ADK

ADK, also known as Alpha Denshi Corp., was a Japanese video game company, very famous in the 1990s, who made various games mainly for SNK's Neo-Geo platform, as many console games. The K in ADK comes from the Japanese term for "corporation", kabushiki kaisha. ADK made various video games for many genres, but their most popular works are their fighting games, particularly the World Heroes series.

A prevalent theme in all of their works was adding a ninja character into the cast, even if the ninja contrasts the game's setting.

Origins
ADK was created in 1980 in Saitama, Japan. The first game ADK made was called Janputer (ジャンピュータ, Janputer), the world's first arcade Mahjong game, which was sold by Sanritsu Giken Corp. Afterwards, Sega and Tecmo would sell ADK-produced games through the early 1980s. In the later 1980s, ADK became something of a 2nd-party developer for SNK.

ADK made games for many genres, including sports, shooters, platformers, fighters, and beat 'em up games. The company became quite famous, with considerable success in North America.

In early 1990s, ADK started developing many games for SNK's Neo Geo system. However, through the mid-90s, ADK failed to win very much success. The company eventually went bankrupt and closed its installations in early 2000 (SNK itself would declare bankruptcy the very next year). SNK ended up buying ADK's intellectual properties.

Legacy
Today, ADK has a legacy in the hands of SNK Playmore, with new appearances of its characters, notably in the fighting game Neo Geo Battle Coliseum, where Hanzo, Fuuma, Mudman and Neo Dio from the World Heroes series appeared, as well as Kisarah Westfield and Joe Kusanagi (in a cameo in one of Kisarah's attacks) from Aggressors of Dark Kombat.

Some originally ADK characters have made an appearance in SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters DS, like Hanzo from WH and Sasuke from Ninja Master's. Their characters appear in this game as SNK character cards and as Action and Counter cards.

Games by ADK

 * Champion Baseball & Champion Baseball II (1983)
 * Exciting Soccer (1983) & Exciting Soccer II (1984)
 * Bull Fighter (1984)
 * Equites (1984)
 * High Voltage (1985)
 * The Koukouyakyuh (1985)
 * Splendor Blast (1985)
 * Super Stingray (1986)
 * Kyros No Yakata / Kyros (1986)
 * Sky Soldiers (1988)
 * Gang Wars (1989)
 * Sky Adventure (1989)
 * Super Champion Baseball (1989)
 * Blue's Journey / Raguy (1990) *
 * Magician Lord (1990) *
 * Ninja Combat (1990) *
 * Crossed Swords (1991) *
 * Ninja Commando (1992) *
 * World Heroes series (1992-1995) *
 * Aggressors of Dark Kombat (1994) *
 * Syougi No Tatsujin - Master of Syougi (1995) *
 * Crossed Swords 2 (1995) (only for Neo Geo CD)
 * ADK World (1995) (only for Neo Geo CD)
 * Ninja Master's: Haoh-Ninpo-Cho (1996)*
 * Twinkle Star Sprites (1996) *
 * Over Top (1996) *

(The games listed with * were released for the Neo-Geo system)