Wednesday, April 1, 2026

Sonority Scouts - Prankfully Yours, 2026 Edition



Even with 2026 marking the "return to norm" of 2000-based April Fools pranks in the Taiko no Tatsujin premises, the 'norm' of paying heed to this fateful day in of itself is well-reciprocated in the greater scene en large, between rerunning jokes and far-out ideas blooming both inside and outside your average game center!

Question is, what are you waiting for?


It's a tradition to start at Sega's music games by this point, so why stop now? On today's issue of 'Weekly maimai', eight rumors surrounding everyone's favorite washing-machine rhythm game and its origins were shared, each seemingly being linked to a shared secret message. Crack the code and send out the eight-letters secret code on the official LINE account and who knows who might wanna congraturate with you...

The hunt was also encouraged with a couple of AF-affine additions for the game: the above song from partner game Ongeki and the limited return of the Wonderland Wars opening theme, one of maimai's earliest April Fools songs.



Speaking of Ongeki, here's a prank that is sure to captivate a certain someone among our writers! Even the girls of that arcade are getting some of that Compile-originating Puyo Puyo Fever, to the point of having its protagonist Arle Nadja aboard, customization elements and limited LUNATIC-only challenge on toe! Have fun while my average low-skill Puyo Puyo let's play a visual sample of Puyo-clearing action is recreated in the charting lane's foreground but beware-when they match four, you gotta hit those notes, combo clears included!

Fittingly enough, this April 1st also marks the Ongeki debut of Tetoris, a song from the voice bank made as a joke on this very day years prior up to becoming a bona-fide synth singer across the years.



Much like Taiko no Tatsujin, the last of Sega's music game version is styling another take on an already-launched April Fools from past years, this case being the reveal of a brand-new arcade model. Developed by none other than the Chuni Penguin itself, the fabled CHUNISUM BAASU is aiming to deliver "the ultimate chuunibyou experience" by gearing the model with revolutionary fans that follow you as you play with gusts of wind, colorful smoke puffs when activating a Danger skill or even throwing confetti at you when acing a song with max accuracy!

The reveal is joined by one of its songs leaking into currently-active Chunithm arcades, making it so that the fictional Irorimidori musical band can have one last jokey inclusion before their retirement concert event, being set a couple months ahead from now.


One long-absentee music game party is having a bit of side humor today, with Taito announcing the coming of a "Real Mode" via update for the currently-active Groove Coaster entry from the Switch, Future Performers. Later in the same day, some editing bloopers were also shared for other tentative edits of the game's mascots for the joke.

And before you start scowling at the use of generative AI for the prank, remember that it could have been worse, ESPECIALLY for Groove Coaster fans if you just look at the past two years. With the past two April 1sts being respectively the termination day of the arcade branch's online services and the delivery termination of the GC2 Original Style mobile game, your average Taito player is well used to see this day as the Groove Coaster holocaust by now!


Another funny notice-only blurb comes from Konami's pop'n music account, a series sparingly having jokes for the day but still strong of the record of having a playable song named after the day for years.

Several new characters and profile are being added on a bulk today on the official website, so get scouting! You might be seeing some bemani musician regulars among those too, pinky-swear...

 
The all-text route for a quick laugh was also supplied by the jubeat series account, with a tease of series mascot Mr.Smith challenging itself at a really difficult song, only to be able to produce a still screen of the aftermath. You can totes believe him, right..?



For Noxy Games's Lanota, a little name change for the day brings in a 2-day minigame and a test of mnemonics with 8 among the game's boss songs. A playable portion of the Master chart of all 8 tracks is played and afterwards, the player must decide if its just like the original or if there's some odd alteration inbetween, from visual cues of past April Fools to more (and less) subtle changes in the note patterns.

Each of the 8 songs in the minigame has a couple of such 'Anomalies' to be found; are you up to the test without watching any video footage beforehand?



If there's another music game to go hand-to-hand with the concept of anomalies, there's no need to look further than lowiro's Arcaea, so that's our next stop. This year's month-starter new feature is an 'Endless Courses' mode, tailored to offer you as many courses as you can muster, while also adapting to your own playstyle. Play with it over time, however, and you'll soon realize how failing/quitting courses will lock you out of any option, eventually leaving you with no other choice but to turn down every unavailable query. Either that or going deeper, that is.

As per tradition, not only the newly-released playable remix of Yuta Imai's UNKNOWN LEVELS is open for the day via this mode, but every other April fools song/chart combo can be played again by spamming likes in the appropriate entries!



For one day only, TunerGames's Paradigm:ReBoot is giving itself a cooking makeover! Not only character doodles appear and are unlockable as avatars, but even the app itself is having a few changes, from the ReCook name to subtle app icon alterations that will make you crave for some ramen.

As you can see from the video above, the deer storyline from last year's April Fools also comes back, for latecomers and veterans to enjoy once more the same!




For their third April Fools prank on Rotaeno, the people at DreamEngineGame are aiming to awaken in you that hidden craving to (re)play Crash Twinsanity due to the music on display!

Three Acapela variants of preexisting songs are hidden for a limited time and you have to scout your own tracklist to find (playable) traces of all three! The 'Acapelliot' button is also available on songs sharing an artist (or a similar title name) with the three affected tunes, in order to help newer players on their search.




Now here's a new name to the fray, even if it's partly due to a lack of... knowledge on my own part (whoops).

The PC/mobile music game KALPA from QueseraGames is used to have yearly bouts with a neck-extending creature known as the 'deerbird', and this year is no exception! The Deerbird will challenge you at random after a song play with a day-exclusive notechart and charming visuals to boot, but whether you can best it or not within the allotted 5 days, the spinning cat will greet every player as a permanent unlockable the same!




As usual, no official feed is given from the Phigros devolpers' end on any kind of tell about April Fools stuff happening or not (minus the tweet from days earlier above, posted for funny), but this time around it's easy to figure out! A side banner from the main menu will allow you to take part to a personality test, leading to a few ominous screens and you 'sending' a bottled message with your questionnaire feedback. Reboot the app and you'll be greated with challenging silliness in return!

For those unable to see the advice on your own even with an updated app, make sure your device settings and language either match the United States/English or Mainland China/Chinese before booting up the game.





Time for another newcomer! The freshly-1.0-released parkour/music game hybrid Bleap is having a really limited collaboration with Shidunzi Parkour, a free-to-play Chinese PC game from last year. Rather than running to the rhythm as your usual Bleaper-sona, have a rollout as the collaborating game's rock instead!







We have to end things up at some point eventually, so it might as well be firing the biggest banger than ever is. No, really, it looks like I'm overselling it, but it's really not- it's the opposite, if anything!

Despited repeated claims above of the head honchos of non-commercial music game RYCEAM not planning anything for today, all one has to do is to browse the tracklist and select the song Beep on Havoc. For the rest... just watch. What else can I add to that?!?
Posted by Lokamp at 6:15 PM
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