The WiiWare Thread

[codenamelenny]

WiiWare is a new download service that will provide original games. It is launching in North America on May 12, 2008. There is said to be at least 100 games being developed.

Here are the ones we know about:

Gravitronix
Three schoolmates longed to make games and finally got the chance thanks to WiiWare. "It wasn't until the Wii and the rumour of original downloadable content that we moved toward becoming a development house," explains Medaverse CEO Jesse Lowther. And their first game? Gravitronix.

Lowther explains the game as "twisting the remote or nunchuk to move your 'gravity platform' within your territory, and using a limited but constantly recharging energy beam to stop projectiles launched at your territory while trying to launch projectiles at the territories of your opponents."

The neatness of the set-up is clearly the multiplayer action. "Gravitronix will be a multiplayer game at heart, with eight-player support on one console," Lowther says. "Four players holding remotes and four holding nunchuks."

You'll be able to try it yourself for a mere 500 points. Why the low price? "We're a completely unknown developer," says Lowther. "No one has any clue about what to expect from our games. As such, we decided that anyone willing to patronise us should only need to do so at 500 Wii points." What a nice man.

Bruiser and Scratch
Typical. You're minding your own business in the woods and before you know it, you've fallen into a strange portal. Happens to the best of us. What lies through the gateway? According to Steel Penny Games' founder, president and 'technical guy' Jason Hughes: "a puzzle game. Not a huge drawn-out adventure, just something fun to play for a few minutes or for a few hours, depending on your determination."

Though the game is single-player, Hughes says that, "From what I've observed, anyone in the room at the time can't help but become involved, so in a sense it's a viral local multiplayer game, yet only requires a single controller."


Of most interest, however, is Hughes' desire to create a WiiWare franchise. He notes that, "Making the game good comes first, having a story to tell comes a close second," but explains how Steel Penny "hope to produce a game that has enough story to give life to the characters [dog Bruiser and cat Scratch] outside the confines of a puzzle game, so players would look forward to seeing them in another type of game." Could Bruiser and Scratch be the faces of WiiWare? Paws for thought.

Defend your castle
Believe it or not, but there's a whole genre of internet flash games dedicated to the protection of castles. No, not the fleshy Matthew kind, but the stony kind. Placing turrets, aiming your archers, micromanaging the peasants to scrape off body parts seared to the ramparts by hot tar - the genre is as varied as any other and it all started with XGen's Defend Your Castle.

Wait a second. Are you, NGamer, meaning to tell us that we're being fobbed off with WiiWare we can get online for free? No, not at all, disembodied voice representing the readership.

Where the original Defend Your Castle was clearly drawn in Microsoft paint and revolved around scooping up hordes with your mouse and bloodily splattering them against the ground, this is far more shaped and structured.

As a God-like force, you have to protect the blue button-headed citizens of your castle from a hoard of vicious white buttons. With a pointer you can drop impressive firework-esque bombs, grab the whites and convert them into blues, or use an eraser to wipe away their pencil-drawn bodies.

This handcrafted style is particularly nice - enemies come at you with broken ice-lolly sticks and the castle is paper thin. Charming stuff, for a sweet 500 points.

Plattchen Twist 'n' Paint
A puzzle-shooter," is how Bplus art director Bernd Geiblinger describes the first third-party game ever announced for WiiWare. "In a shooter, fast aiming and pinpoint shooting are required; in a puzzle game you have to put on the thinking cap and make up some good tactics. Combining both of them, Plättchen is a completely new and unseen challenge."

A panel-based puzzler, the game offers you "the freedom and the ability to change the colour of every Plättchen [panel] on the field," and as such "you can live out your creativity while mastering the levels by shooting everything bad."

Creative freedom is also key to the 12 (count 'em)-person multiplayer. "The cool thing is that not everyone has to do the same things in the game. You can use four Remotes plus four nunchuks plus four DK Bongos for the ultimate party fun."

DK Bongos? The ones Paon couldn't be bothered to implement in the full-price DK Jet Race? Bernd explains: "If you own one or up to four Nintendo GameCube DK Bongos, you can control the evil black shadow Plättchen against your friends. If they lose all their lives, the dark side wins the war. There are also special features if you use the Zapper."

