Monthly Updates: May 2020

Hi, this is Driller from Drillimation.

Oh man. The card above tells you we’re almost there. Three weeks from now Chuhou Joutai will be in your hands, as Chuhou Joutai releases on May 22. If you’re feeling really nostalgic, you will once you play it. On May 22, 1980, an arcade legend was born that changed pop culture forever. But on May 22 of this year, a new legend will be born.

The Steam page for Chuhou Joutai is now up. If you want to get it before it releases, make sure to add it to your wish list! Thanks to a PR company based in Spain, I was fortunate enough to have the game featured on IGN and 4Gamer.net. The game was also showcased twice at the SmashErie gaming convention. If you were there, you had some impression on it. We tried the very best we can to give you a taste of what it was like in the late 1980s and early 1990s where all it was just the Nintendo Entertainment System plugged into the TV in the living room, the controller, and you sitting on the couch. This is why there are absolutely no microtransactions or ads, as well as a need for a network connection.

Chuhou Joutai was mentioned on the following news sites below:

• 3rd Strike
• 4Gamer.net (in Japanese, view English translation here)
• Arata (in Spanish)
• Gaming Trend
• Graal.fr (in French)
• Hardcore Gamers Unified
• IGN
• myGamer
• Versus Media Mexico (in Spanish)

Chuhou Joutai takes you through eight treacherous stages filled with fun characters and lots of unique danmaku. Make sure you put on some headphones to appreciate every detail of the game’s soundtrack, which is available in different formats. Chuhou Joutai will be released on Friday, May 22, 2020 on Steam at a price of $9.99. You can check out the game on Steam here.

COVID-19 Concerns

The release date of the game has not been impacted by the coronavirus due to it being a digital game. However, a few events that I planned on appearing at either got cancelled or rescheduled because of it. This includes:

• April 2020 SmashErie
• Brawl on the Bay (SmashErie)
• Possible convention in Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom

However, my area is set to reopen on May 8, meaning it could be possible to attend Brawl on the Bay, but I’m afraid it could get cancelled or rescheduled. I plan on leaving for the odyssey to the United Kingdom on June 28, and there was a conference I planned on attending in Belfast. The conference could end up being cancelled or postponed for a year. When I flew to Japan last year, I flew out of Toronto Pearson International Airport, and the border to Canada is closed until the end of May.

UPDATE: According to YourErie.com, the event has actually been cancelled.

For those who don’t know what COVID-19 even is, it is a respiratory disease caused by a new coronavirus first identified in December 2019 at a wet market in Wuhan, China, apparently being traced to a bat or pangolin. It spread worldwide and became a pandemic within a few months, and the situation is still trying to be contained. Major outbreaks have occurred in China, South Korea, Iran, Italy, and the United States. Several countries are developing vaccines for the virus and many have entered clinical trials.

Wet markets are places that sell live animals for slaughtering and consumption. You can find them in Central and South America, West Africa, and Southeastern Asia, but you’ll find most of them in Mainland China. Wet markets have become hotbeds for disease development, and it already happened once with SARS in Guangzhou, China in 2002. I’ve lived through SARS and Ebola.

Anything else?

This is pretty much it. We hope you look forward to the game’s release, and stay home at all costs.