Cup, Puzzle & Dragons Z having been released in Japan this past December.

Puzzle & Dragons Japan Cup will draw its participants from the winners of 7 regional tournaments, and will be held at Tokyo Big Sight on the 25th of May. The Puzzle & Dragons Z Colosseum Cup will be held toward the end of June, at some as-of-yet-undetermined location near Tokyo.

News source: 4Gamer

GungHo Reveals P&D Follow-Up Puzzle & Dragons W

Posted 17:27 EST on 20FEB2014 by: indie navi news staff in news, previews » gungho, puzzle & dragons

To celebrate the two-year anniversary of the release of Puzzle & Dragons, GungHo held an event in Tokyo and released information regarding the future of the tremendously popular series.

GungHo CEO Kazuki Morishita and Puzzle & Dragons producer Daisuke Yamamoto took the stage to release details about the biggest story of the day: Puzzle & Dragons W, the semi-follow up to Puzzle & Dragons.

Not exactly a sequel, P&D W is a combination of two play modes. The original P&D will be available as a play mode from within P&D W, and GungHo will continue to introduce updates and collaborations as it always has. The second mode is less dragons, more puzzles, stripping away the dungeon exploration to focus on puzzles.

GungHo’s press information refers to this mode as Tamadora Mode, in reference to the monsters that will serve as player avatars. By beating puzzles, players are awarded “avatar items” of three categories: head, arm, and (given the tamadora‘s anatomy) “egg”. These pieces of armor can be combined to customize the player’s avatar, changing the appearance of the tamadora and granting skills to help the player solve progressively complicated puzzles.

GungHo’s official Puzzle & Dragons W site claims players can combine avatars, presumable to form a party, which will likely play a role in overcoming increasingly difficult puzzles.

4Gamer had people on hand at the demonstration, and describes the game play demonstration given by Yamamoto:

Morishita explained that this new game mode was aimed at people who enjoyed the puzzles in Puzzle & Dragons, but who weren’t interested in collecting and raising monsters. Since Tamadora Mode uses a time gauge that amounts to “stamina”, the mode will be monetized by allowing players to spend “magical gems” (in-game currency) to regain stamina and purchase continues. These magical gems can be shared between Tamadora Mode and the classic mode.

GungHo is keeping mum on what updates classic mode will receive, saying only that they’ll be an “evolution” for the series.

For classic mode, GungHo stuck to announcing upcoming collaborations with the Evangelion films and Taiko no Tatsujin, as well as a tie-in with McDonald’s.

The update turning Puzzle & Dragons into Puzzle & Dragons W is slated for this spring. GungHo promises further details of the update are forthcoming.

News and images source: 4Gamer

Famitsu Goes Hands-On With GungHo’s Latest Title

Posted 15:40 EST on 12FEB2014 by: indie navi news staff in previews » gungho, summons board

On February 10th GungHo released the Android version of its latest title, Summons Board. Famitsu App has published its hands-on report, which sheds light on the title and its play systems. Below are some of the highlights.

GungHo: a “board game for the smartphone generation”

Summons Board uses a stamina system, allowing players to “refill” their stamina once every ten minutes. By clearing dungeons, players gain crystals which can be exchanged for continues, stamina refills, and chances at the “rare monster” gacha. Crystals can also be exchanged to increase the size of the Monster Box in which collected beasts are stored.

Similar to Pokémon, monsters belong to one of five types, which have negative and positive interactions with the other four types. The five types are fire, water, earth, light, and darkness.

Players level up their monsters by combining them with other monsters earned through battle or otherwise collected. How players combine their monsters will determine the outcome, with clever combinations resulting in particularly powerful creatures.

Monsters have individual skills sets, which can be used once per some predetermined number of battle turns. Some monsters also have “leader skills”, which grant skills and boosts to the player’s party when one of these creatures is placed in the role of leader.

Battle System

The battlefield is a 4 x 4 square. When entering battle, four of the player’s creatures and a handful of enemy creatures will be distributed throughout the battlefield, along with obstacles as well as beneficial items such as HP-restoring “heart crystals”.

The battles are turn-based, although players may only move one of their four creatures per turn. Fortunately, this limitation also applies to opponents (computer-controlled or otherwise), leading to a game of thought and strategy. Monsters are also limited in which directions they can move and attack, as indicated by small arrow icons.

