Games of the Abstract: Gals Panic SS (1996)

 

Developer: Kaneko Co., Ltd.

Publisher: Mainichi Communications, Inc.

One or Two Players

Sega Saturn

 

Qix (1981) has a lot to answer for in gaming. Taito's arcade puzzle game - in which you draw lines, covering spaces over a board by connecting them into shapes, whilst avoiding hazards which move and hurt you if they have contact - lead to a sub-genre in itself. It originates from Taito America, which is of interest, as well as the fact that it is a husband and wife team, Randy and Sandy Pfeiffer, who developed this game which has had a long legacy¹. Whether they are aware, or appreciate, that their legendary game, which got its own sequels, had an unexpected influence on erotic gaming I do not know, but when someone realised you could have sexy or nude images you could uncover through this game style, sex was indeed sold. One company, Kaneko Co., Ltd., was hired by Taito in 1987 to develop a sequel for Qix, Super Qix, only for their own franchise on the same mechanics, Gal Panic, to start in 1990 but with the addition of sex appeal. It became developer Kaneko Co., Ltd.'s golden cash cow, from live action photos of models to illustrated images over the franchise, to the point that, when they had legal troubles that led to the company declaring bankruptcy in 2004, and finally closing finally due to a civil lawsuit in 2006, their last game was Gals Panic S3 (2002) for the arcades².  

Yes, these were arcade games, in public, with nudity, where for Gals Panics S3, getting a 100% in uncovering the image, by accounts, led to having the female character you choose take her top off. This type of erotic game, even beyond the Gal Panic franchise, is surprisingly prolific.  In the modern day, especially in the likes of Valve's Steam gaming web store, this is the kind of genre you could programme easily, with modern day equivalents like Mokoko X (2022) existing with Kickstarter backing³. SeXoniX (1994) (for DOS), Lovely Girls (1998) (for Windows), and Sexy Puzzmaniac (2006) (for the Java Platform, Micro Edition, for mobile phones) are just examples plucking at the adult Qix variants from online over the decades. Probably one of the strangest, and I have no shame in admitting I have played, is the South Korea arcade game Miss World '96 (1996), one of the many adult games, in multiple genres including pinball, developed by Comad Industry Co., Ltd, who were founded in 1980, and did also develop non-adult games but made a lot of adult games along the way⁴. With its strange mechanic of how you drew lines, you could fill a negative bar and flip the image, thus turning from nude models, bordering on actual pornography from how more explicit the nude poses from the models are, to copyright touching pastiches of Pinhead or Freddy Krueger to create some sexually confused players.

Even Namco in 1996 got into this genre with Dancing Eyes, a 3D polygonal version, explicitly involving a monkey as a cursor cutting chunks of women's clothing off down to their underwear, which contrasted this with comedy stages involving anything from cows to muscle men, and being developed on the Namco System 11 arcade system board, the same one co-developed with Sony Computer Entertainment for Tekken (1994) and Soul Edge (1995). The irony with all this, feeling this is all important contextual information for how the sequel Gals Panic SS comes to be, is that this Sega Saturn follow-up has no erotic side to speak of, taking away this in favour of a cute aesthetic. This is strange considering the Saturn, far more success in Japan, had erotic games or ones with nudity, like an obscure casino game combined with horror and full motion video called Haunted Casino (1996), but this is the intentionally tamer sequel to a franchise which, for the arcades before, had nudity. Obviously, there is the issue of male gaze, as with all the erotic mahjong games, or the erotic pinball games or erotic games in existence generally, as most are for heterosexual male players. This industry does not take consideration even a gay or bisexual female player, a heterosexual female player, or a gay or bi male player, but this is an issue of erotica in general being influenced by what society is like. Inherently, an erotic game in this mould is not problematic for me, and notably, Gal Panic SS is not erotic. It is instead as mentioned "cute", where the cast of women, from sukeban (delinquent) girls to more timid figures, all shown in the illustrations in the park, playing sports, and with cute animals. Everything is fluffy and colourful, with the closest to titillation being beach scenes involving bikinis.

