Roly-Polys Nanakorobi Yaoki (left), and Roly-Polys World Tour (right).
Roly-Polys Nanakorobi Yaoki (ローリーポーリーズの七転び八起き) and Roly-Polys World Tour (ローリーポーリーズの世界旅行) are edutainment games for PC/Mac that were released in 1997. They were developed by OutSide Directors Company (OSD), and published by Shinko Music Entertainment.
Both games are targeted at children, and feature a cast of colorful animal characters known as "Roly-Polys." They were designed to teach basic concepts like history and the alphabet. Although the games are meant for kids, the creator, Osamu Sato, believed that adults should be able to enjoy them as well.
Nanakorobi Yaoki was shown off at Macromedia UCON in September 1996, and was a finalist in the "Kidsware" department of the Macromedia Multimedia Awards. There were plans to release the game internationally as "The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over The Lazy Dog," but they fell through because publishers in the US and Europe were not interested in distributing them. This may explain the delay which moved the game's release date from November 1996 to March 14, 1997.
World Tour was released on November 21, 1997. Unlike its predecessor, it wasn't featured at any conventions, and there were no plans to release it in other countries.
Copies of both games are known to exist, but they were probably released in limited quantities, and are almost impossible to find as a result. Several Japanese shopping sites have listings for the games, but none of them actually have copies for sale. The only record of a copy being sold online is an auction for the first game which took place in June 2002. It is unknown if any other copies have been sold since then.
Additional images
Promotional poster for Roly-Polys Nanakorobi Yaoki.
Screenshots from Roly-Polys World Tour.
References
- https://web.archive.org/web/19961219002427/http://compu-osd.com/ The developer's website from 1996. Contains information on other lost/extremely rare Osamu Sato products.
- https://web.archive.org/web/19971210201321/http://www.shinko-music.co.jp/roly/ The official Roly-Polys website. Features character bios, game info, and an interesting "slot machine" Shockwave game.
- https://web.archive.org/web/19961026180948/http://www.macromedia.com/macromedia/ucon/uconlive/gallery/12quick.html A description of The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over The Lazy Dog on the Macromedia UCON '96 website.