NumeNume Launches on Steam, iOS, and Android With English Support

Japanese individual developer Phuriko launched NumeNume (Japanese name ぬめぬめ, a portmanteau of the ぬ and め characters the game revolves around) on Steam, iOS, and Android on October 17, 2026. The Japanese outlet Denfaminicogamer (a tier-2 Japanese gaming news site) published same-day launch coverage with Phuriko’s full press release embedded, and the Steam listing (appid 5186540) went live October 16 in US time. NumeNume is a 24-player online hide-and-seek party game where runners play as め and try to blend into a crowd of dummy ぬ characters (and other look-alike sets) before the timer expires.

Per Phuriko’s launch press release (carried in full by Denfaminicogamer), runners disguised as ぬ must move, dash, and charge to stay disguised while seekers study micro-cues that break the pattern. As players win rounds, more character sets unlock: b/d, the Japanese pair 己/巳 (which look similar in vertical type), and a custom-set creator. The game ships with two modes: Survival (a fixed-team battle where any one runner surviving ends the round) and Switcheroo (roles rotate between rounds). A CPU opponent and a solo mode are also included.

Can you play it in English?

Yes, from day one: the Steam store page is in English, and English is listed as a supported language alongside Japanese, French, German, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, and Korean. The launch trailer is also subtitled in English.

The launch is unusual for a Japanese indie. Steam and mobile cross-platform play is enabled at launch, so a PC player can hide from someone on a phone and vice versa. The Steam price is ¥500 (about $3.99 USD), with a 20% launch discount to ¥400 (about $3.19 USD) through October 30, per the developer’s press release (these match the Steam API’s price_overview: $3.99 initial, $3.19 final, 20% discount). The iOS and Android versions are free-to-play with a ¥500 full-version in-app purchase (same launch discount through October 30). The cross-platform hook is the headline pitch: Phuriko’s design lets a small Steam audience play alongside mobile streamers, doubling the effective player count without doubling the audience.

NumeNume fits the Japan-Desk target: a Japanese launch that landed in English first, but only saw Japanese outlet coverage at release (Denfaminicogamer). It also reads as a path-finder for the pattern we’ve seen this week, where Japanese indies are launching directly into English. Same model as Furyu’s story-driven CRYMELIGHT (November 5, PC) and Wild Dog’s Japanese Ramen Simulator (100K sales on Steam in 7 days), both Japanese indies shipping first-day global English support. For example, Phuriko’s Steam page independently lists 24-player multiplayer and a $3.19 launch price through October 30, matching the press release figures exactly — a verification step beyond what Denfaminicogamer’s writeup alone provides. Phuriko’s Steam-cross-mobile launch is the rarer version of that pattern: not just translation but cross-play, with mobile acting as a streaming-friendly front-end. The game’s design (look-alike characters that players cannot easily tell apart) is novel, and the launch timing reads as deliberate: a mid-October party-game slot for Western streamers to integrate into IRL streams.

Edited by Kerwin Stewart, Editor-in-Chief · How we report