Welcome To Japan Home’s Neon Downtown
by Burbie52, HSM team writer
Joanna Dark notified me about Granzella’s newest contribution to Japan Home, Neon Downtown, and invited me to go there with her and look at it so she could help me learn about the games there and how to play them. I took her up on her proposal, and I’m very glad I did.
Neon Downtown is a very interesting place: not only does it have its own monetary system, much like Sodium Lockwood does, but it also hosts several free to play games that can net you some very cool rewards. The rewards here have to be earned though, and they aren’t cheap either. Though free, they can take quite a bit of time and effort to achieve, something that many gamers enjoy, I think.
When you first arrive there you find yourself looking into a well-lit street ahead, one that is covered by a roof high overhead, sort of like an outdoor mall. There are bright lights everywhere, and more of the street stretches out behind you with NPCs in the distance. This is much like the Edo Village we now have in America Home. It makes you wonder if they might eventually open these areas as well like they have with Edo in Japan already. There are shops and an open food stall right ahead of you; the stall is a game and the shops have both games and retail stores available. You can walk right into them as you can with our mall now, and this adds to the realistic feel of the space.
NPC gathered at end of street
As you walk into the space you are confronted by many sights and sounds. There’s some background walla, like a low murmur and the sounds of food being prepared. There are arcade machines scattered here and there, as well as a storefront gaming space you can walk right into to play a game that requires tickets to play. There is an information spot right at the beginning to look at and buy the rewards that are available with your earned “Happy Points”.
The games involved with earning your credits and “Happy Points” work like this. There are three different places you can “work” or be a customer. One is the outside food stall I mentioned before, another is a walk-in sushi restaurant, and the last is a bar/lounge with music and dancing. Each of them has a tutorial to teach you what you have to do to earn your pay and turn those into “Happy Points” by using the pay to buy things from servers, who are also players, and consequently buy the rewards you want at the information booth/store.
All of the games are based around the same principle. You get an order to fill when working as a server, with up to three customers to serve to at one time. This order will vary according to what the customer has to spend and what they order from you. It is then up to you to match their order correctly and as quickly as possible by picking the right choice out of a list that appears below the picture of the selected item. This is where it gets interesting though because as you become a more experienced server, you also get to level up and this eventually gains both you and the customer more “Happy Points” to buy your rewards with.
Sushi Restaurant
As a customer, you therefore want to find the highest-level server available to ensure you get the most for your hard earned credits. The highest servers are level twelve, and are highly sought after as a consequence; there is even a queue system set up to allow people to wait for a particular server to get an open seat. This queue system also is in effect for those who want to be servers when it is busy. For example, if you buy an item from a level twelve server for six hundred credits, you will gain four hundred fifty “Happy Points.” When you buy from anyone lower than that the amount you get goes down. When you first arrive at Neon Downtown you are a level five, and this is where another key factor comes into play.
At the bottom left of your screen while here you will notice a bar with an arrow that points either up, down or sideways. This is your mood gauge. The object here is to fill the gauge by working as a server, doing the tutorials (which also earn you some credits by the way), and also by buying from other servers. You want to keep the arrow going up til it reaches full then it will point sideways, this is when it is the best time to be a server and gain the most for both yourself and your customers, as you are at your highest mood and therefore the highest level as a server available to you which is level nine as a beginner.
A "bunny" outfit/reward
Like I said, this whole system is very unique in Home. Though you earn credits through game play, you also have to work very hard at it and you have to earn two types of currency in order to gain the rewards. The rewards themselves are different and they keep in line with the environment that the space projects. Females can get cute “Playboy bunny” type outfits, including two types of torso, cuffs, ears and shoes in several different colors. Males get a long coated outfit and there are several smaller things like hats and the like to earn.
I found the bar/lounge area here to be the most interesting space to visit. It has a nice dance floor and is obviously intended to be the social area in the space as well as providing another game at the bar to utilize. It has a smoky dark atmosphere and a stage you can get up on with changing lights that flash and move. The music they play isn’t half bad either.
The Bar
This entire area on the street level reminds me of the Playground in SCEA Home. It has dark alleys that are blocked off by cars and other vehicles and in reality isn’t really that large of a space to wander around in. But it feels bigger than it is because of the open ended street on either side where NPC are standing and moving about. Unlike the Edo village area there is no visible barrier, but it is still there, and this gives more of a feeling that there might be more to come if they expand the space.
I hope that Granzella follows the trend they are setting and brings this new public area to us as they have with their other offerings. It is jam packed with things to do and another monetary system that offers free earned rewards would be a nice new addition to this place we call Home.
- Loaded with games.
- Nice party atmosphere.
- Cool looking rewards.
- Monetary reward system.
- None I can think of.
January 20th, 2012 by Burbie52 | 11 comments
Burbie52 is a 62 year-old published author and founder of the Grey Gamers group within Home. Born and raised in Michigan, she has lived there her entire life, with the exception of a twelve-year residency on the Big Island of Hawaii. She enjoys reading and writing, as well as video games, especially RPG's. She has one son in his twenties.
Very nice review, Burbie. Hopefully this too will make its way to the NA Home.
Omg awesome review I can’t wait to go check this out come on maintenance update.
I don’t region hop, so I have to rely on reports like this one for details, but it sounds like Granzella is fulfilling the PR tagline of “making Home itself a game” with this space. This is something that Lockwood has done exceptionally well with the Sodium Hub (and, to a lesser extent, nDreams with Aurora), and it’s good to see other third-party developers picking up on this idea.
Personal opinion: the Hub Sportswalk would greatly benefit from a bartending game (similar to Scorpio’s) in which the participants earned poker chips. Just throwing it out there.
I totally agree with you Norse about the Sportswalk, I said the same thing to my friends when I first saw it, that bar is begging for a mini game.
Very nice Burbie! You do a wonderful job! I enjoyed your company in Japan and it was fun showing you around. Such an awesome space.
Some images of a couple of the costumes for the ladies are here on my Flickr. Men have a very nice gold suit as well but the women certainly have more rewards.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/joanna_dark_/sets/72157628798590283/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/joanna_dark_/sets/72157628904294505/
Granzella also updated the space this week. They added another food serving/customer area – an indoor one – and a number of new rewards including bathing suits and some jewelry.
Very nice. It is always good to hear that they are changing things in any new space. I had a good time with you as well and I guess I will have to go back and check out the new goodies.
I think I would enjoy region hopping. This sounds like fun.
Very nice overview of the space and it is nicely detailed. I look forward to seeing it in North America.
One thing I noticed about the rewards there is that it’s one of those places that people spend more time working to obtain the virtual rewards than they would working in the real world to earn enough money to purchase the items. Just another one of those Home quirks.
Can’t wait to see it come to Asia!
Some potentially bad news relative to the Neon Downtown space in Japan. Neon Downtown closing at least temporarily according to this info posted yesterday in Japan. One can only wonder why.
http://granzella.co.jp/gz_info/20120124.html
Video of the Space.
http://granzella.co.jp/contents/4koma/images/comic_image/2012_1/Hankagai_Ending.mp4