Designer Mijinko Master here. Nice to meet you!
Today I’d like to talk to you about Mijinko, the titular creatures that appear in the app I created for comcept, Mijinko Puzzle!
Mijinko is the Japanese word for water flea, a microscopic organism you may have seen in your elementary school science textbook. I bet you haven’t seen them as the main character of a video game before, though! That’s one of the reasons that led us to make Mijinko Puzzle.
Water fleas might seem a little scary when you see them up close, but we kept a bit of their unique flavor when we made our strange and cute Mijinko designs. Most of the creatures in Mijinko Puzzle have hearts on their chests; we did this is because actual water fleas have transparent bodies, letting you see all of their organs inside!
These are my design notes from the very beginning of the process.
To me it’s just a bunch of scribbles… ^^;
Let’s make this one resemble an animal; let’s put some clothes on that one. Let’s distance this one from a “living creature”… something like tempura or rice! Anything I want, really!
…Okay, I admit, that last one was a bit much. ^^;
All of these thoughts led to a bunch of different Mijinko.
Tapping a Mijinko in the game’s Tank Screen shows you that Mijinko’s profile.
Please take a look!
I hope you learned a little bit more about the Mijinko!
(Author: Designer Mijinko Master)