Smileworks

Smileworks (スマイルワークス株式会社 Sumairu Wākusu Kabushiki-gaisha) is a Japanese video game company founded in 1981. It also has offices in North America, Europe, Australia and other parts of Asia. The company's best selling franchises include Item Camp, Story of Mordria, and Clash Frontier.

History
Smileworks was founded by an American businessman while he was visiting Japan. At the time of the company’s founding, he initially wanted the company to produce toys. At the last minute, Smileworks focused on becoming a video game company thanks to the market’s success from titles such as Space Invaders and Donkey Kong. To experiment with the gaming industry, Smileworks released a series of LCD games called Mini-yan. Like Nintendo’s Game & Watch handhelds, the Mini-yan consisted of simple games that increased in difficulty. The units were commercially successful and Smileworks proceeded to develop commercial video games.

In 1983, Smileworks started their North American branch as they wished to release the Mini-yan outside of Japan. The Mini-yan was launched with a new name for the western markets as the Smile Mini. Smileworks’s success with the Smile Mini in the North American market helped the company remain in their headquarters. Back in Japan, Smileworks released their first commercial game: Waku Waku Block, which would later be known as Block Block for international markets. It was released for arcades and was ported to a variety of platforms such as the Famicom/Nintendo Entertainment System, PC-8800 and MSX.

List of Games
See List of games produced by Smileworks.

Flagship Series

 * Item Camp
 * Tornado Wings
 * Story of Mordria
 * Candy Puzzle
 * Sam the Sloth
 * Kingdom Quest
 * Rolling Bird
 * Blocky
 * Disk Monsters
 * Clash Frontier
 * Extreme GP
 * The Bacteria Saga
 * Agents of Millennium
 * Dead High
 * Paint Witch

Licenses

 * Hilda

Subsidiaries

 * Smileworks of America: The North American subsidiary of Smileworks. It focuses on localization of most Smileworks games.
 * Smileworks of Europe: The European subsidiary of Smileworks. Like the North American branch, it localizes certain titles.
 * Smileworks of Australia: The Australian subsidiary of Smileworks. They release localized titles for the country.
 * Smileworks of Korea: This subsidiary localizes Smileworks games from Japan for the South Korean market.