Semicircular Canal Game: How to Play, Score, and Reach S Rank

A stationery shop owner built a spin drill for driving day

I made a game that can train your semicircular canals for the day you drive.

Yoshihiro Yamashita opened Docket Store in Minoh, Osaka, in 2018, a select shop for stationery and storage built around labeling. He spent ten years at Ryohin Keikaku, the company behind Muji, including time as a store manager, then started making his own goods, among them the Receipt Scan Board. The same maker's instinct shows up here as a playful browser toy: a rotating-picture drill aimed at people nervous about a license test or a first drive in a long time, people who want to ease motion sickness, and anyone who just wants a strange new spin game.

The shop still sells the paper goods. On docketstore.theshop.jp you will find labeling stickers, the Receipt Scan Board PRO, a low-reflection sheet, DOT MOJI masking tape, and the DOCKET EVENT PLANNER 2027, plus workshops he has run at Grand Front Osaka and in Singapore. The game sits on that same shop site. Open it in the browser and you are one start button away from the spin.

Hold the center target while the world turns

After you press start, a rotating field fills the middle of the screen. Your job is to keep looking at the target in the center and correct your balance with mouse movement on a computer or a tap on a phone. Direction and speed change from stage to stage. Last a set stretch of time and the run advances to the next phase.

The inputs are simple. The hard part is the discipline: do not glue your gaze so hard that you freeze, and do not thrash your neck to chase the spin. You are steering a small correction, not wrestling the whole picture. A clean phase feels oddly satisfying, the way a long stare in a mirror maze does, right up until the speed jumps and your correction arrives a beat late.

What adds points, what ends the run, and the four ranks

Points stack from three things: how long you last, how fast the current stage is spinning, and how steadily you keep the target. The screen slamming into a big tilt, or your gaze slipping off the target, deducts points. A set number of those failures ends the game. The exact fail count is not published, so treat every slip as expensive.

When the run stops you see your score and your personal best, then a retry button for another immediate round. Judgment is four ranks: S, A, B, and C. Beating your own best is what moves the rank up, so the loop is short on purpose. One more try is always sitting there.

• Survival time

  Staying in the phase longer adds to the score before you advance.

• Spin speed

  Faster stages are worth more, which is why the late phases swing the total.

• Target hold

  Keeping the center target is its own scoring factor, separate from merely staying alive.

• Mistakes

  A hard tilt or a gaze that leaves the target deducts points and counts toward game over.

How to last longer without making yourself sick

Take a breath before you hit start and keep your eyes on the center from the first frame. On fast stages, follow the motion with your eyes only. Shaking your head to track the spin is the quickest way to lose the target and feel awful. On a phone, lock the device in both hands so the tap is a correction, not a wobble. On a computer, sit back into the chair so your shoulders stay still and only the mouse moves.

If you get queasy, cap a session around three minutes and take a break before the next retry. The game is a balance drill for the day you drive, built as a casual browser round you can repeat, closer in spirit to a one-button endurance toy than to a full driving sim. There is no track, no car, and no upgrade path. There is only the next spin, your best score, and whether you can hold the dot long enough to climb from C toward S.