Kemco

Kemco's logo.

Kotobuki Solution Co., Ltd., better known by its brand Kemco, is a Japanese video game company founded originally as Kotobuki System Co., Ltd. in 1984 as a division of Kotobuki Engineering & Manufacturing Co., Ltd. The division was founded specifically to develop games for the Famicom, and it branched out to the Game Boy, Super Famicom, and Nintendo 64 as the platforms became available. Kemco and remained almost exclusively tied to Nintendo consoles until the early 2000s. Kemco published in the USA under the name Kemco▲Seika from 1989 to 1993 before dropping Seika and becoming Kemco USA. In 2007, they dissolved Kemco USA and have since handled the operations of all external regions from their headquarters in Kure, Hiroshima.

Personal

I knew of the Kemco brand because I started buying the NES ports of the three ICOM Simulations puzzle adventures: Déjà Vu: A Nightmare Comes True!!, Uninvited, and Shadowgate. I had seen a couple other games bearing the Kemco brand, however, when I was really following the releases of new video games back in the 1980s and early 1990s, Kemco was only distributing a fraction of its catalog in the USA, so I missed out on a lot of their games. It was only after emulation became possible that I started learning just how many games they had created which I had missed, but a lot of it isn't that impressive in retrospect.

Games

These are the games Kemco worked on that are important to me. For all Kemco games, see the categories for games developed or published.

Game Boy

Game Boy Color

Daikatana

Nintendo Entertainment System

Media

Box Layouts

During the NES era, Kemco▲Seika tried a couple box designs with some commonalities. For most releases, the Kemco▲Seika logo was in a red rectangle at the top right of the box. Four games (The Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle, Desert Commander, Shadowgate, and Snoopy's Silly Sports), have a graphic on the cover which looks like it's meant to be an rubber stamp. Four other boxes (The Bugs Bunny Birthday Blowout, North & South, Uninvited, and possibly Hostage: Rescue Mission) feature a circle graphic with text inside following the shape.