A new Japanese visual novel is gaining attention with its inclusion in Google Maps and Street View. Released by Rojimaga Our homeland in the alley on Steam on October 14, 2022. The game uses real-life panoramas as background locations that the player and the heroine can visit.
The group’s website revealed that Kita e (North), a series of visual novels that Hudson Soft released for the Dreamcast and PlayStation 2 between 1999 and 2004, was the inspiration for the title. Like Kita e series, Our homeland in the alley takes place in the Japanese prefecture of Hokkaido, but with a specific focus on the city of Hakodate. The player and the game’s heroine will try to visit as many landmarks in Hakodate as possible over the course of a weekend, with an average playtime of between two and five hours.
There have been a number of visual novels with realistic backgrounds released before in Japan, such as Fuuraiki series. But while those titles have photos included in their standalone builds, Our homeland in the alley differentiate themselves using Google Maps and Street View.
After displaying descriptions of real-life facilities, the game plays a scene with the heroine, sometimes also featuring quick-time event-based response options. Rojimaga further warned that limitations of the Google Maps API could make browser-based visual novels unplayable if there are too many player sessions during the day.
Steam version of Our homeland in the alley available worldwide as of this writing for $4.99 in the US, but visual novels currently only support Japanese. In addition to Steam, Rojimaga also sells games through STORE page for 500 yen. Initially, the team released the title for free on September 27, 2022, before it switched to paid sales and sent out a public press release.
Our homeland in the alley available on PC. Rojimaga will release the title on Android and iOS devices in late October 2022. The development team has also announced plans to create more games and services using Google’s Street View.
