Japan Sidequest Announcement!

I'm in Japan right now! It's not permanent, at least not yet, but I'm working with some business consultants to fine-tune our business plan and get ready for a visa application.

I've got some time tonight, looking out over Sendai from the 13th floor of a business hotel, so it seems like a great time to do a product write-up! We've been working on it pretty much nonstop for weeks at this point, and apart from an announcement during a recent livestream, I haven't posted about it anywhere. So if you didn't catch the livestream, you're among the first to learn!

Announcing: Japan Sidequest.

My wife and I are frequent visitors to Japan, having first flown to Japan together in 2016. We were traveling with a group of four people, and juggling the needs of everyone present was quite the administrative challenge. We were too budget-conscious to hire a travel coordinator or consultant, so the only real way to organize everything was to get good at Microsoft Excel. So that's what I did.

What followed was a 23-day itinerary through almost all major metropolitan areas in the country. It was an Odyssean affair, from Hiroshima in the far west to Sapporo in the north, then back to Tokyo on New Year's Eve. Every day was not just a single adventure, but several. We bought kitchen knives at a 320-year old knifemaking shop in Kyoto, got snowed in at Shin-Hakodate-Hokuto Station in Hokkaido for Christmas Eve, and were invited to coach the front desk staff at a Yamagata ryokan on how to speak English to guests from overseas.

It was a huge victory, but it would be foolish to expect everyone has the time to plan something that big. And while the advent of widespread social media has made the world more aware of attractions in Tokyo and Kyoto, there's not as much focus on regions (like Tohoku, where I am now) that deserve just as much love. For us, Japan's appeal was always more pronounced in the countryside, where each interaction with a local person is a chance for real cultural exchange.

Not the main quests. The sidequests.

What is Japan Sidequest?

We're describing Japan Sidequest as an Augmented Reality Game, or ARG. In short, it adds game functions to real-world travel, and encourages players to travel in a more immersive way.

Let's say you want to plan a trip with your friends. You can log on to the Japan Sidequest Character Creator (alpha version available at demo.japansidequest.com by the way) to create RPG characters for your party. This data gets sent to us, and you can either request a "pre-made" travel itinerary from the website store, or book an inexpensive consultation with us for a custom itinerary based on your interests.

Once you get to Japan, you just need to pick up your package from the front desk of your first hotel: the Japan Sidequest guidebook! It features the custom characters you and your friends made, and assigns an experience points value to each of your itinerary items. During your trip, it basically functions as a pen-and-paper RPG, but with an added feature...

At the end of each day, you can use a QR code printed in the booklet to "check in" your progress! During check-in, you'll claim your experience points by uploading photos of you completing your goals, which will update your character data and allow you to level up. Additionally, during check-in, you'll be assigned a randomized "bonus sidequest" for additional experience points. These will be able to be accomplished anywhere in Japan, so they aren't locked to any particular itinerary, but they will challenge you to try new things while you explore!

As you complete days in your travel book, you'll notice there are places to keep notes, put in stickers, and apply stamps! Over the course of your trip, your travel book will become a neat keepsake that's unique to your adventure.

We're officially open for consultation services, so if you're planning a trip to Japan and would like our help, catch us at japansidequest@gmail.com for the time being! As we roll a site store out over the coming months, this process will get a bit easier, but we're excited to talk to you and help you meet your travel goals!

And of course, keep an eye on this site for updates, as the beta version of JSQ is going to have updated art, features, and more.

Thanks for reading!