Kotoba no Puzzle: Mojipittan

Kotoba no Puzzle: Mojipittan (ことばのパズル もじぴったん) is a series of Japanese word puzzle video games designed by Hiroyuki Goto and produced by Namco. The series began as an arcade game but since then has been made available for the Sony PlayStation 2 (PS2), the Nintendo Game Boy Advance (GBA), the Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP), the Nintendo DS, the Wii via WiiWare, and some Japanese cellphones.

Due to the game's use of hiragana, Mojipittan has never been released outside Japan.

Gameplay
Mojipittan is similar in play to the word game Scrabble. The player uses tiles with hiragana to build words. The player may take turns against the computer or a human opponent or play by theirself. Unlike Scrabble, however, each player may place only one tile per turn as opposed to multiple tiles in the former. Tiles must be placed next to any other tile on the board, space permitting, but at least one word must be formed with each tile placed; as long as these conditions are met, a tile may be placed anywhere on the board, even if not all of the other tiles a new tile is connected to form new words.

A major difference in how the game plays in contrast with Scrabble is that words do not need to be isolated. For example, in the play pictured above, with the bold letter う being played, in addition to つうか (either 通過 for "passing", or 通貨 for "currency"), つう (通, connoisseur) and うか (羽化, eclosion) qualify as words. The horizontal words that qualify in this play are ふつう (普通, "normal"), つうち (通知, "notification"), and うち (内 "inside"), as well as つう again. Forming multiple words with the placement of a single tile is termed a "chain".

Stages have objectives such as "fill all the spots on the board", "create twenty words over three tiles long", or "create chains of three, eight times". The board may have pre-existing tiles that players have to work with.

Reception
On December 14, 2004, Namco shipped 150,000 copies of Kotoba no Puzzle Mojipittan Daijiten as a first day release for the PSP.

Xenopittan
On April 28, 2004, Namco released a modified version of Mojipittan called Xenopittan in their Xenosaga supplementary game Xenosaga Freaks in Japan. Xenopittan plays like Mojipittan but features characters and unique terminology from Xenosaga.

References in pop culture

 * In the Lucky Star episode A Distance From Here, Yutaka hums Pair of Mojipittan in the ending credits.

Track listing

 * Pair of Mojipittan (ふたりのもじぴったん)
 * Magic of Words-Words (わーずわーずの魔法)
 * Piacevole!
 * Banbini (バンビーニ)
 * My First Pittan (はじめてのぴったん)
 * Cookies & Cream (クッキー&クリーム)
 * Bedtime Puzzler (ベッドタイムパズラー)
 * I'll Give You a Spell (じゅもんをあげるよ)
 * over the starbow