Want to explore Japan’s tumultuous encounter with foreign powers in the nineteenth century? Investigate violence in medieval Japan, or imagine what it might have been like to be one of the famous Forty-Seven Rōnin? Looking for new ways to learn and remember kanji and hiragana?
You’ll find all of that and more here. The games and resources on this page were created by teams of undergraduate students working closely with a faculty advisor to translate cutting-edge scholarship into engaging materials for classroom use.
These games are designed as educational resources that invite students to think critically about important, complex, and sometimes difficult historical, cultural, and literary topics.
Games about Premodern and Early Modern Japan
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Palace of Poetry
Palace of Poetry is a first-person narrative game in which players engage with the women of Genji’s world by immersing themselves in the culture, history, gender dynamics, and daily life of Heian-era Japan. The game seeks to bring the Tale of Genji, an 11th century literary classic, to a modern audience by making its timeless themes and intricate social world more accessible and engaging.
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Ako: A Tale of Loyalty
Imagine you're a young samurai in Japan in 1701. You have to make an excruciating choice between family and honor – either go into impoverished exile with your mother and sister who will need your help to survive, or join your fellow masterless samurai in a quixotic quest to avenge the death of your dishonored lord. Which do you choose? Ako: A Test of Loyalty takes you into the story of the 47 ronin, one of the most famous episodes in Japanese history.
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Death and Taxes
The popular image of the samurai centers on combat and the mythical code of bushido. This short game explores the grinding economic reality of a low-ranking samurai in Tokugawa period Japan (1600-1868). For its source material, it draws from a pathbreaking article by historian Constantine N. Vaporis (“Samurai & Merchant in Mid-Tokugawa Japan”).
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Ghosts over the Water
It is the summer of 1853. A small fleet of American warships, commanded by Commodore Matthew C. Perry, has sailed into Edo Bay, sending shockwaves through Japan. You play as Tsumaki Naoharu, an ambitious and inquisitive young samurai serving under Abe Masahiro, the chief senior councilor of the Tokugawa shogunate. As panic spreads and Japan’s leaders struggle to decide how to respond, Naoharu finds himself drawn into a political crisis.
Games about Modern Japan
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Ghosts over the Water
It is the summer of 1853. A small fleet of American warships, commanded by Commodore Matthew C. Perry, has sailed into Edo Bay, sending shockwaves through Japan. You play as Tsumaki Naoharu, an ambitious and inquisitive young samurai serving under Abe Masahiro, the chief senior councilor of the Tokugawa shogunate. As panic spreads and Japan’s leaders struggle to decide how to respond, Naoharu finds himself drawn into a political crisis.
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Ready, Set, Yokohama!
In Ready, Set, Yokohama! players to race from Tokyo to Yokohama like it’s the year 1872. In this digitization of Utagawa Toyokuni IV’s “Catalog of the Trip to Yokohama” Sugoroku, up to four players try their luck sprinting to Yokohama via steam train, rickshaws, or even the telegraph. Find out what there was to see in treaty port Yokohama and learn about travel, technology, and cultural exchange in Japan during the late-nineteenth century.
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The Censor's Desk
To censor or not to censor, that is the question — and the game. Imagine you are a government censor working in imperial Japan or an official in the CCD (Civil Censorship Detachment) working under General Douglas MacArthur in the late 1940s during the Allied Occupation of Japan. When faced with morally or politically sensitive materials that come across your desk, what do you do?
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Playing at Empire
"The Great Victory of the Imperial Army in the China Incident sugoroku" was a supplement to a 1939 issue of the Japanese magazine The Housewife's Friend. The game is intended as an educational resource to critically assess the role of propaganda in creating empire. It allows students to engage with propaganda that was designed to convince players that the “China Incident” was not a Japanese invasion of China but a heroic struggle, supported by the Chinese people themselves.
Japanese Online Self-Help Utility (JOSHU Japanese Language Games)
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Joshu Games
See all the Joshu games in one place!
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Kanji Cross
Figure out the correct kanji to fill in the middle square
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Kanji-ris
Test your kanji skills in this fun combination game
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Japanese Word Search
Search for Japanese words on a variety of topics.
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Kanji Practice
Practice and quiz your kanji drawing skills with kanji from two standard textbooks.
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Nihongo Party
Learn and practice your Japanese with a group of friends in this Mario Party inspired Minigame Frenzy!
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Katakana Scramble
Test your knowledge of katakana through a series of challenging games
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Japanese Word Order
Put the words in order to create a sentence.
Digital Exhibits and Proof of Concept Projects
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A Living City: Nagasaki
A Living City: Treaty Port Nagasaki is an experimental digital urban history project that combines techniques of virtual heritage and interactive design, finding new ways to evoke the experience of a 19th-century international port city.
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Quest for Quinine
You are Sir Clements Markham, a British geographer, sent by the India Office on a legally and morally dubious mission to Peru to locate cinchona trees in the Andean interior and bring them out of the country. You must navigate difficult terrain and dwindling supplies while negotiating with the people you meet along the way. Quest for Quinine is a product of Epoch: History Games Initiative, which extends the JapanLab model beyond Japan.
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Land of the Rising Star
This game demo charts a Japanese actor’s uncertain journey to transnational stardom. In this showcase video, the player takes on the role of an aspiring Japanese star who must navigate the path to international fame. Which roles will you accept? Which will you decline? And at what cost or benefit?
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Mapping Violence in Japan
This digital exhibit helps students learn how to make sense of a world at war. A variety of digital tools provide students with unique access to the causes, origins, and connections that sustained institutional power during the Sengoku period (1477-1573).
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Crafting Yokohama
In the 1880s, Yokohama was one of the fastest-growing cities in Japan, a showcase of Meiji modernization and gateway to an international market. Much of the infrastructure of the treaty port period has since been lost to earthquakes and postwar urban development. In this project, we used cutting-edge techniques in virtual heritage to recapture the environment of two areas of old Yokohama, Noge Hill and Bentendо̄ri.
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Sumoroku
Welcome to Sumoroku–the sumo-themed sugoroku! While playing sugoroku may be a breeze, life as a rikishi fighting his way to the top is anything but. In this game, you will follow our rikishi’s arduous journey from humble beginnings to the very pinnacle of professional sumo.
JapanLab Highlights and Free Tutorials for Aspiring Developers: @utjapanlab on YouTube
Our games are playable in browser or by download on itch.io at https://japanlab.itch.io/
