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*[[Girls' Frontline: Glitch Land]] a fanmade game using some assets and characters from Girls' Frontline. Now shelved.
The game has assembled a large and active community in several languages, sharing creative works and strategies.
{{Guide}}
==Gameplay==
Mica Team (incorporated as Shanghai LBX Network Technology Company, and later [[Sunborn|Shanghai Sunborn Network Technology Company]]) started development on Girls' Frontline in early 2015. Mica's lead Yuzhong (羽中, a pseudonym) enlisted the help of his personal friend and CEO of Yostar, Yao Meng (姚蒙), who established Shanghai Array Network Technology Company (上海阵面网络公司) to help fund and produce the game. Yuzhong and Yao Meng had previously worked together on a short-lived amateur games fanzine, then on Codename: Bakery Girl in 2013 with Yao Meng's previous company GameMaster. Array was expected to handle distribution of the game and its derivative products and share revenues with Sunborn in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and Japan.<ref name=Chuapp />
The core gameplay of the game was decided based on the absence of a strategy RPG game on mobile, rather than analysis of market data. Sunborn aimed at creating a game with a long lifespan in a niche market segment rather than reusing popular but short-lived concepts.<ref>[https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/166018133 2020 Zhihu interview]</ref> Yuzhong cited ''Command & Conquer: Red Alert'' as an inspiration. While the characters in Girls' Frontline were not conceived as anthropomorphic guns, Sunborn used the popularity of military anthropomorphic designs (擬人化) started by ''Kantai Collection'' in 2013. Firearms were chosen to differentiate the game from existing warships and tanks-based games.<ref name=4G2018 /> Microtransactions were limited to costumes in a system dubbed “Pay to Look”, in opposition to “Pay to Win”, in order to build the franchise over the years rather than generate profits quickly.<ref name=4G2018>[https://www.4gamer.net/games/405/G040593/20180622068/ 4gamer 2018 interview]</ref><ref name=4G2018JP />
The game was first announced on 4 June 2015 with an expected release date for October 2015, then shown during ComiCup 16.<ref>Game announcement on [https://www.hexieshe.com/650177/ Hexieshe] and [http://www.chuapp.com/article/171949.html Chuapp]</ref> The first beta for the game launched on 31 August 2015 with an initial distribution of 500 accounts, and attracted a total of about 6000 people. The second beta launched on 26 October 2015, with an initial distribution of 6000 codes. With 3000 to 4000 players logging in at once, the game's servers crashed for 8 hours due to various technical oversights from Mica Team. About 10,000 activation codes were distributed in total for the second beta. 2 hours after the launch of the third beta on 25 January 2016, the servers went unresponsive for 9 days and problems with the game's Weibo account prevented Mica Team from communicating on the issue during a day and a half. The beta players nonetheless spent around 2 million RMB in the cash shop, expecting their accounts to be transferred in full to the final game. The game was delayed after the third beta, then scheduled for release in Mainland China on 20 May 2016.
Skills for the characters Neptunia, Noire and Blanc from Compile Heart and Idea Factory's Hyperdimension Neptunia series dating from early 2018 point to a collab event being considered. [https://tieba.baidu.com/p/5941038435 Datamined chibi files] found in November 2018 revealed that Sunborn had worked on characters Aliasse and Riela, and later [https://gall.dcinside.com/mgallery/board/view/?id=micateam&no=824079 Imca], [https://gall.dcinside.com/mgallery/board/view/?id=micateam&no=823887 Selvaria], [https://gall.dcinside.com/mgallery/board/view/?id=micateam&no=823955 Alicia] and [https://gall.dcinside.com/mgallery/board/view/?id=micateam&no=824049 Edy] from Sega's Valkyria Chronicles series, including normal, swimsuit and Valkyria form chibis, as well as [https://gall.dcinside.com/mgallery/board/view/?id=micateam&no=824011 enemies] and [[Technical Fairies]] based on Isara and Juliana, hinting that a collaboration event had been planned at some point. Soon after, [https://www.zhihu.com/question/300840243/answer/527504256 an anonymous source] claimed that Sunborn and Sega had cancelled the partnership after Sega pushed contractual terms disadvantageous to Sunborn.
