Category: Games & Apps

Review – Paperless Post Project

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Recently, I was contacted by the Paperless Post Project, offering me some credits to explore and review their service. At first, I admit that I was uncertain about a way to tie it in to the content of this blog, but my worries were unfounded. We had a kimono club event coming up, and there’s such a wonderful variety of invitations and digital paper products that I knew it would be a great way to send out invites.

Paperless Post is a fantastic alternative to traditional mail. It’s infinitely customiseable and eco-friendly, but still feels exciting and cohesive, like receiving a physical invitation. The interface is fantastic – you can personalise nearly every aspect of the “mail” you’re sending, from the card to the envelope and stamp to even the backdrop surface the envelope opens on! For people who don’t have the time or skill to create their own designs, many of the pre-existing designs are absolutely gorgeous. However, if you enjoy that sort of a thing and like being in control, you can change or alter every element involved. As you know, seasonality and aesthetics play a huge part in kimono, so the fact that you can tweak and customise and find designs for nearly everything really appealed to me.

There are plenty of options on the site that are free, but some premium options do require an in-site coin currency. However, it’s totally possible to make and send a beautiful card or invitation without using any coins!

The interface is very straightforward and intuitive;  to change an element simply click on the part you’d like to edit. All the options will be displayed, and a small text in the upper corner will tell you how many coins you’ll need for each card or invitation you send out. You fill out your information and then finally enter the names and email addresses of your desired recipients. One feature I would like to see here would be some sort of integration with Facebook Events. In this modern age of social media, collecting email addresses seems almost archaic. That’s really my only “complaint” about Paperless Post, and it’s definitely a minor one. But if you’re hoping to share your card or invitation online, it’s something to keep in mind.

Now that the event is over and done with, here’s the lovely little invite I created for our kimono club meetup! You can see how much it looks and feels like “real” mail, from the envelope front to the card sliding out of the flap. It’s a really fun and charming experience.

Will Paperless Post replace physical mail entirely? Probably not. But in this brave new world of long-distance friendship, increasing postal service costs, and awareness of carbon footprints and environmental impacts, it’s definitely a service worth looking into!

 I received this item from the retailer or manufacturer for honest review purposes.If you have a topically appropriate craft, product, or service you would like me to review, please contact me. 

Happy Otsukimi!

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Today is Otsukimi (お月見), the autumn full-moon viewing festival! It’s incredibly overcast here and they’re predicting thunder storms all evening so I won’t get to enjoy the moon here. I have some mochi waiting for me at home, thankfully. However, earlier today Kornelia of Kanzashi Yume shared a link to an utterly adorable little mobile game and I had to check it out and share it with you all.

The game is called (unsurprisingly) Otsukimi, and it’s a straightforward brain-teaser game where you have to solve little puzzles in order to escape from a room, but everything is Otsukimi-themed. Plenty of rabbits and mochi for everyone to enjoy, regardless of where you live or whether the moon is visible in your sky. It’s a very sweet, relaxing sort of game. There is no time limit, nothing to frustrate you. Just simple fun puzzles and beautiful graphics. It will take between 10 and 20 minutes, depending on how quickly you solve the puzzles, but you can take as long as you need to. Once you’ve finished the primary objective of escaping the room, you can play a much shorter second mini-game, finding the hidden rabbits in the room. It’s an incredibly sweet and charming little game and I highly recommend it for anyone looking for a nice way to relax and unwind while celebrating the Autumn full moon!

Otsukimi is available on Google Play for Android devices as well as the iOS Store for Apple devices. Please check it out!

The company who developed this, Jammsworks, has many other similar escape games including one called Hakone which takes place in a beautiful Japanese house and garden, and Obon which takes place in a beautiful summery field of sunflowers. You can bet I will be checking those ones out soon as well.

Washitsu Games!

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As I’ve mentioned recently I love miniatures, and you guys know how much I love silly dress-up games. Somehow though, I never thought to combine the two until recently. I know there are things like Animal Crossing and Second Life that allow you to customise your own spaces, but those require a fair bit of investment of time and effort. I was looking for more casual alternatives so I went searching for online games to decorate traditional Japanese-style rooms and I was not disappointed!

sakuraSakura House Decoration Game - This is the most immersive of the ones I've found. You can decorate four rooms: living room, kitchen, bedroom, and an exterior courtyard. There's not a huge selection of furniture, but there's enough to make a cute little vignette in each room, or you can choose to do what I've done here and make a studio-style one-room house. There are also a few kimono-clad female figures you can put in the rooms, but their outfits are not particularly accurate and they don't interact with the room in any way. Personally, I think the empty rooms are much cuter.
tatamiJapanese Tatami Room - Pretty much what it says on the tin! There's one room with a fixed structural layout (door, window, cabinet nook, and tokonoma) and you can choose all the finishes and surfaces, and then add in accents of seating, tables, and accessories. Not a huge selection, but still fun and relaxing.
exterior-designer-japanese-gardenExterior Designer - Japanese Garden - This one actually an exterior-only game. You can choose from a set selection of backgrounds, middle-grounds, foregrounds, paths, and bridges to combine into a cohesive and beautiful garden. There's not a ton of options, but it's very relaxing to play with.
Home Sweet HomeHome Sweet Home by Big Blue Bubble - I debated whether or not to include this one, due to the difficulty installing and running it, but it's pretty enough that I decided to go for it. I mentioned popular sandbox/decor games like The Sims and Second Life already, but this game is a bit of a hidden gem. There's no social aspect, no interaction, it really is all about the decorating aspect. There's a thin semblance of plot, essentially you're a designer and have to renovate rooms for clients, meeting their needs and wants. For every success you have, you unlock items and rooms in your own house that you can decorate to your heart's desire. There's a wide selection of far east Asian-inspired items and essentially no rules. Unfortunately, this game is quite old, and can be finicky on newer machines. It's available for purchase in the above link, and can also be torrented. I don't usually condone that sort of thing, but the game is old, finicky to run, and no longer has any support system.