The 1,500 price tag - same as Crystal Chronicles - is not an exercise in money-grabbing but a sign of Bplus' faith in Plättchen as a WiiWare title "offering a little more in terms of depth and complexity." Hear hear.

Crystal Chronicles
A Final Fantasy and SimCity mish-mash, Square Enix's stab at WiiWare replaces takey-turny scrapping with gety-buildingy-permissiony-fromy-the-localy-councily town-planning. Not as dull as it sounds, mind. You magically sprout buildings and hire warriors for quests. Looks great, too.

Dr Mario
The idea of Mario rooting around with his filthy plumber hands in doctorly procedures is quite stomach churning, but the arrival of his NHS persona on WiiWare is anything but. Connecting vitamins and bacteria in a pill-swivelling variant on Tetris, this will also feature the Germ Blast minigame seen in More Brain Training.

Bomberman
Lunchtime Bomberman tends to end with Kittsy as cruel victor and Kim storming off in a huff. Luckily, Hudson's Wi-Fi-enabled Bomberman arrives to open up the competition to you lot. Now you'll have the pleasure of watching Matthew bomb himself into a corner in the opening second of the game. Pity him. 8 Player online confirmed.

Okiraku Ping Pong
Not even the gaming whizzes at Nintendo and Rockstar could ace the plick-plocking sensation that is ping pong; will Arc System Works do better? With all swing types mapped onto remote gestures, five training minigames and the doubles play denied by all previous ping pong games, we'd hazard a great big grinning yes.

Maruboushikaku
Imagine EA's Rock Band. Now swap out the trio of guitar, drum and vocals with circles, squares and lines and smear the whole lot liberally with Japano-babble. A Ninty-developed puzzler for three players, we have absolutely no idea how this is going to work. And we're the ultimate Nintendo magazine. God help the lesser ones.

Minna De Puzzloop
How's this for a tangled family tree? Minna De Puzzloop is son of DS's Actionloop, son of PC title Zuma, son of Japanese arcade machine Puzz Loop. Which was begat by the developers of Actionloop. MIND BANKS MELTING. Inbreeding aside, this sees you detonating a deadly wave of marbles and promises Wi-Fi play.

Moji Pittan
Not so interesting fact: Moji Pittan is Namco Bandai's hiragana-flavoured take on Scrabble. More interesting fact: Moji Pittan creator Hiroyuki Goto once held the record for memorising pi. He could recall the number to 42,195 decimal places. Funnily enough, Team NGamer can eat 42,195 pies in one sitting. Coincidence?

Joy Sound
Considering how furred our musical pipes are with toneless limescale, it's with moistened brow that we eye Hudson's karaoke WiiWare offering. Complementing a USB microphone - sold separately with its own disc of songs - this downloadable version should be seen more as an expansion warble than a full-fat sing-a-long concert.

Eternity's Child
Originally designed for XBLA, this then moved to Wii, before becoming WiiWare. Presented in a beautiful hand-crafted style - all papery cut-outs and rich colour - Luc Bernard's fairytale-inspired platformer sees you guiding axe-wielding orphan Angel in a quest to hunt down his family. And all for a generous 500 points! Bargain.

Pokémon Ranch Channel
Typical Poké-fan response to Diamond/Pearl: "Awww gawd, me old peepers can't take the circa 1996 sprite work any longer". Never fear, say we, Pokémon Ranch Channel plucks out those crudely rendered 'Mon, 3D-erises them (technical term) and lets you hang out with the polygonal results, snapping some pics for mementos.

Star Soldier R
The original Star Soldier has been kicking around on VC for so long that it actually plays with a layer of digital dust on the screen. We'd opt instead for this faster, shinier version, though retro heads can rest easy - the traditional five minute caravan hi-score challenge returns, as does a ten-second version that asks for the longest shot combo.

Pop
A bubble-bursting time-attack extravaganza from first-time developers Nnooo. While not the meatiest of experiences - it's as light and frothy as the oily spheres themselves - there are lots of nice touches (leaderboards, Electroplankton-esque tunes, giganto bubble nukes) and more bubbles than you could shake a Mr Matey at.

