Hon Shogi: Naitou Kudan Shogi Hiden

Honshogi: Naitou Kudan Shogi Hiden is a Shogi game released for the Nintendo Famicom in 1985.

Honshogi: Naitou Kudan Shogi Hiden (Roughly translated: “Book of Japanese Chess: Naito Kudan’s Japanese Chess Secret”) is a video game biased off of the board game Shoji (Japanese Chess). It was developed and published by SETA Corporation to be released August 10, 1985, exclusively in Japan for the Nintendo Entertainment System.

The game is named for Naito Kunio Kudan, a famous Shoji player from Japan. Born November 15, 1939, Naito has been a professional Shoji player since he was 18 years old. In addition to helping with this video game, Naito Kudan is a published author, having 13 books written about Shoji and running a column in the sports section of the newspaper. He is also a published singer but mostly does it as a hobby. In 2010 Naito was honored with the Order of the Rising Sun, twin Mitsuaki, the fifth highest honor a citizen can receive in Japan.

Honshogi: Naitou Kudan Shogi Hiden, follows the standard rules of Shoji (Japanese Chess). There is no ability to change the difficulty or handicap. Most of the screen is the Shoji board, but there is also a representation of the player and computer playing Shoji in a Japanese setting, which moves as the game moves. The player always starts first, with the fastest possible way to beat the computer set at 15 hands/turns.

Honshogi: Naitou Kudan Shogi Hiden was entered into the first annual World Computer Shoji Championship in 1990. It was the only NES entrant out of the six entrant, software versus software competition. The game finished in forth place, with a record of two wins and three losses.