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The making of MaBoShi

by Matt Sephton — Thu, 06 Mar 2025 16:00:00 +0000

It’s no secret that I’m a fan of an almost forgotten WiiWare game called MaBoShi. I’ve posted a review, the staff roll/credits (for the first time in English), written an FAQ strategy guide, managed to score 1 million in its “circle” game on my Nintendo DS, created a way for you to play it more easily on your iPhone, and even finally succeeded to make my own version of the “circle” game over the course of many years. I never miss an opportunity to wax lyrical about its genius, so here I am once again to keep the fire burning.

MaBoShi was published in 2008 by Nintendo and developed by Mindware Corp who have a long and well respected development history. The game was critically acclaimed on release, which might come as a shock if you’ve never heard of it. It was somewhat inaccessible: it was a hardcore arcade title only available digitally on a console that was maligned as being “for kids”. To give a sense of time, the App Store on iPhone was barely a month old at the time of MaBoShi’s release.

As part of the release promotional campaign Micky Albert of Mindware Corp gave an interview with WiiWare World (now Nintendo Life) which can be read in two parts. The team effort of the development of the Wii game is detailed in that interview. However, if we dig a little deeper we can find the true origins of the game in a couple of prototypes created by a Japanese indie developer. Over the years I have pieced together the interesting story of how MaBoShi came to be.

The Long Tail

Kuniaki Watanabe (“kuni”) is probably best known for his PlayStation open world exploration and crafting game Panekit, released in 1999. This was a product of Sony’s ゲームやろうぜ! “Game Yaroze!” development programme (not to be confused with PlayStation’s 「ネットやろうぜ」 “Net Yaroze” dev kit). Panekit offered the type of easy, freeform crafting that would later appear in Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts and even later in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Most famously Panekit took 13 years to become profitable.

In more recent years he’s written a book on game design, 組み立て×分解！ゲームデザイン (“Assembly × Disassembly! Game Design”), that goes into the mechanics that are used in his games, including MaBoShi. It’s only available in Japanese but has a very friendly manga-style presentation and the game design techniques are easily understood.

Throughout the past 30 years kuni has been an indie developer, developing for many platforms using a range of tools. And this is where we pick up the origins of MaBoShi.

Hot Soup Processor

HSP could be thought of as a Japanese equivalent to something like BlitzMax, given that it started life as a version of BASIC, or perhaps Love2D for a rough equivalent of its capabilities.

ONION software, creators of HSP, hold the annual HSP Program Contest and the results for all of these have been archived over the years. Nice work, ONION! We can do a web search of that domain to find mentions of kuni.

Mosser

We find one entry in HSP Program Contest 2004 called Mosser. A quick look at the image below shows that it was an early version of MaBoShi’s “square” game, which later evolved into Flametail on DSiWare in 2010. Mosser was awarded first prize in the small game category.

One of the judges was none other than Micky Albert of Mindware Corp—the company that would go on to develop MaBoShi! He and the other judges were very impressed with the gameplay and depth even at this prototype stage. Kuni would win a PlayStation Portable and some pinball art donated by Mindware who were a sponsor of the event. You can read the judges thoughts and the game can be run in old versions of Windows.

Circular

Kuni would create prototypes in Flash Lite, which was a version of Flash that was suitable for running on low powered devices, including Japanese feature phones. If we search archived versions of kuni’s old websites we can find a download from 2003 called Circular. You can play this in your browser thanks to Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine and Ruffle, a web-based Flash emulator.

Circular is obviously an early version of MaBoShi’s “circle” game.

All bar one

So we have found two of the three games in MaBoShi, which leaves us with the “bar” game. I spoke to kuni and he mentioned that this did not exist as a prototype prior to work commencing on MaBoShi, so it was created for the game when it was decided that a third game would be welcome.

Missing in action

At the time of release there were a couple of English videos of a “making of” developer interview shown in both North America and Europe that have since been lost to time. Nintendo Europe were kind enough to respond to my request about these videos, but told me that their archive currently only goes back to 2012 so we’re sadly out of luck. Here are references I have found to the airing dates for video 1 (Dec 2008) and video 2 (Jan 2009).

These include the juicy fact that the game was initially green lit for the Game Boy Micro (a small Game Boy Advance, marketed as being suitable for one-handed play for Japanese commuters) alongside the bitGenerations series, Polarium, Rhythm Paradise, but after the sales of the Micro were less than anticipated the development was moved to DS and eventually to Wii.

