FilesFound!POCKET ELQUE
Posted on 27/05/24
Alright... I think it's time to write about one of the most obscure things I've found yet.
Something that was more difficult to research than anything else I've covered...
It's time to talk about POCKET ELQUE.
POCKET ELQUE describes itself as an application that counts mouse clicks. The more you click, the more interactions you'll unlock with the blonde haired character featured on the cover.
From the back cover:
Unbelievably, a Click Counter and Elque have fused together!
Boot up "POCKET ELQUE", where it's OK to just lazily click away!
The more you click, the more you and your Elque will get along, and the more "Elque and Friends" functions will be added!
Whether morning, afternoon, or night, asleep or awake, always be with your Elque!
The front of the paper cover for POCKET ELQUE
The back of the paper cover for POCKET ELQUE
"Huh! I've never heard of this before..." is what you might be thinking. Well, that's because it basically doesn't exist online, at all, outside of alternate listings for the auction I already won.
The only English search results for "POCKET ELQUE" on Google
The only Japanese search results for "ポケットエルクゥ" on Google
It's very clearly handmade, with the cover being a piece of folded paper, and the files being on two blank floppy disks.
When I first saw the listing for it, I had no idea what I was looking at. It had a strange aura...
What is POCKET ELQUE?
...Can we even find out?
Let's start by looking at what's on the floppy disks.
Each disk has one .exe file that works in conjunction with the other to extract all the necessary files for running the application. An identical readme file is on both disks as well.
Extracting everything into a folder results in this:
We have some .PPM files, a config file and the .exe for the application itself, with a cute icon of a girl.
Let's take a quick look at the other files before we try to launch POCKET ELQUE!
The readme file includes an introduction, an installation guide and a list that explains what each button in the application does.
When I first saw the listing for it, I had no idea what I was looking at. It had a strange aura...
What is POCKET ELQUE?
...Can we even find out?
Let's start by looking at what's on the floppy disks.
Using the Floppy Disks
Each disk has one .exe file that works in conjunction with the other to extract all the necessary files for running the application. An identical readme file is on both disks as well.
Extracting everything into a folder results in this:
We have some .PPM files, a config file and the .exe for the application itself, with a cute icon of a girl.
Let's take a quick look at the other files before we try to launch POCKET ELQUE!
Looking at the Files
The readme file includes an introduction, an installation guide and a list that explains what each button in the application does.
The readme says that the character featured in POCKET ELQUE is named Hatsune, but doesn't give any more information about her.
Modern versions of Photoshop can still read .PPM image files, so lets look at the converted to .pngs:
Those seem to be textures for 3D models!
When I first saw the screenshot on the back cover of POCKET ELQUE that looked like it featured 3D, I wondered if it would use actual models or just use pre-rendered images... These textures make me think there must be some real 3D going on, which seems pretty advanced for something handmade.
Alright, let's try running POCKET ELQUE!
Running the Application
Even though POCKET ELQUE was made for Windows 95, I decided to try and run it on my physical XP machine for hardware compatibility sake and ease of recording.
Will it still work...?
Hey, it works no problem!
POCKET ELQUE seems to be pretty much what it said on the tin. It's an application that counts your mouse clicks while a 3D character plays through animations in a small room, and you can "gift" her your click count at any time.
It's also worth noting here that the "pocket" part of the name and the yellow border around the screen are references to the Pocket Pikachu handheld device that operated similar to a Tamagotchi:
The English release of Pokemon Pikachu
The Japanese release of Pocket Pikachu
When you first launch the application, Hatsune doesn't do much at all aside from stand in place. After you've given her a few gifts of clicks, she starts to do more animations.
It made me want to see all the animations in the game...
How many clicks did it take to unlock each new animation? How many animations were there to unlock?
Since there was no information online, I decided there was only one thing I could do.
I had to write my own Game Guide for POCKET ELQUE.