Word Snake
What is a word snake? Not an adder, that's for sure. He'd be a maths snake. Geddit? (sound of single gunshot to the head) Like time-sensitive Scrabble, the aim is to constantly add letter tiles to grow the vocab serpent in new wordy directions. Formerly a mobile phone title, it's also heading DS-way. Can't wait.

Project: Bang!
Straight from the horse's (Engine Software) mouth: "Project: Bang! is a casual game that can be played alone or with a friend. When you play with a friend, you play in a battle mode, so that means versus each other as opposed to co-operative. The game itself is not really about a battle. We don't encourage hitting your friends with the Wii remote. Seriously."

Real Arcade
Like XGen Studios, RealArcade are spreading from their core flash game business into the world of WiiWare. Unlike XGen they act more as a hub for smaller developers - they've published 28 mah-jong titles alone! - so it's hard to tell exactly what they have in store. They do have the Scrabble licence - is Word Snake under fire?

Above game descriptions were taken from: Wii Feature: Every known WiiWare title previewed - ComputerAndVideoGames.com

Major League Eating: The Game
The project will make extensive use of the Wii remote to "simulate the fast and furious action of a professional eating contest."Players will use the Wii remote to execute different eating techniques, including the cram, toss and typewriter. There will also be burp-offs and hot potato challenges.

Major League Eating features offline play for two gamers, an online play mode and also leader board tracking.
Click for more info: IGN: New WiiWare Game: Major League Eating

LostWinds
LostWinds follows the plucky hero Toku on an adventure to save the world of Mistralis from evil. Little Toku is not much more than a regular boy (despite his destiny to be the world's only savior), but following along on his journey is Enril, the wind spirit -- a mighty and mysterious deity of nature that can use the powers of the air around to accomplish great things. Players control both Toku and Enril at the same time -- one hand with the nunchuk moving Toku, other hand with the Wiimote moving Enril as the spirit of the wind (shown in the first screens as just an icon, although the final game will make sure to pronounce the wind spirit as a real presence.) In simplest terms, you have a platforming game (rendered "2.5D" on an old-school 2D plane, only here rendered here with 3D polygons and particle effects) where you control the character with the joystick and then have a "cursor" to interact with the world. The hero carries objects to and fro and talks to townfolk, while the spirit of the wind whips up tornadoes that sweep away enemies and blows steady jet streams that Enril can ride.
click for more info: IGN: LostWinds Preview

World of Goo
The basic concept is somewhat similar to Lemmings – get a requisite number of your charges to the exit by using their particular skills. That's, however, where the similarities end. World of Goo is essentially a structural engineering puzzle game (I know, I know, your eyes aren't exactly lighting up with glee at that description, so bear with me). You must use your animate balls of goo to create towers, bridges and other structures to get to the pipe representing the exit. Sounds simple, and as you start grabbing individual balls of goo and placing them near other balls to tether them together, it certainly seems to be. This is a game that's utterly intuitive to get into, but once you're a couple of levels in you'll also discover that it's a uniquely challenging physics-based puzzler.
Click for more info: IGN: World of Goo Preview

LIT
WayForward describes LIT as a 3D horror puzzler set in a dark high school infested with evil creatures. Players will follow the story of protagonist Jake, a young man who yearns to escape from the cursed school and reunite with his girlfriend Rachael.
WayForward are responsible for the development of Contra 4 and the acclaimed Game Boy Color platformer Shantae.
Click for more info:LIT Announced Exclusively For WiiWare - eXophase Games Network

SPOGS Racing
By careening into your competitors' unusually shaped SPOGS Racers, you can take their parts - pre-owned engines, brakes, tailpipesm etc. - and use the spoils to upgrade your own ride. The automotive pick-pocketing takes place in a dozen venues, including traditional racing ovals, road courses, and stunt tracks.

