SystemSoft Alpha Corporation is a Japanese software development company. Formerly just "SystemSoft", they have a long series of mainly military strategic simulation games (generally hex-based) popular in the Japan market. Notable among these are the many ''

Daisenryaku is a series of war strategy video games by SystemSoft and SystemSoft Alpha in Japan. The series debuted in Japan in 1985 with exclusively for the NEC PC-98. Games in the franchise have been released for many platforms including the PC-88, X1, ...

'' and ''

Master of Monsters ''Master of Monsters'' is a turn-based strategy game developed by SystemSoft for the MSX and NEC PC8801. It was ported to a variety of consoles and PCs including the PC Engine CD, NEC PC9801, and Sega Genesis/Mega Drive. While it never had ...

'' series games that have been ported to multiple platforms from PCs to consoles. In 1998, SystemSoft spun off their video game business into SystemSoft Production. In 1999, Alpha Shock was founded, and SystemSoft invested 25.1% of the initial capital. In 2001, SystemSoft sold all investments of Alpha Shock, and they transferred the video game business from SystemSoft Production to Alpha Shock. Alpha Shock were renamed to SystemSoft Alpha, although they are independent from SystemSoft. The main website for the game division, regardless of platform, is now SystemSoft Alpha, but "Alpha" still is not seen in the logo of the company on game boxes. Only a handful of the dozens of games in their portfolio have ever been translated to make it to English-speaking markets, including two

games for the

Sega Genesis The Sega Genesis, known as the outside North America, is a 16-bit Fourth generation of video game consoles, fourth generation home video game console developed and sold by Sega. It was Sega's third console and the successor to the Master Syst ...

and

Sony PlayStation is a video gaming brand that consists of five home video game consoles, two handhelds, a media center, and a smartphone, as well as an online service and multiple magazines. The brand is produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment, a divi ...

("Disciples of Gaia"), and some of the Daisenryaku games ( Iron Storm, Daisenryaku VII, Daisenryaku VII Exceed). Part of the reason for this is that the main platform for their games for almost a decade was the

NEC PC-9801 The , commonly shortened to PC-98 or , is a lineup of Japanese 16-bit and 32-bit personal computers manufactured by NEC from 1982 to 2000. The platform established NEC's dominance in the Japanese personal computer market, and, by 1999, more th ...

. However, several of their games were remakes of

Infocom Infocom was an American software company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that produced numerous works of interactive fiction. They also produced a business application, a relational database called ''Cornerstone (software), Cornerstone''. ...

games for the PC-98 system. Since Infocom was an American company, these games were released to English-speaking markets first. SystemSoft has produced many wargames that are from the perspective of the Japanese Military, circa

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. These games fill a niche in the hex wargaming market that Japanese Military enthusiasts cannot expect from Western game developers who often portray the Japanese as the "enemy" in games, if at all. Similarly, if less controversial, is the guaranteed inclusion of the

Japanese Self Defense Forces The Japan Self-Defense Forces ( ja, 自衛隊, Jieitai; abbreviated JSDF), also informally known as the Japanese Armed Forces, are the unified ''de facto''Since Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution outlaws the formation of armed forces, th ...

in modern wargames like the Daisenryaku series.

Notable games

series *

Barbarossa Barbarossa, a name meaning "red beard" in Italian, primarily refers to: * Frederick Barbarossa (1122–1190), Holy Roman Emperor * Hayreddin Barbarossa (c. 1478–1546), Ottoman admiral * Operation Barbarossa, the Axis invasion of the Soviet Uni ...

* Enchanter (originally developed by

) *

series *

Moonmist ''Moonmist'' is an interactive fiction computer game written by Stu Galley and Jim Lawrence and published by Infocom in 1986. The game was released simultaneously for the Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Apple II, Atari 8-bit family, Atari ST, Commodor ...

(originally developed by Infocom) *

Planetfall ''Planetfall'' is a science fiction themed interactive fiction video game written by Steve Meretzky, and the eighth title published by Infocom in 1983. The original release included versions for Apple II, Atari 8-bit family, TRS-80, and IBM PC ...

(originally developed by Infocom) *

Zork I ''Zork'' is a text-based adventure game first released in 1977 by developers Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling for the PDP-10 mainframe computer. The original developers and others, as the company Infocom, expanded and ...

(originally developed by Infocom)

References

External links

Official website
via

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

SystemSoft Alpha
at

MobyGames MobyGames is a commercial website that catalogs information on video games and the people and companies behind them via crowdsourcing. This includes nearly 300,000 games for hundreds of platforms. The site is supported by banner ads and a small ...

List of SystemSoft video games
at

GameFAQs GameFAQs is a website that hosts FAQs and walkthroughs for video games. It was created in November 1995 by Jeff Veasey and was bought by CNET Networks in May 2003. It is currently owned by Fandom, Inc. since October 2022. The site has a databa ...

List of SystemSoft Alpha video games
at

{{Authority control Companies based in Fukuoka Prefecture Video game companies established in 1979 Video game companies of Japan Video game development companies