Japanese Mac Games

Space Giko Harriya-n

Space GH is my personal favorite. This game is based on a classic arcade game by Sega called, Space Harrier. It's a 3D shooter where you play a cute, flying cat that has to blast away the oncoming enemies and obstacles to smithereens. Once you launch the game, press apple + F for full screen, press space bar to start or pause, apple key is your weapon trigger, and arrow keys to navigate. Freeware. Download Now (8MB)

Doubutsu Daisuki

Translated as "I Love Animals" this large collection of activities and games would be an adorable and educational addition for your mac. Especially well-designed for small children, there's a myriad of things for the child to explore and play with. This demo is, however, limited in that many activities are disabled but you can try a few games to get a general sense of the style and content, and to wisely evaluate it. Shareware Download Demo (4.4MB)

Footan

You're a flying chickadee with a mission to push your blue stone (with a green blob inside) on to the blue rectangle before you're allowed to move to the next stage. Use the arrow keys to manuever around. You can push blocks half way too fyi. Space bar will eliminate some brown stones. If you earn some pea pods (or whatever they are), you can shoot at blocks and enemies. Freeware Download Now (6.1MB)

Forty One

41, because there are 41 holes (yeah, it took me a while to figure that out, plus I was too lazy to count them). To the game! You must click on a token, then click on another one 2 tokens away and essentially jump over the middle token, which then gets eliminated. You do this until you've cleared all of the tokens from the board. This puzzle is harder than it sounds... Freeware Download Now (96KB)

K o i k o i P u r e - Freeware - Download Now (25MB)

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Your Friends

Card Deck

The Playing Board

Your Opponent

Based on a popular Japanese card game, here you're playing a kind of capturing/matching card game against a piano-playing, 19-year old college student, using a non-standard deck of cards. It will be extremely helpful to be familiar with the deck: it's 4 versions of 12 suits (totalling 48 cards), with the set of 12 cards representing each month of the year. So, say for January cards, you have 4 cards, each different but sharing a common theme (Pine). In addition to knowing the deck, you must know the point values of the cards and the value of the "yaku" pairs and acquired combinations to make the best card plays. Cards will match if they belong to the same month set. In other words, as an example, the card with just plum blossoms will match with the card with plum blossoms and a banner or with the card with plum blossoms and a bird.

Object of The Game: Capture cards and card combinations to accumulate the most points to defeat your opponent.

Begin by deciding who goes first. Your opponent picks a card, then you choose your card. The higher card selected begins the game. Use your mouse to click on the card from the middle of the board that matches a card in your hand (at the bottom of screen). Your opponent's hand is face down at the top of the screen. If it's your turn and you find no matches, click on one of your own cards to place it in the middle of the board. After you make your play, you draw one card from the side deck which is done automatically for you by the computer. If the drawn card matches any of the cards on the board you receive the match. All of your captured cards get corralled at the bottom right of the board, and your opponent's are at the top right. You can hover the cursor over cards to see what you can capture. Note: When it's your turn and you take too long to decide your play, the girl will start to whine!

Play progresses until a player has made a yaku (a combination of specific cards, such as ten 1-point cards or three 20-point cards, to name a few). When a player has made a yaku, s/he must decide to continue "koi-koi" or "go" or to "shoubu" or "stop" the hand. Stopping is safe, but may result in a lower score. Continuing may result in a higher score, but the opponent may steal the win from you! You should only choose to continue if you believe that you can make a second yaku before your opponent makes a yaku. A screen will pop up if you or your opponent has to decide to "koi koi" (the left option) or "shoubu" (right option) Click on one to make your decision or wait for your opponent to decide for herself. If she decides to koi-koi, it's then your turn. The game play ends when there is no cards left in the stock pile and no one can make any matches.

You won!

Push or Tie

You lost!

Koi-Koi or Shoubu?

Click here to see some Koi Koi hints and strategies

 

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