The Gamer's Quarter

squidlarkin · . Joined: 10 Dec 2005 Posts: 100

Anyone else played these yet? They're supposedly Nintendo's attempt to "re-examine the roots of gaming", which is a pretty neat idea. In actual practice they're basically old game concepts with enough new twists to be interesting, then given a gorgeous minimalist presentation with chiptune music. Which is also a pretty neat idea.

Dialhex is my favorite so far. A simple puzzle game without a lot of strategy or comboing, just dextrous manipulation of triangles. Then it gets really really fast.

Wilkes · milky wilkie Joined: 06 Mar 2006 Posts: 256

There's a really excellent thread on this at insert credit.

I am looking forward to Orbital.

Sadly, I probably need to buy a micro for these. Right?
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dessgeega · Posted: Wed Jul 19, 2006 3:17 pm Post subject:

dotstream is pretty swell. i've put up some videos of it and boundish. dialhex bores me, though the music is gorgeous. out of the next series (official site) orbital and sound voyager seem the most interesting.
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SJ · . Joined: 18 Apr 2006 Posts: 61 Location: swamp

GSL · Posted: Thu Jul 20, 2006 1:42 am Post subject:

I heard a sinister rumor that these were headed for a stateside release; is this true? If so, when?

Mister Raroo · . Joined: 24 Jul 2006 Posts: 1

I like all of them, but I think dotstream is the game that most people would feel they got their money's worth with.

Basically:

dotstream--neat racing game with cool music and vector graphics. There's more depth to it than you'd think.

Boundish--Pong with some trippy visuals and a few interesting modes, plus a Game & Watch-like Juggle game.

Dialhex--Kind of like Hexic, but you have to make a full hexagon with 6 triangles of the same color. It kind of hurts my eyes and some of the colors are a little too close for my tastes (those greens...). But it's fun overall.

As for coming to the US...I don't know if these would sell that well. Maybe as a one-cartridge compilation. Nintendo got ESRB ratings for the original 6 games by Skip, but hasn't bothered with the series' late addition by Q-Games (Digidrive)...so I think that's a sign that maybe the games won't make it after all.

Mister Toups · Posted: Fri Jul 28, 2006 8:51 am Post subject:

Has anyone played sound voyager yet? I'm about to order it!
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Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

I am just going to come out and say that for what these games are they are pretty overpriced. Perhaps it is because I haven't played them yet... but I really think that they should have done two games per cart.

I don't know, I guess that I am just upset because I really want them, just not at that price.
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Six · . Joined: 15 Jul 2006 Posts: 313 Location: montreal

Ditto. When I first heard about the series I actually assumed they'd all be coming out on one cart.

GSL · Posted: Fri Jul 28, 2006 4:00 pm Post subject:

YesAsia.com has them for something like $19 each, which seems rather reasonable. If you can find a $6 something that catches your fancy, you get free shipping on orders over $25.

OtakupunkX · . Joined: 23 Mar 2006 Posts: 730

Apparently all these games have ESRB ratings already so I wouldn't be surprised if they get released over here.

showka · . Joined: 11 Nov 2005 Posts: 70

This was at the bottom of the second page of a Google search for "+Bit generations +Orbital".

Anyway Orbital looks like the most exciting game so far. Reminds me of Katamari Damacy.

Then again, all I've seen is the video so maybe I have no idea how it works.

dessgeega · Posted: Fri Jul 28, 2006 6:49 pm Post subject:

orbital is pretty swell. the A button attacts, the B button repels. touch planets of your size to grow bigger, graze alongside smaller planets to ease them into orbit around you. get big enough to have the yellow planet orbit you, and STAGE CLEAR.

coloris is my absolute favorite out of the new batch, though. it's a color matching game, but rather than shuffle tiles around you shift them in hue. it's beautiful to watch and to listen to. it's the best-sounding game i've played in a long time.

someone said that playing the game feels like composing minimal techno.
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Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

The sound on Coloris is very much inkeeping with what Cornelius has been doing since his last album. For instance, Coloris fans might also like this.

dessgeega · Posted: Sat Jul 29, 2006 6:21 am Post subject:

in related news, i cleared basic mode in coloris.

this game enchants me.
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Mister Toups · Posted: Sat Jul 29, 2006 10:19 am Post subject:

so I should get coloris instead of sound voyager?
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dessgeega · Posted: Sat Jul 29, 2006 10:32 am Post subject:

yes.
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Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

Soundvoyager has really grown on me. The game is about 500% more engaging if you play it with your eyes closed. Apart from Sound Cock, that's just bad.

dessgeega · Posted: Sat Jul 29, 2006 11:26 pm Post subject:

wow.

the ending of coloris.

i don't want to spoil it, but it's a lot like eyes.
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Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

What are the conditions for seeing the ending of Coloris? If it's anything to do with clearing all the advanced stages, I'm not going to see it ; _ ;

As soon as the game starts making you play stages with 3 primaries and 6 secondaries I lose it.

dessgeega · Posted: Sun Jul 30, 2006 6:38 am Post subject:

Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

yes please

I just finished Orbital, the ending was a bit basic (as you might expect). I haven't got all the moons or finished the secret galaxy yet, though.

