{"id":601912,"date":"2026-09-16T07:48:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T07:48:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/601912\/"},"modified":"2026-09-16T07:48:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T07:48:13","slug":"taiwanese-creators-win-design-award-at-japan-game-awards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/601912\/","title":{"rendered":"Taiwanese creators win design award at Japan Game Awards"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Sam Garcia \/ Staff writer, with CNA<\/p>\n

The Taiwanese creative studio Team9 won the Game Designers Award at this year\u2019s Japan Game Awards yesterday for Word Game (\u6587\u5b57\u904a\u6232), a video game with characters and scenes made entirely from Chinese characters.<\/p>\n

The Japan Game Awards were founded in 1996 by the Computer Entertainment Supplier’s Association to recognize outstanding video games.<\/p>\n

The Game Designers Award was founded in 2010 to encourage innovative and creative games by Masahiro Sakurai, the producer of Kirby and Super Smash Bros, who has served as chair of the judging panel.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Photo from the Team9 Facebook page<\/p>\n

This years\u2019 awards ceremony was held in Tokyo yesterday evening, with a Taiwanese game securing the designers award.<\/p>\n

Word Game \u201creminds players of old PC games playing with classic normal characters,\u201d judges said on the Japan Game Awards official Web site<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The game \u201cwon by an overwhelming majority of votes even in the Game Designers Award, where the originality is the top priority,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n

The judges praised the team for adapting the game from traditional Chinese into a Japanese version, saying \u201cit took advanced skills and clever solutions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sakurai said that the Game Designers Award would not return to the Japan Game Awards next year as he plans to focus on game development and could not find an adequate successor to take up his mantle.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the last year that we\u2019re doing it, and the reason is because there\u2019s nobody who\u2019s going to replace me,\u201d he said at the awards ceremony, adding that he searched for a replacement for a couple of years.<\/p>\n

Team9 said on Facebook that it was honored that Word Game was selected as the final recipient of the Game Designers Award.<\/p>\n

The award\u2019s emphasis on originality and creativity reflects the team\u2019s aspirations in designing the game, Team9 said, adding that being recognized in this way is incredibly rewarding.<\/p>\n

Pok\u00e9mon Pokopia won the Grand Award this year, with judges praising its popularity across age groups and its \u201ccarefree, slow-life experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt received overwhelming support from both Pok\u00e9mon fans and the wider gaming community \u2014 with many calling it soothing and addictive,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Sam Garcia \/ Staff writer, with CNA The Taiwanese creative studio Team9 won the Game Designers Award…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":601913,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[296698,111,139,69,288336,145,13923,2673,296699,13922],"class_list":["post-601912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-international-award","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sam-garcia","tag-technology","tag-the-taipei-times","tag-video-games","tag-word-game","tag-13922"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=601912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601912\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/601913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=601912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=601912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=601912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}