I do apologise for the lack of content lately – it’s just been so infernally hot here in Montreal that I haven’t had the energy to undress and redress the mannequin, or even to scan a few of the books I’ve got lined up for review. Things are finally starting to cool down and I’ve got a bunch of pretty new things to show you guys, so hopefully we’ll be back to normal soon!

Review: Mai-Star Card Game

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Something a little different for today – a card game! Mai-Star is billed as a game of “Beauty and guile in the floating world“. It’s a beautiful, quick little card game that focuses on geisha entertaining clients and earning points to win the round. There are six geisha to choose from, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. The game was designed by renowned game designer Seiji Kanai, after he’d been asked why none of his games to date were based on Japanese culture.

I invited a few friends over to test the game out. They’re familiar with card and board games, not so much with the world of maiko and geiko. I thought getting their perspectives would be interesting.

The first thing I noticed about Mai-Star is how absolutely gorgeous the artwork is. The geisha are all beautiful and unique, and while the artists have taken some creative liberties with things like hairstyle and accessories it’s clear that all the artwork is grounded in reality and accuracy. The game is set in an ephemeral time and location, which does result in a few stylistic choices that made me raise an eyebrow (the Okaasan card wearing Heian-era court noble robes, for example) but since it’s a fantasy game I don’t find that this detracts at all from the entertainment value. I also very much appreciate that these women are not some westernised, inaccurate stereotype of geisha. The characters in this game are beautiful, educated entertainers and at no point in the course of the game is it ever suggested they are anything else. The relatively unique subject matter is treated with utmost respect.

In the words of Kanai:

I believe foreigners have a lot of different images of Japan, but the classic trio is always “Samurai, Geisha, Ninja”. Games with samurai and ninjas were already all over the place, so I decided to go with geishas. Not even Japanese see much of real life geishas today, but shortly put they’re extremely educated party hostesses and professional entertainers, and I figured nothing bad could come out from spreading this piece of Japanese culture a bit more. (source)

 

It took us a few turns to get the hang of the game, but it’s quite straightforward and once we all got into it, the rounds went by quite quickly. The objective is to raise your geisha’s reputation (stats – performance, service, and intelligence) in order to attract high-paying clients. The geisha who earns the most after each festival (round) wins. It sounds very simple, but requires a lot of thought and planning. You can either choose to focus on boosting your own stats, or you can be crafty and attempt to sabotage the other players. The game doesn’t favour one playing type over another, making it fun and accessible for a wide range of players.

As you can see, we didn’t shuffle the cards as well as we should have, but it was still a lot of fun! You can purchase a copy of Mai-Star from Alderac Games on Amazon. I highly recommend it if you’re looking for a beautiful, fun little card game.

I received this item from the retailer or manufacturer for honest review purposes.If you have a topically appropriate craft, product, or service you would like me to review, please contact me.This post contains affiliate link(s). If you choose to purchase, I receive a small rebate or commission which goes to the continued maintenance of this site.

Happy Hina-matsuri!

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Today is 雛祭り or Hina-matsuri! Literally translated as doll festival, it’s also referred to as Dolls Day or Girls Day. Dolls representing the Emperor and Empress (and, should you have the space and budget, also members of the court) are set out on a display and people pray for the happiness and health of any girls in the household.

Originally, I had planned to do a coordination on Tsukiko, something girly and pastel and princessy, but that idea got a bit derailed today. I might give it a shot tomorrow.

Instead, I remembered I had a new kimono doll post in the works, and figured what better day to finish it up and post it than today? These kimono dolls posts continue to be some of the most popular features on this blog if my back-end statistics are to be believed. I’m glad people enjoy them as much as I do. Especially with my health issues, and living in a country where it can go from -40 to +40 in the span of a few months, these dolls give me a way to enjoy coordinating and experimenting with kimono in a way nothing else can. Kimono and wafuku continue to grow in popularity and their presence is becoming more and more mainstream, which means lots of fun new dolls to play with! Here are a few recent ones I’ve found and particularly enjoyed.

cde-seikoSeiko Dressup - A very cute, chibi-style doll with lots of wardrobe options. She's got a selection of traditional and hime-style outfits, and the option to mix and match top and bottom halves. There are accessories to play with and you can change her makeup, but the doll base is fixed.
cherry bloom girlCherry Bloom Girl - A fairly decent selection of kimono, obi, accessories, and hairstyles. However, not all accessories fit with all hairstyles, and not all obi fit with all kimono. Still quite pretty and fun to play with though.
coupleRoyal Couple - Cute graphics, and lots of pretty options for the Empress, but I feel like the Emperor was an afterthought. He's got way less options, and most of his outfits feel more like yukata than courtly wardrobe, so there's a bit of a disconnect when the two are together.
japanese girlJapanese Girl - Despite the name, the doll in this game doesn't strike me as very Japanese-looking. She's pretty though. There are a few hairstyles to choose from, and ten kimono. However, the kimono and obi are connected, so there's not a huge amount of mix-and-matching here.
kitcuteKit the Kimono Designer - This is one of the best new kimono dress-up/creator games I've seen in a long time. It's got a very sweet hand-drawn art style and a ton of customisation! You can customise all aspects of the doll base and then create hundreds of possible kimono variations by mixing a huge selection of colours and patterns. Be careful with this one; it would be very easy to lose track of time while playing with it!

I also made my own origami Obina (emperor) and Mebina (empress) origami dolls. You may have seen them already if you follow me on Instagram, but here is a better photo.

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