Brandon Boyer

HCUFS & VMACHIN: the unlikely combo that brought down Scribblenauts

'Brought down's obviously an overstatement, but the Occam's Razor trouble with creating a game in which players can do "anything" is that they'll use that anything to skirt the obstacles you place in their way.

In Scribblenauts's case, it's an innocuous pair of handcuffs and a vending machine, the former of which can be attached to the level-goal collectible Starites, stuffed wholesale into the machine, and then dragged back wholesale to wherever you stand, where it will handily dispense your win-condition free of charge.

Luckily, with no online ranking or competitive aspect to speak of, the exploit does nothing but defeat and deflate your own pleasure with the game, should you choose to use it, but it'll be interesting to see if developer 5th Cell respond with more than a smirking shrug over the coming weeks.

Brandon Boyer

TGS: Deeper into Okamiden's ukiyo-e environment

Capcom's brought to the Tokyo Game Show its most complete trailer for downsized DS sequel Okamiden to date, showing a wider range of stylus-brush interactions, more combat mode demos, and 100% more nature-restoring landscape-wide scampering.

Brandon Boyer

Animation jam: Aardman's Tim Ruffle does FlipNote Studio

Above is what happens when you put DSi animation app FlipNote Studio into the hands of a master, specifically Aardman Studio's Tim Ruffle, who'll be producing 12 new animations through the end of the year.

Brandon Boyer

Petal pup: see more of Capcom's DS Okamiden in motion

If you accidentally blinked through the first brief teaser for Capcom's DS downsized sequel to Clover's original Okami, here's twice as much footage showing off new stylus-based rider-controls and a world seemingly more open-ended than you might have expected, though just as gorgeously illustrated as you knew it would be. [via Tiny Cartridge]

Brandon Boyer

Nintendo Overload: pink/white DSi, black Wii-mote, Wii browser goes free

A quick run-down to re-cap the flurry of colorful announcements from Nintendo this morning: the company will launching new models of the DSi this month -- adding pink and Japan's launch color white to the existing blue and black models -- and launching a new black Wii remote/MotionPlus and separate Nunchuk accessory this holiday season.

They've also announced that their updated fitness app Wii Fit Plus will be released October 4th at a lower price point of $19.99, for users that already own the Balance Board accessory.

Finally, the company says the Internet Channel -- a downloadable version of Opera that lets users browse the web via their Wii -- has just dropped its price from the usual 500 Points ($5) to free, and that all users that purchased the browser will be credited the 500 Points to be used on a Virtual Console NES game of their choice. The new, free browser has also been upgraded to support the latest version of Flash.

Rob Beschizza

The Dark Spire: a ten-dollar dungeon crawl you might have missed

The Dark Spire was released on Nintendo DS some time ago, receiving lukewarm reviews despite its amazing artwork. HC explains why you should play it.

The Dark Spire is very heavily influenced by the original Wizardry games- it's an unapologetically oldschool dungeon-crawl through the titular Dark Spire. ... what I have found is a solid dungeon crawler which seems to be lacking many of the warts that typically mar the genre. As an Atlus game, I expect it will disappear from store shevles without a trace in another few months, but at the time of this writing, EBGames.com carries it for a paltry ten bucks- at that price, I'd say it deserves your consideration.

That this title's old-school mechanics and bizarre, palette-limited design didn't light fires is a terrible shame.

Dungeon Crawlin' Goodness [Inverted Castle]

Brandon Boyer

Listen: DS-10 creators announce Elvis techno-cover/remix contest

From the same devs, unsurprisingly, that brought you the Steve Jobs parodying Korg DS-10 Plus game announcement: handheld synthesizer creators AQI have just announced Elvis Presley & KORG DS-10 Audition, a new competition in celebration of the 55th anniversary of Presley's debut that's asking DS-10 composers to create their best techno remix of Elvis hits.

Fantastically unlikely as it is, it's all on the level with the Presley estate, and winners of the competition will see their track officially promoted and sold on iTunes and released on a special CD in Japan.

Full contest details are available at the official site, and users outside Japan will be submitting their entries via the newly established ElvisAudition YouTube channel, so watch that for further developments ahead of the October 20th cut-off date.

