Majesco Preps Blokus for Stateside Release
Wait, wha? Huh? And it's based on Steambot Chronicles? The hell?
Published: December 5, 2007
It took us a second to sort it all out, but we've finally gotten to the bottom of this Blokus Portable: Steambot Championship business. See, Majesco has grabbed the rights to the PSP game based off of Steambot Chronicles, the IREM-developed quirky little RPG put out by Atlus about a year and a half ago. We even managed to grab screens of the Japanese version of the game when it was shown off at the Tokyo Game Show last year and put 'em in our massive rundown.
What threw us off the trail a little was that the Japanese title references Bumpy Trot, the JP name for Steambot Chronicles, but what was even weirder was that Majesco apparently thinks that Blocks Club with Bumpy Trot is too simple to just change the Steambot reference to and instead decided to name it Blokus Portable. Hookay then. Whatever the name, it's sold like crazy in Japan.
“With three million units sold and credit as the most acclaimed game of the century, the Blokus board game is clearly an international sensation,” details Gui Karyo, Executive VP of Operations at Majesco. “Based on this incredibly successful property, Blokus Portable combines strategic gameplay with 16 player support to make it the perfect social puzzle game that’s easy to pick up, yet hard to put down.”
Decked out with 16 player Ad-Hoc Wi-Fi play and three-player Game Sharing, Blokus Portable follows the same rules as the physical game, which is that players take turns putting down colored pieces on a board, but a piece must be put down so that it's touching a like color on the corners but not the sides. Simple, no? It's an intriguing concept, and we're a little surprised that Atlus didn't snatch this one up, but hey, seeing our buddies at Majesco grab a potentially awesome title (even if nobody here has a clue what it is) makes us nice and happy.
As soon as we have more details and maybe a little hands-on time with the game, we'll be sure to check it out, but if you're still confused, you can click on the Images link at the top of the page to see the Japanese screens... y'know, so you'll be even more confused.
What threw us off the trail a little was that the Japanese title references Bumpy Trot, the JP name for Steambot Chronicles, but what was even weirder was that Majesco apparently thinks that Blocks Club with Bumpy Trot is too simple to just change the Steambot reference to and instead decided to name it Blokus Portable. Hookay then. Whatever the name, it's sold like crazy in Japan.
“With three million units sold and credit as the most acclaimed game of the century, the Blokus board game is clearly an international sensation,” details Gui Karyo, Executive VP of Operations at Majesco. “Based on this incredibly successful property, Blokus Portable combines strategic gameplay with 16 player support to make it the perfect social puzzle game that’s easy to pick up, yet hard to put down.”
Decked out with 16 player Ad-Hoc Wi-Fi play and three-player Game Sharing, Blokus Portable follows the same rules as the physical game, which is that players take turns putting down colored pieces on a board, but a piece must be put down so that it's touching a like color on the corners but not the sides. Simple, no? It's an intriguing concept, and we're a little surprised that Atlus didn't snatch this one up, but hey, seeing our buddies at Majesco grab a potentially awesome title (even if nobody here has a clue what it is) makes us nice and happy.
As soon as we have more details and maybe a little hands-on time with the game, we'll be sure to check it out, but if you're still confused, you can click on the Images link at the top of the page to see the Japanese screens... y'know, so you'll be even more confused.