[[Dormitory|Dormitories]] and [[T-Doll Costume Index|Costumes]] were added to the game in October 2016, Shotgun T-Dolls in January 2017, [[Technical Fairies]] in July 2017, Neural Upgrade in January 2018, [[Heavy Ordnance Corps]] in July 2018, [[Forward Base]] in August 2019, [[Protocol Assimilation]] in March 2020 and [[Luffberry Chess]] in April 2021.[[Mobile Armor]] was announced during the announcement livestream for [[Slow Shock]] and added in September 2023, but it had been teased as far back as 2018 during the 2nd Anniversary livestream. In 2020, lead designer Shaonian had said that vehicles had gone through multiple design iterations but that the developers had troubles coming up with a fun system.<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DF--_84ln14 Global server 2nd Anniversary Interview]</ref>
The partnership between Sunborn and Digital Sky for distribution of the game in Mainland China ended in April 2020.<ref>[https://gf-cn.sunborngame.com/NewsInfo?id=5557 Notice of transfer for Digital Sky accounts on the official site]</ref> Sunborn distributes the game internally in all regions (under the name Darkwinter Software for the Android release) except in Korea and Taiwan, where it is distributed by local branches of X.D. Network. As of the game's fifth anniversary, more than 13,400,000 player accounts had been registered.<ref>[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EkFe5_oF7gM7BA_g2i1IZuchQzKqmua3YOyLmWy-hX0/edit# Girls' Frontline Carnival 2021]</ref>
===Japanese release===
The Japanese release was announced in January 2016 to be handled by [https://web.archive.org/web/20160318165041/http://dl.wave-game.com/ Wave-Game] (who at one point were to handle customer service for the original release<ref>[https://weibo.com/1370692337/CF5Pr5MCx Weibo post on customer service recruitment]</ref>) and planned for the same year,.<ref>[http://www.chuapp.com/article/223822.html Chuapp article]</ref> Sunborn also planned to open offices in Japan under the direction of Sunborn vice-president [[Artist:phantania|Jiao Fuyao]],<ref name=4G2018JP>[https://www.4gamer.net/games/405/G040593/20181218028/ 2018 4gamer interview - Sunborn Japan]</ref> while other regions were managed by the Shanghai branch, but struggled to recruit staff.<ref name=4G2018 /> However, the partnership was scrapped and the game delayed to July 2018 due to a trademark dispute where Sunborn Japan engaged in legal proceedings to buy the name Girls' Frontline (少女前線) from its local owners, but was unable to do so as it had been transferred to a third party before the expected transaction date. The trademark is instead known as Doll's Frontline (ドールズフロントライン) in Japan.<ref>[https://www.4gamer.net/games/405/G040593/20180717006/ 4Gamer] (JP) news article about Girls' Frontline copyright issues in Japan.</ref> The original trademark was acquired by Sunborn in Japan on December 2020.<ref>[https://www.j-platpat.inpit.go.jp/c1800/TR/JP-2016-029961/90CEF99DCA601185BF629672A7C69BBC40F2B7A46F98C6A4C49903144B9858B0/40/en Japan Platform for Patent Information]</ref>
===Story===
*[https://twitter.com/GirlsFrontlineE Twitter account]
*[https://www.facebook.com/girlsfrontline/ Facebook account]
*[https://www.youtube.com/@girls-frontlinemica-team2792 YouTube account]
===Chinese===
*[https://weibo.com/u/7521349848 IOP Special Goods Department (Official merchandising Weibo account)]
*[https://space.bilibili.com/32472953 Bilibili account]
*[https://www.youtube.com/@user-si6sw1ts4v Taiwan YouTube account (Longcheng channel)]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20151223050608/http://www.girls-frontline.com/ Legacy website (girls-frontline.com)]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20160830221429/http://gf.ppgame.com:80/web/pc/index.html Legacy website (gf.ppgame.com)]