When you're not busy going SPOG-to-SPOG with rivals, you'll fly off ramps and negotiate loops (also recommended in your driver's ed class). Obviously, the SPOGS Racers are not your parents' Camry. They're designed to spin, drift, flip over, and (most of all) crash a lot. They're also equipped with six kinds of weapons, which you can use to slow down your opponents so that you can mug them.
click for more info: MidnightGaming: SPOGS Racing

Tetris
According to the Japanese press release up to 6 people can participate in block-based multiplayer madness.
The controls are also getting an upgrade to make the most of the Wii’s unique motion sensing technology, but we would imagine the standard d-pad control is available too.
Click for more info: Tetris is Coming to WiiWare - Online Play Included / Wii Virtual Console News


Animal Panic*
Konami has confirmed that it is bringing a new puzzle game to the downloadable service, in the form of Animal Panic. Controlled exclusively with the Wii Remote, the object of the game is to erect fences to isolate a number of creatures, from sheep to chickens to giraffes, crocodiles and zebras.
At present there is no information on a Western release.
Nintendic » Five new WiiWare games announced: Tetris, Animal Panic, Lonpus, Ping-Pong, Bubble Wrap - first screens

Lonpos*
There aren’t many details on Lonpos’ actual gameplay, although it’s pretty safe to suggest that matching up different (or taking away) coloured stones in some shape or another, is the way forward. Genki announced that there will be nine brain-aching packs to download, each containing twenty-five puzzles.
Nintendic » Five new WiiWare games announced: Tetris, Animal Panic, Lonpus, Ping-Pong, Bubble Wrap - first screens

Okiraku Ping Pong*
Last but by no means least is Arc System Works’ Okiraku Ping Pong, which looks to offer exactly what it says on the tin - a simple table tennis experience in which up to two players can sweat it out against one another in a variety of sporting venues.
Nintendic » Five new WiiWare games announced: Tetris, Animal Panic, Lonpus, Ping-Pong, Bubble Wrap - first screens

Bubble Wrap*
Namco Bandai’s Bubble Wrap, a game in which players can simulate popping pockets of air trapped in plastic with the Wii Remote. There are 40 stages in different locations, while there is also some kind of two-player mode. It will arrive some time this spring and cost 800 Wii Points. Or you could get some donated to you from the empty boxes at your latest supermarket and spend hours of unquantifiable satisfaction without spending a penny.
Nintendic » Five new WiiWare games announced: Tetris, Animal Panic, Lonpus, Ping-Pong, Bubble Wrap - first screens

Joysound*
- retail package comes with mic
- music distribution (handled by Xing) will be via WiiWare
- monthly service charge
- once the service starts, 1000 songs will be added each month
- social networking service “Uta Suki” planned that will offer online rankings, co-op, and some form of communication

Blue Oasis*
something to do with fish.

Alien Crush*
It's a sequel to a pinball game. It will have online leaderboards.

*Games are announced for Japan, no other Area is confirmed.

[Descendency]

IGN: LostWinds Preview

LostWinds

[Aeron]

Geez Codename if your going to post an article at least give credit to the people who made it.

Feature: Every known WiiWare title previewed - ComputerAndVideoGames.com (NGamer)

[dz06lt]

sounds cool

[2pro4show]

I'm actually fairly excited for this. Finally something that will most likely succeed regarding online on Wii other than VC.

[waa_waa_wii_waa]

WiiWare will suck away a good bit of my money.


Defend your castle, Twist n' Paint, and Gravitronix are all likely purchasesd so far.

[downphoenix]

WiiWare becomes the new place for WiishovelWare confirmed.

Though a few of the games like Crystal Chronicals, Defend your Castle, Gravitronix, Bomberman, and Eternity's Child do look or sound good to me.

[Aeron]

Uh nearly all of the software announced and that have been shown off look pretty good.

MLE is basically the single execption

[downphoenix]

Originally Posted by Aeron

Uh nearly all of the software announced and that have been shown off look pretty good.

MLE is basically the single execption

Retail shovelware games were slow to start too.

I wouldn't even consider games like Red Steel and Far Cry: Vengence as Shovelware, I just consider them failed experiments of the new controls, Im sure Ubisoft could have did a lot better with some extra time.

But when you got a studio like Conspiracy Interactive releasing a game over a year after the system came out, they had plenty of time to tweak, and made games that were even more fail than any of the launch games were. Heck, even Midway was guilty of this with Cruis'n.

[codenamelenny]

Originally Posted by Aeron

Geez Codename if your going to post an article at least give credit to the people who made it.

Feature: Every known WiiWare title previewed - ComputerAndVideoGames.com (NGamer)

yeah, I changed it so it has where I got the descriptions from.