Patent ID: 8360877
Filing Date: 2013-01-29
Classification: A63F

Abstract:
1. A game apparatus, connected to at least one other game apparatus by a communicator, that progresses a game while exchanging messages with the at least one other game apparatus and displays an image according to a progress of the game on a display, the game apparatus comprising: a progress instruction input acceptor that accepts an instruction for progressing the game, excluding message exchange, based on a first operation of a player; a game processor that executes a processing for progressing the game, excluding message exchange, according to the instruction accepted by the progress instruction input acceptor and progress information received from the at least one other game apparatus; a display position input acceptor that accepts an input position corresponding to a display position on the display based on a second operation by the player; a game situation data storage that stores, for each of a plurality of game situations, a message group, including at least one message, and an icon which represents contents of the at least one message included in the message group; a game situation determiner that determines whether a current game situation of the game progressed by the game processor corresponds to a game situation of the plurality of game situations; an icon display that, when the game situation determiner determines that the current game situation corresponds to the game situation, displays the icon stored for the game situation on the display; a message display that, when the display position input acceptor accepts a first input position based on the second operation by the player that corresponds to the icon displayed on the display, displays the at least one message included in the message group stored for the game situation on the display; a selected message transmitter that, when the display position input acceptor accepts a second input position based on the second operation by the player that corresponds to a message of the at least one message displayed on the display, transmits the message to the at least one other game apparatus from the communicator; and a received message display that displays, on the display, a received message transmitted from the at least one other game apparatus and received by the communicator, wherein, when the display position input acceptor accepts the second input position based on the second operation by the player that corresponds to the message, for a predetermined time period after the second input position is accepted, the game situation determiner determines whether a subsequent game situation of the game progressed by the game processor corresponds to one of the plurality of game situations based on a progress state of the game and also based on the message to which the second input position corresponds, and the icon display is configured to simultaneously display the icon stored for the game situation that is determined to correspond to the current game situation and the icon stored for one of the plurality of game situations that is determined to correspond to one of a previous game situation and a following game situation.