The third in a series of shorts posts about the Japanese indie games brought together in Issue #0 of 同ZINE // douZINE. Read about 湯圓 [tong jyun]'s exploration of queer immigrant identity through cooking here, and about children's storybook-like RPG Mimi and animals here!

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Nice Gear Games' Choju Yokai Giga is the most mechanically ambitious game in douZine #0 : it's a *takes deep breath* side-scrolling action platformer with tower defense elements in which your powerless character must avoid attacks as she carefully places animal fighters - drawn randomly as cards - to defend against yokai (spirits from Japanese legends and folklore). There's a lot going on!

At its best, it all comes together as you weave through enemies, setting up your animal friends carefully until you can tear your way through bosses ; or in panicky moments as you dash forwards, desperately picking up more cards before the boss can catch you, barely snatching victory from the jaws of defeat... Unfortunately my first attempt at the game saw me struggle to overcome its very first level, and after about 30 minutes of fruitlessly butting my head against it I decided to take a break. Only after coming back to it (and another half an hour of flailing around in the second level) did it finally click with me, making the struggle itself a good time.

Despite the poor first impression, those heights that the game does manage to reach made it worth it for me. And in the process, I found myself thinking about games like I do theatre, and learned to engage with the game on its own terms.


But before we get to that, it might help to have a clearer idea of the way Choju Yokai Giga actually plays. In order to get animal cards into your hand, you have to catch up with the komainu (lion-dog protectors of Japanese temples) off to the right of the screen. You get more cards the longer you stay off the ground before catching them, so you're encouraged to charge forwards, jumping from rooftop to tree branches until you can fill your hand in one go.... Except that of course, the yokai come at you from that side of the screen! That tension is at the core of the game : do you spend your cards to defend yourself, or do you risk damage by pushing ahead, possibly setting yourself up for a better hand?

And that hand will be needed to defeat the bosses that rhythm each level. Each of them is a particularly well-known yokai who get their own little intro sequence, and they deserve the drama because they pack a punch! Their attack patterns are faster and more complex than typical enemies, and they don't go down easy, forcing you to gauge your animals' skills and placement carefully. You'll need build a hand that counters that boss specifically, and if you run out of cards... well, you take your courage in both hands and try to dodge past them to pick up more!

It's a tense dance, balancing the movement control of a platformer, the careful placement of a tower defense game and a tiny dash of deck-building. In order to succeed, you have to pay attention to enemy movement patterns, pick the right animals to block and attack them, and then execute on your plan without messing up too much! Add to that a wide array of animal abilities, and the fact that they only remain on the field for a short amount of time (unless extended with items), and you get an idea of all the mechanical juggling at play here.

What got me on my first attempts is that the screen is fairly small, and that while the enemies are not very smart they eventually come in droves. This - along with the bosses - meant I would often die very fast, without having the time to process what was happening. And even when coming in with a fairly good build, luck of the draw and some bad movement can easily get the better of you, as the three lives you're given don't leave you a lot of wiggle room.

This is a level of challenge clearly intended by Nice Gear Games : it pushes you to make the most of the various systems, since not engaging with any part of them will likely leave you struggling against some of the bosses. Admittedly, some of the difficulty seems less intentional : a more detailed tutorial would have been helpful considering how systems-dense the game is, and the difficulty curve is a little off (notably, level 3 feels like it should have come earlier, with its raised terrain making it easier to get more cards and avoid enemies). But at its core this kind of game, with its focus on systems mastery through repeated (and sometimes extended) failure is... just not my cup of tea.

This is a big part of the joy of an anthology format : it gets me to try engage with games that I might not have otherwise. That context  makes me want to give all of the games a go, whether because of shared themes, or in this case because of a connection with the developers through their words in the zine itself. Most importantly, it gives me an incentive to engage with the game on its own terms.

What I mean by that is consciously shifting the lens away from my inevitable gut reaction to a game (or a book, film, or any creative work). Whether because of genre, some irritating narrative device or mechanic, or just tiredness, I find it's easy for my initial reactions to colour my thoughts about a game, making me view it uncharitably from then on. And those reactions may be entirely justified! But it can stop me from seeing things that are good about the game, things that might endear it to others, or even to myself. Or even ways that it is interesting, even in its failures. 'Engaging with a game on its terms' is getting myself to answer the question "what is this game trying to do (or to get me to do)? what is interesting or fun about it?". This doesn't mean ignoring anything I might find bad about it, but rather trying to see past that to other aspects of the game ; effectively casting it in its best light, to help overcome my chronically uncharitable brain.

When playing very small indie games, this is often the only useful mindset : games made with almost no budget and little time always have to make choices, limiting scope, system complexity and/or polish in order to make something workable. But the execution of that core idea is what's important, and engaging with that part on its terms lets you appreciate it with unclouded eyes. I think about it as with theatre : an audience sitting down to watch a play forms a kind of contract with the performers and crew, in which they are willing to take the action on on stage at face value. Props and stage design can be limited and abstract, space and time contract or expand ; those decisions can be made for specific artistic reasons, or purely out of practicality, and they will always inform the feel of the play at the end. But the whole experience can only work if the audience is open to giving a little of its imagination and empathy.

That co-creative aspective is most noticeable in live performance like theatre, but it feels present (at least to me) in all creative works. In the case of Choku Yokai Giga, the complexities of the game and its unpolished elements both are part of what the game is, and they inform its feel. The slightly floaty movement, the (hilarious) way you can fall off the scenery in level 4 if you miss the exit, but also my own experience with repeated challenges and not managing to wrap my head around the games' systems : all are part of what the game is to me. But giving a bit of myself back to the game got me past some of my first reactions to let me find the core of the game, and enjoy those parts of the struggle.

In Choku Yokai Giga, Nice Gear Games create an impressive mix of mechanics, and transform that core idea into some glorious moments of planning, panic and triumph, and I'm glad that in engaging with their work on its terms I managed to find that joy.  If you're into learning the ins and outs of complex systems, recognising patterns and bringing that to bear with mechanical precision to overcome challenges, you'll enjoy this one! Either way, I'm looking forwards to trying out their other games.