POCKET ELQUE Game Guide
This is the only screen of POCKET ELQUE:
Your current click count is displayed on the top right. Clicks increase even when the POCKET ELQUE window isn't in focus, as it's an application intended to run in the background while you do your daily computer tasks.
There are seven clickable buttons towards the bottom of the screen.
1: Change between different camera angles.
2: "Call" to the character. She will move to the center of the room and react to you with a short animation after finishing her current action.
3-6: Shortcut buttons for other applications of your choosing.
4: Gift your current click count to the character. Doing so resets your click count to 0.
Clicking the "POCKET ELQUE" logo text beneath the 3D view will open the Configuration window, where you can set the programs that will open with the shortcut keys:
As you gift more clicks, the number of different animations that Hatsune randomly cycles through is increased.
...Wait a second.
If I want to do this properly, I'm going to need to click a lot.
Ahh... I don't want to do that...
This game is too hard...
Cheating at POCKET ELQUE
I decided to try and find a program that would automatically click for me (Hatsune would never know it wasn't actually me doing the clicking, so it's fine).
I went with the first result that came up for an auto clicker program that worked on Windows XP.
It was called Cok Free Auto Clicker.
A screenshot of coksoft.com
Cok Free Auto Clicker is made by MySuperSpy and is free to download.
The installer featured a Licence Agreement that was extremely long.
...
Let's try something else real quick.
Making our own Auto Clicker
Using Visual Studio and C#, I put together my own simple auto clicker to make getting those clicks for our POCKET ELQUE Game Guide much easier. I called it AutoClickerFF!
The main window for AutoClickerFF
You might notice that it features a familiar cat...
You can also see that it's very similar to Cok Free Auto Clicker, but I made this one, so I like it more.
A brief video of AutoClickerFF
It's a very simple program, but I thought it'd be fun to make a GitHub page to share it on, as well as any other future programs I make for FilesFound!, so here's the source code and .exe for AutoClickerFF!
Anyway, I feel like we were doing something else...
POCKET ELQUE Game Guide (cont.)
Oh, that's right!
The character in POCKET ELQUE has at least 18 animations that they can play - three in reaction to you calling her, three after you give her a gift, one for when you go to use a program shortcut, and the rest are unlocked as you gift her clicks.
Animations that are rewarded via clicks are unlocked in intervals of 100. Animations stop being unlocked after the last one at 900 clicks.
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Below is a video showcasing all of the animations listed above, in the same order.
Phew! Okay, that's good enough for a Game Guide, right?
Well...
Can we really be certain nothing new is unlocked after 1000 clicks?
The last animations unlocked were fishing ones. What if there was some rare animation where the character fished up something special, and the chance for it to play was increased with the more clicks you gifted? Or something...?
I already made AutoClickerFF, so we might as well find out.
I set up AutoClickerFF and went out for a walk.
When I came back, she was doing pretty well! I figured 99999 clicks would make a nice gift, so I got ready to stop it around then.
(Actually, something I discovered is that if it goes past 99999, the click count loops back to 0... But I was probably going to pick a number like 99999 anyway).
Alright! Let's see how the character reacts to 99999 clicks! She's gonna love it!!
...
She loves it!!!
...Oh, also, it didn't unlock any new animations.
After seeing all the animations that there potentially were in the game, I couldn't help but think... Isn't POCKET ELQUE cute?
I'll admit, I had a strange feeling about what POCKET ELQUE could have been judging it by its cover alone. But then, playing it and trying to unlock the different animations was fun! Some of the animations are surprising, like seeing her use fireworks in her room or fishing from her bed... And even the more basic ones like her going to sleep are still fun and cute...
For a doujin game that I couldn't find anything information about online, it had a lot more care and effort put into it than I would have guessed. The fact that it has animated 3D models alone is impressive, especially for the time.
It's also possible that POCKET ELQUE is an edit or a mod of something else that people would edit characters they liked into...
But still, this all made me wonder even more... What was POCKET ELQUE?!
