Japanese game implements mysterious counter users must maintain to keep the game alive 

Japanese publisher Visual Arts announced on July 15 that they will stop releasing new content for their iOS/Android game Itsuwari no Alice. However, the game itself will continue to operate, albeit under certain conditions. The announcement has gathered attention from users for having a mysterious twist. 

Itsuwari no Alice is a fairy tale-inspired mobile game. It depicts the story of flawed girls, “failures” who were born in the process of creating the protagonists of fairy tales. Aiming to become “the real thing,” the girls fight alongside the player. The player organizes their party of girls and conquers various quests in an auto-battle like mechanic. 

The Itsuwari no Alice management team announced that that they will be halting the release of new content following the maintenance scheduled for July 31. They explained that the game will continue to operate even after July 31, and that a “server fee counter” and a “counter of something” will be implemented during the maintenance. As for how long the game will continue to be available in the future, the publishers state that it will continue to operate for as long as the server fee counter doesn’t drop below the mysterious “counter of something.”  
 
Although no details regarding the “something counter” have have been revealed, many users seem to think that it may refer to sales from gacha. 

The novel idea to introduce counters upon whose balance the game’s fate will depend has received a variety of reactions from users. Many of the comments seem to be favorable, with users liking the idea of being able to have an insight into whether the game will continue to exist by keeping track of the counters, as opposed to the game being terminated out of the blue. Making a visualization of the conditions for the game to survive available to users is definitely a unique approach. It will be interesting to see how long Itsuwari no Alice will continue to exist, with its fate in the hands of its users. 

Written by. Amber V based on the original Japanese article (original article’s publication date: 2023-07-17 08:38 JST)