Believe it or not, this game is based on a true story – the 1972 Asama-Sanso incident, in which the Japanese police used a wrecking ball to fight terrorists.
Who would win in a fight – Japanese terrorists or a wrecking ball? This question was answered in the 1972 Asama-Sanso incident, in which a wrecking ball, known as “Monken” to the locals, was used by the Japanese police to break through the defenses of a mountain lodge taken hostage by the United Red Army revolutionary group. Not content with this story being confined to video and print, Team Grand Slam, a collaboration between multiple veteran Japanese developers, is hard at work on Monken, a game based on said wrecking ball versus terrorist antics.
“Nowadays, we can see the document film archives of this incident at any time. However, can it really tell the essence of this shocking event?” Team Grand Slam thinks no, it can’t, and says that using the medium of a videogame to convey a real-life event based on fact “can be a new way to describe history.” The game revolves around using Monken to hit buildings and save hostages, and threatening terrorists who appear in the windows to make them surrender.
Team Grand Slam is comprised of four highly decorated names in Japanese media, Fumio Kurokawa (SEGA, Apollon Music Industrial Corp), Kazutoshi Iida (Doshin the Giant, Evangelion the movie: 3nd Impact), Takayuki Nakamura (Virtua Fighter, Lumines music), and Ryuji Nouguchi (Chulip, Harvest Moon). Despite all being renown in their respective fields, the four have decided to tackle this as an indie project, without the backing of any parent companies.
The game will be released for PC, smartphones and tablets. The release date is still TBA, with the developers trying to get a hold of more funds to complete the full-version of the game. Team Grand Slam says that Monken will utilize a creative commons licence, which will open a lot of the game’s data up for the public to tweak and modify.
Source: Monken Homepage
