Armada Girls' origins and history

This is a summary of the information I could gather about the development and origin of Armada Girls, I'm a day 1 player of the global release of the game by G123, however, this game has had a much longer run than you may think. All this info was gathered by me, if you find any information to be inaccurate, **contact Bal Dev in the Armada Girls Discord server**.

## **Origin**

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The first instance of the game was **宇航少女(Chinese, lit' "Space Girl", later "SpaceGirl Fleet")** in 2018, now discontinued, by Hat4love, a Chinese developer company from Beijing, they began posting concept art under copyright by Elex Inc, a japanese company, along with game info and ideas in hopes of receiving feedback from potential players, with the increasing popularity of Kancolle and Azur Lane among other Bishojo-Battleship franchises, this new title began to gain traction due to its original designs and twists to the genre.

Despite Elex Inc. **publishing a press release in May 2018**, they ceased online activities later that year, saying in this **Twitter post** that there was a lack of content and that the game would suffer a delay of at least one year.

The game would finally be released in 2020 and 2021 under several different publishers for different regions, the japanese company **Eisencloud** would release **パズルガールズ "Puzzle Girls"** while in Southeast Asia, at the same time, Hat4Love conducted beta tests under the title "Starfleet Battle" and later "SpaceGirl Fleet" for Android and iPhone.

   "StarFleet Battle" an early beta of the IP, now discontinued.In late 2022, the japanese company **G123** would publish the game under the name 艦隊少女 "Kantai Shoujo" or "Armada Girls" for western audiences, this version being available for Chinese, English and Japanese for a global release in HTML format for cross platform.

### **Summary:**

* 2018- Hat4love/Elex Inc. develops "Space Girl", later renamed "SpaceGirl Fleet", but it quickly comes to a halt in development
* 2020- Hat4love releases "Starfleet Battle" for SEA, but ends service shortly after, the possibility of a new release is teased on social media
* 2021- Eisencloud releases "Puzzle Girls" for Japan
* 2022- G123 launches "Armada Girls" as a global release

## Publisher confusion - CTW/G123 and Eisencloud

Many players understandably expressed confusion and concern about the same game being published under different names, especially because there's two japanese versions of the same game under two different companies, even theorizing one of them would be a dead copy or pirate release, especially with similar games like "Navy Girls" being out there making everything seem more confusing, I decided to email Eisencloud and G123 asking them both for clarification.

They replied that they don't have any link to one another, but they are aware of each other's operation, G123 also stated that both companies are authorized to work with the IP, so you can all relax, both companies are playing fair and seem to be developing the IP into different directions.

Currently **Armada Girls/Kantai Shoujo** and **Puzzle girls** are the only playable versions of this IP.

## Helpful links with more info and context about the game's origins

* パズルガールズ (ゲーム) - Wikipedia -Info about "Puzzle Girls" the Japan only version by Eisencloud and some background history on Hat4love, it also includes VA info for all versions
* Press info about "Starfleet Battle" -Info about Starfleet Battle, the SEA version
* More about Starfleet Battle -Game mechanics and VA
* Starfleet Battle Facebook page(abandoned)
* Press info about "SpaceGirl Fleet" -Info about SpaceGirl Fleet, the 2018 pre release version
* Twitter account of SpaceGirl Fleet"(abandoned) - Contains original sketches and illustrations of the first versions of the ships
* #パズルガールズ のコスプレ作品 (14 件) - Twoucan - Incredible cosplays of the characters you know and love, there are more cosplays out there too.
* パズルガールズの検索結果 - Curecos Plus（キュアコスプラス） -More cosplay

## The state of the IP today(April 2023)

As of today, altough lower in playerbase and updates than it used to be, G123's version, "Armada Girls" is the only actually playable game of the IP at the moment that hasn't been entirely abandoned, Eisencloud's "Puzzle Girls" Twitter has been inactive for almost a year and the official wiki of their game is closed, their last update was the Gacha update of September 2022 and it is safe to consider it completely abandoned.

From my interactions with G123 staff, I know they have in house developers dedicated to the production of "Armada Girls", though it's evident that dedicating time to more popular titles such as "Queen's Blade" and their many new releases has priority in the company.

One can still find ads for Armada Girls and their Twitter account is very much active, as the time of writing this, their last Tweet with their promotion campaign was just 5 hours ago, as of right now, even though the production and updates are scarce, Armada Girls remained a superior version, with quality of life and balance improvements over Puzzle Girls.

With that being said, it is worth noting that game activity has decreased considerably, Armada Girls' Discord server seems almost dead, and the game has suffered changes to its original general aesthetic, changing from the usual Bishojo-Battleship style into a more ecchi look for their latest characters, skins and overall presentation. I believe this to be a mistake since it doesn't appeal to the people interested in the genre, especially western fans, if the game tries to be more like Queen's Blade, it will simply fail to capture the type of players who usually like this type of game in the west, reason of why it had a strong start with a steady decline after.

Refloating the ship to its most active days will require in my opinon, going back to it's roots aesthetically and extending the campaign past 20-10 as well as merging servers until more original fans of the genre start joining again.

Also, drop some redeem codes, come on, it's been a while.

I wish Armada Girls and G123 staff a good comeback.

## 1 year anniversary of Armada Girls(July 2023)

The 14th of July of 2023 the Armada Girls Twitter account @kantaishoujo, posted this image to celebrate for one year since the active service of the global release.

Read the Tweet h**ere**

They also host a campaign to enter a raffle for a prize in Amazon Gift cards if you access through Twitter.

## Armada Girls' Archive

In case some or all the links go down or corporate accounts close, I will upload a Google Drive folder with all the illustrations and assets I've found, the link contains:

* Old illustrations
* Character Icons
* Misc. assets
* Cosplay
* VA signatures(new!)

**I'll keep updating it until I say it's complete.**

**Archive link**