This is what I knew:
1. POCKET ELQUE was listed for sale as a doujin game, indicating this was a fan made game using characters from a pre-existing series.
2. The main character is a blonde haired girl named Hatsune. There is another girl character with green hair and robot like parts (the character that Hatsune has a chance of fishing up after getting 900+ clicks). It's likely this character is from the same pre-existing series as Hatsune.
3. Searching for "POCKET ELQUE" in English only resulted in alternate listings of the online auction I had already won, and searching for "ポケットエルクゥ" in Japanese resulted in the same and, oh hold on...
There was actually one other direct result for searching for POCKET ELQUE in Japanese:
I'd looked at this, but it had just seemed to have been someone's giant list of doujin games that they kept for their own records.
(Not to get too off track when we're onto something, but this midi file can be found on the homepage of the website that this list is from, it's good...)
If we find POCKET ELQUE on this list, it's listed alongside something else called Pocket Multi...
In fact, POCKET ELQUE was described as the "Hatsune" version of Pocket Multi...
There's also the mystery of the word "ELQUE". I'd tried searching around this term in both English and Japanese, but didn't find anything that seemed too helpful.
In Japanese specifically, a character kept coming up that I had assumed wasn't related to POCKET ELQUE at all - some kind of monster from a game called Kizuato.
A video showcasing all of the discovered character animations of POCKET ELQUE
Phew! Okay, that's good enough for a Game Guide, right?
Well...
Can we really be certain nothing new is unlocked after 1000 clicks?
The last animations unlocked were fishing ones. What if there was some rare animation where the character fished up something special, and the chance for it to play was increased with the more clicks you gifted? Or something...?
I already made AutoClickerFF, so we might as well find out.
Is There Anything Past 1000 Clicks?
I set up AutoClickerFF and went out for a walk.
When I came back, she was doing pretty well! I figured 99999 clicks would make a nice gift, so I got ready to stop it around then.
(Actually, something I discovered is that if it goes past 99999, the click count loops back to 0... But I was probably going to pick a number like 99999 anyway).
Alright! Let's see how the character reacts to 99999 clicks! She's gonna love it!!
A short video showing how Hatsune reacts to being gifted 99999 clicks. She pauses for a while, does a small jump, and then turns her back to you and walks away.
...
She loves it!!!
...Oh, also, it didn't unlock any new animations.
After seeing all the animations that there potentially were in the game, I couldn't help but think... Isn't POCKET ELQUE cute?
I'll admit, I had a strange feeling about what POCKET ELQUE could have been judging it by its cover alone. But then, playing it and trying to unlock the different animations was fun! Some of the animations are surprising, like seeing her use fireworks in her room or fishing from her bed... And even the more basic ones like her going to sleep are still fun and cute...
For a doujin game that I couldn't find anything information about online, it had a lot more care and effort put into it than I would have guessed. The fact that it has animated 3D models alone is impressive, especially for the time.
It's also possible that POCKET ELQUE is an edit or a mod of something else that people would edit characters they liked into...
But still, this all made me wonder even more... What was POCKET ELQUE?!
What is POCKET ELQUE?
This is what I knew:
1. POCKET ELQUE was listed for sale as a doujin game, indicating this was a fan made game using characters from a pre-existing series.
2. The main character is a blonde haired girl named Hatsune. There is another girl character with green hair and robot like parts (the character that Hatsune has a chance of fishing up after getting 900+ clicks). It's likely this character is from the same pre-existing series as Hatsune.
3. Searching for "POCKET ELQUE" in English only resulted in alternate listings of the online auction I had already won, and searching for "ポケットエルクゥ" in Japanese resulted in the same and, oh hold on...
There was actually one other direct result for searching for POCKET ELQUE in Japanese:
I'd looked at this, but it had just seemed to have been someone's giant list of doujin games that they kept for their own records.
This list continues for a long time
(Not to get too off track when we're onto something, but this midi file can be found on the homepage of the website that this list is from, it's good...)