Reading list

“1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die” (Tony Mott, et al) right opposite Spelunky
Tiny Cartridge guest review by Anna Anthropy
TV ad/commercial that inspired MaBoShi’s effect system
Patent application US20090093314 describing MaBoShi’s effect system
Patent application US20110165940 describing Flametail’s power-up system

Credits: MaBoShi (WiiWare)

by Matt Sephton — Sat, 28 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

One of the best (according to MetaCritic, and IMHO) Wii games is a WiiWare game called MaBoShi that is now mostly lost to time in that Nintendo have closed the Wii Shop Channel. Of course, there are other more nefarious means to procure the game, but I’m not going to go into those here.

Anyway, I still play this game regularly (still not managed 1Million on Wii but have on the DS download version) and recently unlocked the Staff Credits (Staff Roll).

Staff Credits

Producers

Mikito Ichikawa
Satoshi Kira

Director

Mikito Ichikawa

System Design

Mikito Ichikawa

Game Design

Kuniaki Watanabe
Mikito Ichikawa
Jun Shimizu

Programming

Kotori Yoshimura
Tadashi Itō
Kuniaki Watanabe
Jun Shimizu
Mikito Ichikawa

Design

Reiko Sato
Hiroki Takahashi

Artwork

Toki Kando
Takanao Kondo

Sound

Daisuke Shiiba
Johan Krafft

European Localisation

Edoardo Dodd
Miguel Ángel García Segovia
Carsten Harmans
Kay Hermann
Geraint Howells
Sonya Mazet

NOE Localisation Management

William Romick

Debug

DIGITAL Hearts CO. LTD
Super Mario Club
Shigeo Kimura
NOA Product Testing
NOE Testing Team

Project Management

Hiroshi Sato
Toshiharu Izuno

Special Thanks

Koji Sato
Toru Inage
Kenta Tanaka
Kozo Makino
Rumiko Hoshino

Executive Producer

Satoru Iwata

All Rights, including the copyrights of Game, Scenario, Music and Program reserved by

Nintendo
Mindware

Addendum

During a chat with Kuniaki Watanabe by Twitter DMs, he outlined the responsibilities of the team:

Programming

Kotori Yoshimura (Wii system, Bar game)
Mikito Ichikawa (NDS system)
Tadashi Ito (Square game)
Jun Shimizu (procedural level generator for Bar game)
Kuniaki Watanabe (Circle game)

Game Design

Kuniaki Watanabe (original game prototypes)
Mikito Ichikawa (reconstruct for Wii)

Level Design

Mikito Ichikawa (Bar game)
Kuniaki Watanabe (Circle game)
Jun Shimizu (procedural level generator for Bar game)

Graphic Design

Reiko Sato

Review: MaBoShi

by Matt Sephton — Sat, 29 Jun 2013 00:25:58 +0000

Three games for the price of one in this innovative WiiWare title. Six if you count the fact that you can download a version of the game over Wi-Fi to your Nintendo DS to play on the move.

WiiWare is the downloadable game service on Nintendo’s Wii home console. It lets you download smaller sized and lower priced games direct to your console, and offers a distinctly different range of games than you can pick up through more traditional retail outlets. The channel showcases game concepts that may not have been profitable to release elsewhere. It’s astonishing that without WiiWare, MaBoShi may never have seen the light of day. Each of its three game concepts are so unconventional and slight that I think most gamers might not give them a second glance, even at this very affordable price.

MaBoShi takes advantage of few of the Wii’s features but still delivers a solid and innovative experience. It allows players to use their Miis as avatars in the game, send replays to other players via WiiConnect24, and also has the previously mentioned Wi-Fi download to Nintendo DS. But there is no sign of motion control. In fact, whilst the wii remote is used as a pointer for the game menu, MaBoShi is firmly a one button game. Or perhaps that be three one button games, as there are actually three main game modes: Circle, Bar and Square. Each mode is played differently, but with the same objective - to score one million points. In the Wii version there are three game panels on screen, allowing simultaneous multi-player.

With multiple players the game adds an extra feature into the mix, known simply as the Effect System. Destroying an enemy will cause a bubble to appear. This bubble moves across the screen and over other game panels where it can affect other games in progress. This means that players managing their own separate games may be influenced by these effects eminating from other game panels, and players may therefore choose whether they wish to help or hinder their fellow players. It’s not often you get to choose whether to play cooperatively or competitively, and I really like this aspect of the gameplay.

