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Line’s ‘Wind Runner’ game for iPhone tops App Store charts in Asia

Rick Martin Rick Martin
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Line Corporation pushed an update to its Wind Runner iPhone game on Tuesday, and since then the title has been top free iOS app many countries around Asia, including Taiwan, Hong Kong, Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand, and its home market of Japan. The game is a side scrolling platform which was well received upon its release back in mid-February [1]. You can check out our video demo below to get a better idea of how the game plays. The game is promoted through the company’s popular Line chat application, which is the main reason why it has seen this sort of success. To date, the application has 130 million+ downloads, the majority of which are in the Asia region. Wind Runner is also doing reasonably well on Android, ranked as the number two app overall in Taiwan and Singapore, and number four overall in Thailand and Japan. It looks as though Line Corporation’s strategy of releasing television commercials in local markets is working really well. The company recently surpassed 10 million downloads in Spain, and it has been running a commercial there too. As you might expect, Wind Runner is doing well there also, ranked as the sixth most popular free…

line-wind-runner

Line Corporation pushed an update to its Wind Runner iPhone game on Tuesday, and since then the title has been top free iOS app many countries around Asia, including Taiwan, Hong Kong, Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand, and its home market of Japan. The game is a side scrolling platform which was well received upon its release back in mid-February [1]. You can check out our video demo below to get a better idea of how the game plays.

The game is promoted through the company’s popular Line chat application, which is the main reason why it has seen this sort of success. To date, the application has 130 million+ downloads, the majority of which are in the Asia region. Wind Runner is also doing reasonably well on Android, ranked as the number two app overall in Taiwan and Singapore, and number four overall in Thailand and Japan.

It looks as though Line Corporation’s strategy of releasing television commercials in local markets is working really well. The company recently surpassed 10 million downloads in Spain, and it has been running a commercial there too. As you might expect, Wind Runner is doing well there also, ranked as the sixth most popular free iOS app. Spain the first market outside of Asia where Line Corporation has seen significant success. But you can expect more countries to follow, particularly the US market later this year.

One country where Wind Runner hasn’t really succeeded yet is South Korea, where rival chat platform Kakaotalk dominates in place of Line. Interestingly, Kakaotalk has been winning some ground in Japan, passing the 10 million downloads mark back on March 24.

For more information on the growth of Line and its vast repertoire of apps, including Wind Runner, please check out our interactive Line Timeline which chronicles its growth from its launch back in 2011 up until the present day.

  1. Note that NHN Japan recently rebranded itself as ‘Line Corporation.’  ↩

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Alpaca bashing game inexplicably popular in Japan with 1 million downloads

SCORE 1,182 Rick Martin Rick Martin
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We’ve featured some strange Japanese mobile games here on SD Japan in the past, but this one ranks way up there among the strangest. Alpaka Evolution [1] is a simple game with simple graphics, but its quirkiness appears to have helped it past a million downloads since the game’s initial release for Android on February 5, and for iOS on February 23. The game starts out peaceful enough, with a herd of alpacas grazing in a meadow. But you control one of these alpaca, and with a tap or a swipe you can deal a knockout blow to one of your many brothers. Now, before we hear from the animal cruelty folks, I should clarify that the objective of the game is actually to not kill alpacas. But rather the goal is to absorb as many of your fallen brothers as you can, and evolve into a bigger, more powerful alpaca. The game was developed by a company called Cocosola, and many of its titles appear to be equally off the wall [2]. The app has been the top casual game on Japan’s Google Play store this week, and it has been a top 25 title for iOS for the…

brother-alpaca

We’ve featured some strange Japanese mobile games here on SD Japan in the past, but this one ranks way up there among the strangest. Alpaka Evolution [1] is a simple game with simple graphics, but its quirkiness appears to have helped it past a million downloads since the game’s initial release for Android on February 5, and for iOS on February 23.

The game starts out peaceful enough, with a herd of alpacas grazing in a meadow. But you control one of these alpaca, and with a tap or a swipe you can deal a knockout blow to one of your many brothers. Now, before we hear from the animal cruelty folks, I should clarify that the objective of the game is actually to not kill alpacas. But rather the goal is to absorb as many of your fallen brothers as you can, and evolve into a bigger, more powerful alpaca.

The game was developed by a company called Cocosola, and many of its titles appear to be equally off the wall [2]. The app has been the top casual game on Japan’s Google Play store this week, and it has been a top 25 title for iOS for the majority of time since its release on that platform.

I find it pretty fascinating that a game like this can be so popular [3]. There really isn’t anything to drive you to continue than the curiosity of seeing what grotesque shape your alpaca will mutate into. Currently the game is monetized with in-app advertising, but this might be yet another instance where brand merchandising represents a big opportunity. Who wouldn’t buy a plush mutated alpaca?

Check out our short video demo of the game above. If you’d like to try it out, you can get it on the App Store or over on Google Play. (Via Axelgames)

  1. The game’s title literally means ‘Brother Alpaca,’ but the company appears to have used the name ‘Alpaka Evolution’ (yes, with a ‘k’ and not with a ‘c’) for English.  ↩
  2. I especially look forward to giving Bikini Cat a try.  ↩
  3. Although didn’t that ear-cleaning game also get a million downloads?  ↩

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Japanese mobile game ‘Battle Cats’ hits 2 million downloads [Gameplay Video]

SCORE 1,078 Rick Martin Rick Martin
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I’ve made no secret that I’m a big fan of Ponos’s ‘Battle Cats’. It’s a ridiculously fun tower defense game with an incredible sense of humor. After its initial release back in mid-November 2012, the title managed to hit 2 million downloads in just under three months, which is impressive as the game isn’t riding on any of the major mobile game platforms. While it started off sort of slow, Gamebiz.jp reports that the last million came in a recent 15-day span, making for a good growth spurt. The iOS game has ranked high in Japan (see chart below), and it has performed respectably well in some Asian countries too. For those of you who haven’t tried it yet, I’ve made a quick video overview (see above) of what the game is about. For a free-to-play title, Battle Cats offers up a pretty deep game play experience and I’m still enjoying it months after initially discovering it. Let us know what you think of the game in the comments, or if you have a tip or just want to share a friend code (which helps a lot in this game), feel free to do so.

I’ve made no secret that I’m a big fan of Ponos’s ‘Battle Cats’. It’s a ridiculously fun tower defense game with an incredible sense of humor.

After its initial release back in mid-November 2012, the title managed to hit 2 million downloads in just under three months, which is impressive as the game isn’t riding on any of the major mobile game platforms. While it started off sort of slow, Gamebiz.jp reports that the last million came in a recent 15-day span, making for a good growth spurt. The iOS game has ranked high in Japan (see chart below), and it has performed respectably well in some Asian countries too.

For those of you who haven’t tried it yet, I’ve made a quick video overview (see above) of what the game is about. For a free-to-play title, Battle Cats offers up a pretty deep game play experience and I’m still enjoying it months after initially discovering it.

Let us know what you think of the game in the comments, or if you have a tip or just want to share a friend code (which helps a lot in this game), feel free to do so.

battle-cats-ponos-sm
From AppAnnie.com

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