Laplace no Ma

This video game is a mixture of the role-playing video game and survival horror genres and set in the vicinity of Boston, Massachusetts, in a town called "Newcam"; it is modeled after the fictional city Arkham created by H. P. Lovecraft. The horror part of the game lies in the exploration of the fictional Weathertop Mansion, whose owner dabbled in black magic. The game's CRPG features include its character classes—Dilettante, Medium, Detective, Scientist, and Journalist—and that the player can leave the mansion to walk around the town to go to shops to buy items needed to defeat the monsters and complete the game. ==Development and release==

Laplace no Ma was first game he made and the first he made for Group SNE. He said in an interview with that when making the game he said there was a trend of splatter film-styled works and wanted to make a game with a more "haunted house" style. He noted that even outside Japan, there were few horror-oriented RPGs as well as tabletop ones outside of computers such as Call of Cthulhu, but wanted to make a more original title. Laplace no Ma was first released in July 4, 1987 for NEC PC-88 and PC-98 computers. It received several ports to other computers such as the MSX and X68000 and consoles like the PC Engine Super CD-ROM² and Super Famicom. All of these releases were exclusively released to the Japanese market. Scenario writer for the game Keiko Shimomura said that the first thing they wanted to do with the console versions was the lower the difficulty of the original game. While originally scheduled for August 10, 1993, Laplace no Ma was released for the Super Famicom in Japan on July 14, 1995. Famicom Tsūshin wrote in June 1993 that the Super Famicom port of Laplace no Ma was at 75% completion. Yasuda described the Super Famicom version as a complete remake of the original game. The Super Famicom version features all new maps than any previously released version. A fan translation of the Super Famicom version was released in 2001 but was removed after the translator felt it did not meet their own quality standards. A new English fan translation was released in 2018. ==Reception and legacy==

During the development of the Super Famicom version, Yasuda was developing a follow-up to the original game titled . In a retrospective review in , a reviewer found the game to be difficult as the slightest mistake could lead to a game over. They commented that the visuals in the game did not change much and that it had the vagueness that was like other games of the era where gaining bonus experience felt like pure luck. They found the game mostly stood out for being a horror-themed RPG instead of a fantasy-themed one that dominated the market and that it had appropriately eerie sound design. Laplace no Ma became the first game in the groups series. Both Parakerususu no Ma Ken and Kurokishi no Kamen and the tabletop role-playing game were released in 1994. While remakes of games and novels were released, there was no new Gōsuto Hantā video game until released on June 22, 2020. The game is not an RPG, but a hidden object game for smartphones. It was developed by Yasuda and the original author and illustrator of the first game Hiroshi. ==Notes==