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Happy Software, Ltd. (Chinese: 吉喜軟体公司), also known as HappySoft, is the alias of doujin game developer Kowloon Kurosawa, from Tokyo, Japan. He is probably the only known unlicensed game company to deal with Super Famicom floppies. He is known for making an unlicensed game for the Super Famicom in 1995 titled Hong Kong 97 (香港97). HappySoft also made a slideshow demo called Jumyou Ga Chijimaru featuring graphic content.[2]
The only other game known to have been produced by them is a simulation game parodying the Japanese doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo (otherwise known as Aleph) for the NEC PC-9801UV called 上九一色村物語 (The Story of Kamikuishiki Village). The games weren't made by Kurosawa, instead, he outsourced development to an Enix employee for Hong Kong 97, while The Story of Kamikuishiki Village was made by two of his friends.
As a company, Aum Soft, presumably an in-house team consisting of Kurosawa and two of his friends, is known to have been formed specifically to release The Story of Kamikuishiki Village. They are credited in a magazine advertisement published by Game Urara in 1995, where it is said the game sold for 14,500¥, and was sold on a mail order basis.[3]
Their games are political satire, and often feature graphic imagery stolen from various shockumentaries, such as New Death File III, which was used for Hong Kong 97's game over screen. The images and videos in The Story of Kamikuishiki Village are of the cult's members and practices, though they were picked in a way so as to mock the cult.[4]
Trivia[]
According to the magazine that The Story of Kamikuishiki Village was listed in, Happysoft is apparently 'Taiwanese funded'. The magazine also claimed that Hong Kong '97 was so popular it was copied and resold a lot, particularly in Hong Kong and Bangkok, Thailand.
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