Hands On With Throw The Rice Ball Over The Mountain As Fast As You Can

At the Tokyo Game Show 2011 there were plenty of booths advertising game development schools in Tokyo. Dan and I decided to check out a few of these quirky class projects, and I’m happy that we did. My time with Throw The Rice Ball Over the Mountain As Fast As You Can was far and away the most confusing video game experience I’ve ever had.

When I started playing I was greeted by two characters having a conversation in Japanese that I presume had something to do with rice balls. Before I knew it, I was transported to something resembling a golf course. My character was holding a massive rice ball, and I could select between throwing it underhand or overhand. After coming to grips with the confusing controls, I managed to build up my rice ball-tossing meter all the way and heaved the carbohydrate-packed snack halfway across a huge valley.

I thought my second throw was catastrophic. My rice ball barreled through one of the random pillars of fire populating the mountain valley. A short scene played which forced me to watch as my rice ball was burnt to a crisp. I asked a representative for the school if this was bad, and he simply said “no, now it’s just crispy.” Brilliant.

I then proceeded to chuck the burnt ball towards my goal. What had simply been a vague mark on my map of the fairway became a tangible goal: I saw two hungry characters standing by a table, impatiently awaiting the airborne rice ball. An elderly woman had remarkably little patience for the snack, as she did a sort of jittery dance in anticipation. I swear that my next throw was so powerful that it should have decapitated the starving granny, but instead it clipped through her to the end of the course. After several attempts to bowl the rice ball into the old lady’s ankles, I finally nailed an overhand throw smack dab onto the dinner table. It would be an understatement to say the grandmother was pleased to receive an wad of rice that had been aggressively manhandled across a mountain valley.

If you liked what you’ve read about Throw the Rice Ball Over the Mountain As Fast As You Can, I’ve got some unfortunate news. Though it seems like the game will be arriving on PCs in Japan in the future, I don’t think you’ll be able to access the game unless you enroll in the Japanese game design school or visit the Tokyo Game Show during its final day today. I feel awful broadcasting word of this confusing little gem with the knowledge that none of you will be able to play it, but I would be doing you all a disservice if I didn’t tell you about it. Throw the Rice Ball Over the Mountain As Fast As You Can is easily the most fun I’ve ever had rapidly throwing a rice ball at an elderly woman waiting at a table at the base of a mountain valley.