Brandon Boyer

Leeks & reindeer & foxes & zombies: it's another Scribblenauts montage

And now, to kick off a very arty Offworld Friday, the latest official montage from Scribblenauts artist Edison Yan, which -- from superhero to chef to bow-and-plunger Robin Hood, to the adorable leek-yielding elephant-rider girl -- is filling my brain with all sorts of fancy notions to give a whirl in the future. [via Tiny Cartridge]

Brandon Boyer

Tokidoki, Upper Playground, i-am-8-bit artists creating Need for Speed Nitro designs

I legitimately sometimes worry that I'm quickly devolving into a parody of myself, and it sure doesn't help when this happens: EA Montreal have announced new partnerships for their upcoming Wii and DS-bound racer Need for Speed Nitro, and, having paid almost no mind to the game in previous months, it's suddenly squarely on my radar.

Why? Because those partnerships are with: Italian vinyl toy/design studio Tokidoki (whose car you see above), SF art brand Upper Playground -- a collective that includes the respective bunny-skulled and heavy-handed art of Offworld faves Jeremy Fish and Sam Flores -- and, finally, all the artists behind the past few years of I-am-8bit shows.

EA says each have "created custom skins for a wide variety of vehicles including the Lamborghini Gallardo, Dodge Challenger, Dodge Charger R/T, Volkswagen Type 2 and Subaru Impreza WRX," and have "provided over 140 stylistic brushes that players can use to paint and personalize their ride," and now my lifelong dream to make a car with a CactusPup or sad/cute/hardcore rabbit on it go really really fast can finally be fulfilled.

Need for Speed Nitro [EA Montreal]

Brandon Boyer

Flipping out: Nintendo releases free sketchbook animation app to DSiWare

In a relatively surprise release (the European version was meant to be added to DSiWare before the Americans received it), Nintendo have officially unleashed FlipNote Studio, the same web-sharable flipbook animation system originally covered here back in December as Ugoku Memo Chou (Moving Memo Book).

The app is available for free on the DSiWare store, and, as above, the underlying web service is currently live at flipnote.hatena.com, where you can browse, rate, favorite and embed animations uploaded from the DSi itself. As mentioned before, users can embed their own recorded sounds, or use monochromatic stills captured from the DS's camera in their animations as well as painting them by hand.

Don't judge me too hard on my debut flick -- it's a work in progress, alright! And, it goes without saying, I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone comes up with.

Brandon Boyer

Blood chickpeas: the paper prototype of Jason Rohrer's conflict diamond DS game

And the last good indie-get of the day: TIGSource's fellow-Brandon McCartin uses the hard-nose journalistic tactic of, err, asking nicely, and scores the image at right (which, click through to see the actual full version, since he deserves all credit here): the paper prototype of Passage creator Jason Rohrer's newly revealed conflict diamond DS game.

Rohrer doesn't give away much with the chickpea, penny, and Go-stone prototype: you can see dueling maps of Angola (where, curiously, a new study of their mining operations has just yesterday been released), and, get hints of presumably, a struggle for both resources and territorial control.

In the meantime, Rohrer has been posting some frankly fantastic reading on the history and marketing of diamonds (specifically, artificially inflating perceptions of rarity/scarcity and therefore value, and concocting wholesale the image of diamonds as the ultimate symbol of marriage), all of which isn't required reading to understand the game, but has surely colored my perceptions toward it for the better.

Brandon Boyer

Hidden gems: Passage dev creating blood diamond DS strategy game

It took me more than a few reads to make sure this was on the level, but it would appear to be so: in an interview with 'social/artistic' games blog Press Pause to Reflect, Passage, Gravitation and Primrose designer Jason Rohrer (also currently consulting for ad agency Tool) tells the blog his current project will actually be actually his first retail release.

According to the blog, Rohrer says he's at work on a DS game to be published by Majesco in 2010, and here's the kicker:

It's a two-player strategy game about diamond trading in Angola on the eve of the passage of the Kimberly Process.

The politics of diamond trading in the region (and surrounding areas) has been a minefield for the past few decades, the diamond miners themselves suffering human rights abuses and proceeds of the trade of the so-called 'blood diamonds' going to fund local insurgencies/conflicts.

It's not subject matter that would pop immediately to mind for a handheld title, but I suppose were I to choose someone to metaphorically reduce it to a 2-player strategy game, Rohrer would be somewhere up there near the top of my to-call list. [via Destructoid]