I put a visual walkthrough together to help people create an account to play Valkyria Duel. The images aren't very fancy, but they should get the job done. Be sure to read the notes I've posted here between the images as well as the images themselves.
Start off by going to the
Valkyria Duel website and click on the big "Game Start" button. For those interested, the banner to the right of it with the Selvaria card says that everyone that participates in this user test of the game will get this card later. So be sure to keep reading and sign up!
After clicking the "Game Start" button you will be redirected to the Hangame website to sign in. To create a Hangame account, click the big orange button as indicated on the picture below.
After you click that you will be taken to the page below. Follow the directions on the image and continue. I advise against using a yahoo email address to register though. I attempted to use a yahoo email address first and never received the activation email. I requested a second one and still never got it, not even in the spam folder. With my gmail address I received the email instantly, so I suggest using that.
Click the first link in the activation email and you will be taken to the image below. Fill in your information as I have instructed in the image. In case you care to do this, in the "Location" tab, the last choice indicates that you are outside of Japan. So feel free to pick that one if you want to give Hangame that information, or just pick any of the options.
The avatar style that you choose is for your Hangame avatar, it has no impact on Valkyria Duel. So pick whichever one you like better and then click the indicated button below.
This next step is probably the most daunting one for those of you that do not know Japanese. As with most sites, you have to fill in a captcha to complete registration. But this captcha will be in Japanese and is actually the only point during registration that you need to type in Japanese for. Fear not though, I have a method for you to be able to complete this step without needing to configure your computer to be able to type in Japanese.
All you will need to do is look at the characters in the captcha, find what they refer to on
this chart or
this chart, and type that into
this website. That website will convert the letters you type into the corresponding Japanese kana. I can't say for sure, but I think the captcha may only use hiragana, so you may only need to look at that first chart. After the website converts your text into Japanese, copy and paste the characters into the captcha box as indicated in the image below and click the marked button to submit it.
Congratulations, you just completed creating your Hangam account! You can close that window and now return to the Valkyria Duel website. Now when you click the "Game Start" button another window will pop up and it will start downloading the data for the game. If you think the download is going very slowly or has stopped completely, close the window and hit "Game Start" again to continue where your download left off. I had to do this several times to complete downloading it, so it is not unusual for the download to stop or go slowly.
After the game finishes downloading click on the screen to proceed to the image below and follow the directions I put on the image.
Put your desired username in the box. It does not have to be the same as your Hangame one.
This next part is very important. This is where you select which Alliance you want to join, West or East. One of the main components of the game is an ongoing battle over territory, so if you are getting your friends to sign up you probably want to be on the same side as them. I chose the West Alliance and I think it would be pretty cool if a lot of us from the blog could be on the same side and work together. Since this game does not have a story, really the only difference between the two sides is color; West is blue and East is red.
After you choose your side the game will take you to its tutorial. Even if you can't read Japanese, the tutorial does a good job of teaching you the basics as it makes you go through many of the game options rather than just showing you. After you finish the tutorial you're good to go!
I hope this helps you set up your account and get playing. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask. Also feel free to post comments discussing the game!