Circle mode - my personal favourite - finds you in control of a constantly rotating circle, able to switch the direction in which it is spinning by pressing the A button. By controlling the speed and momentum of the circle, you must guide it around the screen. You can use the variety of dynamic obstacles that appear on screen as a means to achieving the precise movement required to collide with the enemies and collect bonus multipliers. The aim of each round is to collide with all enemies as they appear onscreen, before they move off the game area. It is game over as soon as one enemy leaves the play field. The depth of control in this game mode is simply astonishing, and infrequent taps of the A button allow almost analog control of speed and momentum. Special mention must also go to the level design in this game, as it is balanced to perfection. In fact, if you’re good enough to score a million you will most likely do so near the end of all available 40 levels.

Bar mode sees you manoeuvring a rotating bar through a vertically scrolling level. The bar rotates around a core, which only moves using the momentum created by the bar and only when the A button is held. The bar can be used to defeat enemies and smash blocks, but if the core touches an enemy or a block the game ends. There are also pinballs, powerups and much more to contend with. I find this game the most difficult of the three.

Square mode sees the player controlling a single block that leaves a trail of fire behind. This trail of fire can burn obstacles, and can even set other parts of the trail alight. You must navigate around the screen, at your own pace, setting fire to all the obstacles with the help of the occasional bomb, whilst keeping an eye out for bonus multipliers. The screen scrolls when the player moves, and if an obstacle or part of the trail of fire hits the bottom of the screen, the game ends.

Created by Japanese pinball experts Mindware Corp, and based on pre-existing prototypes created by team member Kuniaki Watanabe, MaBoShi is a triumph of game design and deserves your attention. If you fancy a challenge I can heartily recommend trying to reach one million points in one or all of the game modes (I’ve only managed to do it myself in circle mode on the DS download version) - the game has a lot to offer if you’re willing to give it a try. Nintendo seem to be of the same mind, as they recently released an updated and expanded version of the Square game for their DSiWare download service under the name of Flametail (USA) also known as Trailblaze: Puzzle Incinerator (EU) and Moyasu Puzzle: Flametail (JPN).

How to play

Review: Orbital

by Matt Sephton — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 00:28:00 +0000

Drifting through space without a care in the universe.

During the final days of the Game Boy Advance a series of games were released by Nintendo in their home territory of Japan under the bit Generations label. A set of seven games featuring basic but stylish graphics and somewhat experimental gameplay.

My favourite of the bunch was Orbital, or sometimes Orbient, the objective of which is to control a white star which can grow larger by absorbing other stars. Similarly sized stars are coloured blue, smaller stars are grey and larger stars are red. Collecting blue or grey stars forms the basis of progression in the game, though there are some subtleties to gameplay as it is possible to gain satellites by approaching smaller stars at an angle that will cause them to orbit you - orbit range is shown by a ring around the star. Red stars and asteroids must be avoided at all costs, adding a subtle but necessary level of danger to proceedings. Once your star has grown big enough a final star will begin to glow orange and capturing it in your orbit will clear the stage.

The method of control is really interesting - two buttons are used to either attract or repel your star from the nearest object. This may sound limiting but it allows for an almost analog level of precision from a distinctly digital method of control. Limited lives and other non-collectible obstacles round off the game perfectly. Imagine Katamari Damacy pared down to the essential elements and you’ll be on your way to understanding the vibe.

The beauty of any game built around such a simple set of rules is in the level design, and Orbital is no exception. The difficulty curve - how the levels increase in complexity - is just right, meaning you’ll never feel cheated. New methods of play will need to be discovered if you are to stand any chance of being able to manoeuvre your star with the precision demanded in some of the later levels. Playing the game is a very relaxing experience, and you may find yourself floating around losing hours in the process. It’s as much of a zone game as Tempest 2000, F-Zero or the Wipeout series but more of a thinking mans game than a twitch experience. Though there’s still opportunity for it to sink it’s claws in deep enough to have you screaming at the TV - trying to beat your previous best for any level and numerous minor objectives reward repeated play. In other words: this game has real depth.

The game was later given a re-release on WiiWare under the name of Orbient. Graphics and sound were given extra definition for the big screen and there were a few minor additions to the gameplay, meaning that it’s well worth playing even if you’ve played the original. Both versions of the game are a triumph, showing that beauty and simplicity in gameplay can lead to an engrossing game with a fantastic atmosphere.