When an enemy creature is in one of the squares the player’s creature can attack, it will automatically do so. If the player is able to position his creature such that several enemy beasts are in its attack “range”, they will all fall under attack. Also, if the player is able to line up his creatures so that two or more are able to attack an enemy creature, they will all do so, resulting in a combo attack. Aiming for these effects is the formula for success in Summons Board.

Multiplayer elements

Summons Board allows players to pit their team of monsters against those of other players in “ranking battles”. The more opponents a player defeats the higher his ranking, and the better the prizes he receives for each victory.

Players less interested in going online can take on AI-controlled parties of monsters. Victories will still net BP (battle points) which can be used toward in-game purchases of powerful and useful items.

Aware that not all players are keen to compete, GungHo has also prepared a guild system. Players can create or join guilds. As guild members are successful in battle, the guild’s clout rises, and all members of the guild are granted stat bonuses and power-ups. Guild members can also team up to take down tough dungeons, thereby leveling up their parties and further strengthening their guild.

With its emphasis on simple but deep game play, online competition, and social elements like guild membership, GungHo is hoping to have another mainstream hit on its hands. The Android version is currently available for download, with an iOS version slated for release within the next few weeks.

Story and images source: Famitsu App [ 1, 2 ]

Social Game Info Market Movements: Square Enix, colopl, GungHo Continue to Shine

Posted 17:10 EST on 29JAN2014 by: indie navi news staff in news » colopl, CyberAgent, financials, gungho, square enix

The following is a partial translation of Social Game Info’s daily report on noteworthy market movements

Tokyo Stock Exchange, January 29th: games industry share prices saw general advances across the board. In particular, gains stood out for GungHo Online Entertainment (which has recently had its earnings reported upon), Square Enix Holdings (benefiting from the overwhelmingly positive response to its smartphone title Dragon Quest Monsters Super Light), CyberAgent, and colopl (despite colopl refraining from making an earnings announcement).

GungHo’s share price rose 53 yen to land at 673 yen, spurred on by an estimation in the January 29th edition of the Nikkei that GungHo’s operation earnings for the period ending in December were in the vicinity of 90 billion yen, a 10-fold increase from the previous period. In its quarterly estimate, GungHo had predicted operation earnings of 88 billion yen, so the Nikkei’s report was not out of line with expectations, but the positive news still had a beneficial effect on GungHo’s share price.

colopl’s share price also rose, up 240 yen from the previous day to finish the day’s trading at 3,920 yen. colopl refrained from making an earnings announcement after the close of the trading session, leading to speculation that the bump in share price is the result of high investor anticipation.

Previously, colopl revised its earnings forecast for the period which will end in September of this year, raising its operations earnings estimate from 12 billion yen to 18 billion. Touyou Keizai’s Japan Company Handbook had also pinned its estimate for the period at 12 billion yen, so there is keen interest in how Touyou Keizai and other institutions react to colopl’s forthcoming announcements.

There was also more good news for Square Enix Holdings, its share price rising 161 yen in the course of the day’s trading to end at 2,830 yen. Square Enix Holdings’ share price had risen dramatically in response to its title Dragon Quest Monsters Super Light rocketing to second place of the Japan App Store sales rankings in the games category, where it remains as of today behind only GungHo’s Puzzle & Dragons. Today’s increases are attributed to Super Light making it to 11th place in the Google play Japan rankings (games category), where it threatens to crack the top ten.

CyberAgent, part owner of Super Light developer CyGames, also saw an increase in share price to the tune of 260 yen, ending the day at a total of 4,985 yen.

Noteworthy movements in the games industry and mobile market are as listed below:

Company name	Current share price	Single-day change	Single day change (%)
GungHo Online Entertainment	673	53	8.55%
colopl	3,920	240	6.52%
Square Enix HD	2,830	161	6.03%
Koei Tecmo HD	1,297	68	5.53%
CyberAgent	4,985	260	5.50%
Bandai Namco HD	2,462	112	4.77%
Sega Sammy HD	2,535	91	3.72%
Aeria, Inc.	1,890	65	3.56%
Nippon Ichi Software	846	29	3.55%
GMO Internet	1,334	43	3.33%
Marvelous AQL	710	21	3.05%
Konami	2,472	69	2.87%
NEXON	902	24	2.73%
AXEL MARK	878	23	2.69%
enish	2,769	70	2.59%
Mixi	6,000	150	2.56%
Crooz	4,820	120	2.55%
Alt Plus, Inc.	2,403	59	2.52%
Voltage	1,661	31	1.90%

news and images source: Social Game Info