More problematic for me, becoming a sour note to a positive review when the pre-credit screen revealed this aspect, is that some of these characters are explicitly as young as fourteen. It is "cute", but in mind to previous games, it does unfortunately reveal, a title eroticising underage characters. This problem with idealising youth is not just something in Japanese popular culture, but as an anime and manga fan, this is just another case of having to think about this. It is more an issue than anything else, especially as a game which, very tame, is more a fluffy game hiding a challenging puzzle-obstacle task that should not require one to have to bare this in mind.

Gal Panic SS is an interesting take on Qix in mechanics. There are enemies to avoid when you try to take space, drawing along the area. You however, alongside full 360 degree directions, have two idiosyncrasies here. One is that the image you have to uncover is not the entire area, but an indicated silhouette of the "gal" only, alongside any animals and items they are interacting with in the still illustration. Alongside collectable power-ups that can vary from slowing enemies down to quickening your speed briefly, you can also acquire ammo for special abilities like a shooter. Each stage, each woman having six levels to them when chosen on the character select menu, has a big enemy, with the little ones it generates spawn that can be removed. They can be eliminated by taking a space they are in or using a weapon, and when you take large amounts of area, you acquire your ammo. You cannot take out the big boss, and trying to take the space it is occupying just leaves you less space it has now hogged, but the ammo helps. One, like the missiles it fires in time frames at you that need to be avoided, fires at it your own set taking anything else in the way out, another more missiles at once, another clearing the grunts entirely in explosion, another to slow the boss, the last the freeze the boss.

There is a fighter game character selection's worth of female characters, and completing them unlocks a new character. Completing her unlock a literal pixie, one the size of a hand emphasising the cuteness of the game. There is also a 100% clearing possible with each level, as 80% is enough to win, but with mind to a couple of the levels having the main image almost taking up the screen, this is a challenge for all six stars per character. To have them all be smiling and bouncing about on the character select menu is a real task to even think of completing even when I had gotten a skill in the game. Considering my main tactic was to herd the main boss into a corner, and block them off, those levels with the image taking up 95% of the screen was unhelpful, especially as there is a time limit, and immediate contact with your drawn line takes a life from a limited set. Unlimited continues help, but if a 100% is an ultimate goal for everything, it is a feat.

Barring the knowledge Gal Panic was originally erotic, adding a sleazy edge to this entry's veneer, Gal Panic SS is fun. The incentive to play this, even though some readers will raise their eyes thinking it is a defence, was originally listening to the soundtrack, pure vaporwave injected into the ears of MIDI synth and cheap rock guitar licks, juggling genres in a cheerful demeanour. With the illustrations themselves even having a homemade quality to them adds to this game's sense of cheer, in spite of its origins, and in mind to my interest in older gaming obscure to me, especially the wing of Sega Saturn games we never got in the West, this is a fascinating curiosity for its strange family tree and actually being playable. Knowing Kaneko was fixated on making these games to their demise, as a source of income, adds to the strange tale with this one, one of many titles for the Sega Saturn. This is a fun game, but also with this, and all the rip-offs stemming just from Qix, it becomes even more fascinating for other reasons.

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1) Get Your KICKS From QIX!, written by Michael Thomasson for Good Deal Games in 2009.

2) Kaneko Co., Ltd.'s Moby Games page.

3) The adult-themed anime Qix-like arcade game “Mokoko” has just been fully funded on Kickstarter, written by Jonas Ek for theegg.net and published on December 26th 2019.

4) A profile of Ko Bong / Comad, as part of Hardcore Gaming 101's extensive A History of Korean Gaming, by Sam Derboo and originally posted July 13 2010 with the last updated version in March 2014. The page does have some nudity and sexually provocative screenshots for the adult games talked of. It is tame, but worth the warning nonetheless.