If we find POCKET ELQUE on this list, it's listed alongside something else called Pocket Multi...
In fact, POCKET ELQUE was described as the "Hatsune" version of Pocket Multi...
There's also the mystery of the word "ELQUE". I'd tried searching around this term in both English and Japanese, but didn't find anything that seemed too helpful.
In Japanese specifically, a character kept coming up that I had assumed wasn't related to POCKET ELQUE at all - some kind of monster from a game called Kizuato.
It was worth looking up Kizuato (痕), Hatsune (初音) and Elque (エルクゥ) together in Japanese to see if it was even possible they were connected...
I got some results! Including a character page!
Kashiwagi Hatsune... Could that be POCKET ELQUE's Hatsune??
Looking through the other visual novels this character was in, we can find something that confirms this is indeed the Hatsune we're looking for...
In the list of characters in the visual novel "To Heart" (one which Kashiwagi Hatsune is a main character of) we can see a green haired, robot eared character... Named Multi! Just like Pocket Multi!
So, we had our characters. Kashiwagi Hatsune and Multi. They were both main characters from a visual novel called To Heart. POCKET ELQUE and Pocket Multi were fan made games of these characters from To Heart.
But, how does the "elque" monster relate to Hatsune? Why is it called POCKET ELQUE?
Well, from skimming this translated explanation of Elque, it turns out they're some kind of alien and Hatsune's character is a descendant of them, or a reincarnation of an empress Elque, or, something...
Look, this visual novel seems kinda wild and I'm not interested in reading about it more than to learn of its connection to POCKET ELQUE, so let's just acknowledge the connection and end our research here.
Mystery... Solved!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It was very fun to play POCKET ELQUE and actually learn about what it was with so little available from searching for the title. I'm glad we could learn about Hatsune!
...Oh yeah, and Multi too! I wonder if I'll ever find Pocket Multi...
Looking up Multi does bring up this video of her...
Hey... That's the midi from earlier! Wow!!
Anyway, that's all about POCKET ELQUE for now! This was a big one, huh? Thanks for hanging in there!
I hope it was fun to learn about an obscure doujin game I got online for a dollar!
If you'd like to gift your own clicks to Hatsune in POCKET ELQUE, feel free to download my upload of it to archive.org here.
I got some results! Including a character page!
Kashiwagi Hatsune... Could that be POCKET ELQUE's Hatsune??
Looking through the other visual novels this character was in, we can find something that confirms this is indeed the Hatsune we're looking for...
In the list of characters in the visual novel "To Heart" (one which Kashiwagi Hatsune is a main character of) we can see a green haired, robot eared character... Named Multi! Just like Pocket Multi!
So, we had our characters. Kashiwagi Hatsune and Multi. They were both main characters from a visual novel called To Heart. POCKET ELQUE and Pocket Multi were fan made games of these characters from To Heart.
But, how does the "elque" monster relate to Hatsune? Why is it called POCKET ELQUE?
Well, from skimming this translated explanation of Elque, it turns out they're some kind of alien and Hatsune's character is a descendant of them, or a reincarnation of an empress Elque, or, something...
Look, this visual novel seems kinda wild and I'm not interested in reading about it more than to learn of its connection to POCKET ELQUE, so let's just acknowledge the connection and end our research here.
Mystery... Solved!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It was very fun to play POCKET ELQUE and actually learn about what it was with so little available from searching for the title. I'm glad we could learn about Hatsune!
...Oh yeah, and Multi too! I wonder if I'll ever find Pocket Multi...
Looking up Multi does bring up this video of her...
Hey... That's the midi from earlier! Wow!!
Anyway, that's all about POCKET ELQUE for now! This was a big one, huh? Thanks for hanging in there!
I hope it was fun to learn about an obscure doujin game I got online for a dollar!
If you'd like to gift your own clicks to Hatsune in POCKET ELQUE, feel free to download my upload of it to archive.org here.
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