The story
Fiction and adapted settings written by Akitsora Gaming for this title, including invented dialogue and events. This is not a historical or folklore reference. The rules and specification tables define the gameplay and math.
One grain of rice on the first square, two on the next, four on the third,
— a humble request that climbs the abacus all the way to ten thousand koku.
I. The Abacus at the Rice Merchant's Yard
At dusk in an Edo rice merchant's courtyard, plump straw rice bales stand stacked in neat rows before a whitewashed storehouse with black-and-white namako tile walls. Beneath the timber eaves, the head clerk adjusts his round spectacles, opens his ledger, and flicks the wooden beads of his long abacus with a crisp clatter across the yard. Warm lantern light spills across the cobblestones as clerks tally the autumn harvest brought in from the provinces.
The game draws its inspiration from the classic Japanese tale of the clever retainer who asked his lord for a seemingly modest reward: a single grain of rice on the first square of a go board, doubled on each square thereafter. Above the reels hangs the great abacus that tracks that exponential climb. What begins as a single humble grain on the first square soon outgrows bowls, barrels, and entire storehouses.
II. Go Stones Clicking on the Board
Polished black-and-white go stones land across the reels alongside golden rice ears, wooden measuring boxes, and straw sacks during the base game. Acting as wilds that substitute for regular symbols to complete ways from the leftmost reel, they also serve as the spark for the stone doubling feature. Their smooth slate and clamshell surfaces gleam against the timber reels as the clerk prepares to count the combinations.
Whenever two or more go stones land on the same base spin, each stone clicks onto the grid with a sharp snap and doubles the spin's ways win in powers of two — turning two stones into double, three into fourfold, and climbing higher with every extra stone that lands. Hearing those stones click into place one after another brings the simple power of doubling to life on the main board.
III. The Lord's Reward and Doubling Cards
Landing enough reward scrolls anywhere on the stopped board unrolls the lord's decree and begins the Reward free spins. The great wooden abacus above the grid starts at a single grain of rice, waiting for wooden doubling cards to appear on the reels as they spin. Brass fittings on the great abacus catch the lantern light as the retainer's legendary reward gets underway.
Each doubling card that lands flicks the abacus up a full notch, doubling the global multiplier from one grain through traditional rice measures — gō, shō, to, and bale — toward hundreds and thousands of koku. The multiplier never resets between spins and multiplies every win that follows. Every flick of the wooden beads marks another doubling of the harvest, carrying the count higher with each card that lands.
IV. Opening the Ten-Thousand-Koku Storehouse
As wooden doubling cards continue to land across the free spins, the rice units on the abacus leap higher and the merchant's courtyard buzzes with anticipation. Reaching the top mark of ten thousand koku crowns the entire feature with its grandest spectacle as every bead on the abacus gleams with gold. What started as a single grain of rice on the corner of a board has grown into a lordly domain of golden grain.
At that moment, the heavy doors of the whitewashed rice storehouse swing wide open, golden rice bales pour out like a waterfall across the yard, and the head clerk raises his abacus high in triumph — a fortune grown from a single grain of rice. Amid the clatter of the abacus and the glow of overflowing bales, the merchant's yard celebrates a truly ten-thousandfold harvest.