Nintendo Stealth Conference: Let's Hit It.

• Many of the games shown in this video are shown too briefly to make any kind of substantive observations. Let's see how it goes.

2008

• DSi: Slimmer, SD card slow, internal flash memory, bigger screens, internet browser, DS online store, and 2 cameras. Over the past few years, I've faced several road blocks when designing software fore the DS because it lacked many of these key features. Once again, Nintendo supplies the hardware/features that I need to design my innovative games freely.
• The fashion game: Looks to have very high production values considering the detailed customization and the 3D graphics.
• Nintendo Pedometer & Wii Fit for my pocket? Sign me up. I loved my Pokemon Pikachu with its built in pedometer when I was in middle school, and I look forward to this next step. Nintendo had to find a way to put Mii's on the DS. They're the best tool Nintendo has to make games personal and accessible to the broadest audience.
• The Kirby game looks just as colorful as other games in the same series.
• The Valkyrie Profile, Chrono Trigger, and the Shiren The Wanderer look very traditional in their core RPG design. Let's hope at least 2 of these 3 have some tricks up their sleeve.
• The Soccer game looks slick. It appears that many developers have figured out how to make nice looking 3D DS games. The implementation of the Mii's fits, and the game appears to support a range of detailed stats.
• Sooo many RPGs. I guess they come with the territory.
• Professor Layton looks as dashing as ever. In other words, it looks like more of the same.

2009

• The Iwata, Reggie, and Miyamoto Mii's are charming. I'm not sure what kind of game/software they're in.
• Mario & Luigi look like they're control with the touch screen for battles. Interesting change.
• Wario Paint/Ware: Looks like Mario Paint. Plays like Wario Ware. Perhaps everyone makes micro games and shares them for content that's always unique. Either way, this game has piqued my interests.
• 3D picross. I liked 2D picross. Hopefully they'll find an intuitive way to manipulate the camera. The rubik cube DS game's camera controls are pretty complicated and finicky.
• More RPGs. Such is Japan.

• Much of the Wii game footage is too short to deduce anything. There's a lot to look forward to this fall and next year from the Wii. The games shown in the video run the full gamut of "casual" to "hardcore" games and from familiar to new IPs. There'es something for everyone.

Until we get more information...

Comments

[Claws]

As time passes by, one can easily see some of the potentia of the games covered.
Still, as a passerby and part-time reader of this blog and appreciative of the angle it portrays, if not its execution, I suggest for you to pick-up and enjoy Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer as shown here; your much touted "inter-play" is prominent between enemies and players.
Great examples include Evil Soldiers rising after death and running away to level-up enemies, long-distance enemies in general killing other enemies to level themselves up, the Tiger Uho tossing enemies at you or you at traps [especially beautiful/frustrating with bomb enemies or enemies who hold you still], Popster Tanks being able to shoot their explosive cannonballs at Infernos to create more of them, Kignys [wild beserkers] basically attacking everything to level-up as fast as possible, and Master Hens being strong yet denying you experience if you can't kill it entirely by de-levelling into a regular hen and running away.
Meanwhile, the console-adapted roguelike structure with gradual improvement of the towns and your caches of items allows progress even while learning the nasty tricks of enemies and the heavily important uses of the varied and mostly unique items, and the level design, while not as grandiose and well-thought-out resultant designs of Spelunky, is still neat (less "boxy" design in outdoor areas, the very specific placement and set-up of enemies very tense), and for the most part a player will not be set-up in a position of death nearly as often as a player was not completely ready, while rescues can alleviate the stress of mistakes and failures. Even as a [carefully balanced and updated] port of a SNES game, it certainly has quite a few tricks up its sleeves.
...Or, I can just return to the realms of selectbutton, action button dot net, and their kind, and lurk in the timeless yet quasi-archival worlds of insertcredit, mistress auntie pixelante, and the gamer's quarter. I shrug, and consider your articles on design worthwhile, if in a bizarre and self-constructed barrier-filled vacuum half of the time. Establish your own grounds, but move your perspective a little upwards and onwards.

[Richard Terrell (KirbyKid)]

@ Claws

What a strange comment.

And of all places to make it you do it here in a post I wrote well over a year ago.

And of all things to talk about, you pick Shinren (which sounds interesting, I'll have to check it out sometime).

I'm confused about this... " I shrug, and consider your articles on design worthwhile, if in a bizarre and self-constructed barrier-filled vacuum half of the time. Establish your own grounds, but move your perspective a little upwards and onwards."

Though you talk with a hint of indirect, poetics, I'm quite confident that there's more you're trying to say here.

So, you should email me or use the messenger on my blog so we can have a conversation.

Until then...