Evening everybody, how are you doing? It's programmer Takenaka here.

Unsurprisingly for the rainy season, it's raining all the time. But at the same time, it's pretty hot...even though I am pretty good with the heat, high temperatures plus high humidity equals rust, and that's bad news for cars.
My car is a little over ten years old, so this time of year is a real worry.

Well, enough of the depressing weather and depressing chat--

Wangan Maxi is now in its third installment - Wangan Maxi 3. Today I'd like to talk about some memories of the early days, and a little-known story about player titles in Wangan Maxi 1.

The titles that you all have printed on your cards have been the same since Wangan Maxi 1.
There weren't all that many titles at that time though.
The developers were having a bit of fun making the first titles for Wangan Maxi 1, and thought about using this way of making some of the titles: (it got turned down in the end)

"Make some titles that you can't get by playing the game - titles you can only get by having special cards that carry special titles."

This was so the developers could have their own unique titles - a privilege not available to anybody else. But we decided that having titles that other players couldn't get was unfair, so that idea was scrapped.

Anyway...one of those "Developer's Privilege" titles that I thought up was...
"Java Sparrow"
I only chose it because I like Java Sparrows and maybe that's the reason that the "Java Sparrow" title never appeared in Wangan Maxi 1.

But in Wangan Maxi 3, the "Java Sparrow" title made its glorious first appearance.
And any player can get hold of it...
Incidentally, the way to get this title is...in Hanshin Expressway Loop Line Time Attack, retire your car in front of the "Java Sparrow" signboard, around fifteen Km from the end on the right hand side.

And so, some of the personal developer's titles that failed to make it into Wangan Maxi 1 appear from time to time in Maxi 3.
If you come across a title that makes you think "What on earth is this???", then as likely as not, you've found one of the special titles that didn't make it into Maxi 1.

OK, see you later!

(Original article in Japanese released on 7.23.2008)