was a

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

development company founded in 2000 by Tetsuo Mizuno and

Chihiro Fujioka is a video game designer and video game music, composer, as well as rock drummer. He has worked at Xtalsoft, Square (video game company), Square, and AlphaDream where he is primarily known for directing ''Super Mario RPG'' as well as his involve ...

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. In partnership with

Nintendo is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It develops video games and video game consoles. Nintendo was founded in 1889 as by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produce ...

, it produced software for the

Game Boy Color The (commonly abbreviated as GBC) is a handheld game console, manufactured by Nintendo, which was released in Japan on October 21, 1998 and to international markets that November. It is the successor to the Game Boy and is part of the Game ...

, Game Boy Advance,

Nintendo DS The is a handheld game console produced by Nintendo, released globally across 2004 and 2005. The DS, an initialism for "Developers' System" or "Dual Screen", introduced distinctive new features to handheld games: two LCD screens working in tan ...

Nintendo 3DS The is a handheld game console produced by Nintendo. It was announced in March 2010 and unveiled at E3 2010 as the successor to the Nintendo DS. The system features backward compatibility with Nintendo DS video games. As an eighth-generatio ...

, and

Nintendo Switch The is a hybrid video game console developed by Nintendo and released worldwide in most regions on March 3, 2017. The console itself is a Tablet computer#Gaming tablet, tablet that can either be docking station, docked for use as a home video ...

, including the '' Mario & Luigi'' series. The company's staff included former developers from Square, such as Yoshihiko Maekawa. On October 1, 2019, AlphaDream was shut down after filing for

bankruptcy Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor ...

History

AlphaDream is a spinoff company from , a

staffing agency An employment agency is an organization which matches employers to employees. In developed countries, there are multiple private businesses which act as employment agencies and a publicly-funded employment agency. Public employment agencies One ...

that dealt in construction work also known as . Chihiro Fujioka joined AlphaStar in 1999 to head up a video game production division. He and Tetsuo Mizuno spun the company off as AlphaStar Software on January 12, 2000, before renaming it to AlphaDream in July of that year. Several members of their staff had previously worked at Square, including Mizuno, Square's second president, and Fujioka and Yoshihiko Maekawa, who were game directors at Square. The name AlphaDream, meaning the 'first dream', is a play on ''

Final Fantasy is a Japanese video game, Japanese science fantasy anthology media franchise created by Hironobu Sakaguchi and developed and owned by Square Enix (formerly Square (video game company), Square). The franchise centers on a series of fantasy and ...

'', Square's most notable series. The company is known for their role-playing games, most notably the '' Mario & Luigi'' series for the Game Boy Advance, the

and the

. Their first game, ''Koto Battle'', was a ''

Pokémon (an abbreviation for in Japan) is a Japanese media franchise managed by The Pokémon Company, founded by Nintendo, Game Freak, and Creatures (company), Creatures, the owners of the trademark and copyright of the franchise. In terms of ...

''-style role-playing game, wherein the player battles three of their twenty character cards against AI opponents. It was released in March 2001 for the

. While it remains a Japan-only game, it was later re-released for the

Virtual Console A virtual console (VC) – also known as a virtual terminal (VT) – is a conceptual combination of the keyboard and display for a computer user interface. It is a feature of some Unix-like operating systems such as Linux, BSD, illumos, Unix ...

. AlphaDream's next game was ''Tomato Adventure'', released in January 2002. The player, as DeMille, a tomato-hater in the Ketchup Kingdom, fights his way from his outcast village to rescue his girlfriend. The in-game weapons are toy-like and the battles against opponents involve minigames. ''Tomato Adventure'' was co-developed with Graphic Research and directed by Chihiro Fujioka of '' Super Mario RPG'' and ''

Final Fantasy Legend III ''Final Fantasy Legend III'', known in Japan as ''SaGa 3: Jikuu no Hasha'', is a role-playing video game developed and published by Square for the Game Boy. The third entry in the ''SaGa'' series, it was released in Japan in 1991 and in North Ame ...

''. It was expected for release on the Game Boy Color as ''Gimmick Land'', but was pushed to the new Game Boy Advance and renamed for better marketing. ''Tomato Adventure'' has not been released outside Japan. AlphaDream became the developer of the ''Mario & Luigi'' series of games shortly after, with the first entry in the series, '' Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga'', releasing in 2003. On October 1, 2019, AlphaDream declared bankruptcy, citing sluggish revenues and high development costs, and being unable to keep up with growing debt (which as of March 2018 was over ¥465 million).

Games

Notes

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Alphadream Defunct video game companies of Japan Japanese companies established in 2000 Video game companies established in 2000 Japanese companies disestablished in 2019 Video game companies disestablished in 2019 Video game development companies Software companies based in Tokyo Companies that have filed for bankruptcy in Japan