Orbital had a staff of about 20 people! Unless they banged that game out in a week, someone at that company is spinning the wheels. The graphics don't look like they could have taken more than a day, for example, but there are about three designers and three artists listed in the credits. Although there does seem to be a lot of overlap between the Bit Generations teams, so maybe their time was divided.

helicopterp · . Joined: 13 May 2006 Posts: 1435 Location: Philadelphia

Just so I can be clear on this: are those of you who are playing these playing the import versions and not some ntsc ones that I don't know about?
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Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

Japan uses NTSC format like the US does. Europe uses PAL. So by saying NTSC you are not really being clear enough...

that said, portables don't use the classifier of NTSC because that is a video format.
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

SuperWes · Posted: Sun Jul 30, 2006 3:38 pm Post subject:

Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

kirkjerk · . Joined: 12 Apr 2006 Posts: 1227

It would be nifty if they made a compilation pack for a USA release... kind of like Sega did for ithat one remake collection (which had a few nifty retreads, I liked the Alien Syndrome treatment)

but Nintendo doesn't seem to give a flying F'k about niche stuff like this... case in point, I would have much rather have paid 20-30 for a translation and port of Puzzle Collection rather than have to import it.

Lackey · . Joined: 11 Jul 2005 Posts: 1107 Location: Canada

Does it seem to anyone else that these should be homebrew?
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kirkjerk · . Joined: 12 Apr 2006 Posts: 1227

Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

Hey Dess I want to see the ending to coloris Sad

dessgeega · Posted: Tue Aug 01, 2006 10:57 am Post subject:

okay okay. i've just been lazy because i need to make room on my hard drive for the capture.

i'll do it soon!
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dessgeega · Posted: Tue Aug 01, 2006 11:17 pm Post subject:

coloris: the song by cornelius.
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dessgeega · Posted: Tue Aug 01, 2006 11:21 pm Post subject:

by the way, no one's allowed to look at that video until they've gotten as far in coloris as they're ever going to.
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dessgeega · Posted: Wed Aug 02, 2006 4:41 am Post subject:

also, here's the song in mp3 form.
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Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

Oh, that is nice. All the Cornelius fans I know are going to go crazy for this. Thanks!

It's almost hard to believe this comes from a Game Boy game by Nintendo. It's nice that they're finally making whole games in this neo-classicist style, if only on a small scale. Since a lot of their Gamecube games (Wind Waker excepted) looked quite sugary and over-decorated, lacking any real design focus, it'll be nice if the creative success of these experiments has wider reprecussions. I hope, for example, they're planning more stuff for the Wii that looks like this:

This reminds me, Rhythm Tengoku is out tomorrow.

dessgeega · Posted: Wed Aug 02, 2006 8:25 am Post subject:

SuperWes · Posted: Thu Aug 03, 2006 3:44 pm Post subject:

I just bought dotstream. I guess it'll be here in a few weeks.

-Wes
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Dracko · . Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613

$18 for a single Flash game?

And what kind of preposterously pretentious advertising pitch is it claim they're re-examining the roots of gaming? The last time I read something so inane was on a Hot Topic "Know Your Roots" T-shirt with a mushroom on it.
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Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

Dracko · . Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613

Oh dear.
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dessgeega · Posted: Fri Aug 04, 2006 5:05 am Post subject:

J.Goodwin · . Joined: 31 Jul 2006 Posts: 297 Location: North Shore, MA

Dracko · . Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613

Give me a shout when they start selling these bundled for $15. That seems more appropriate and less like a WarioWare syndrome.
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

dessgeega · Posted: Fri Aug 04, 2006 5:21 am Post subject:

Dracko · . Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613

That's as may be, and I'm more than willing to believe that. I'd definitely give these a go, and they sound like some of the most interesting ideas to come out of Nintendo in a while. But how long is it? I know, length shouldn't be an factor when judging a game, but it's the price that concerns me here. It seems to me we're still talking about short, simple puzzle games. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, and I do love me some puzzle gaming, but selling them individually like this, not to mention with the "roots" mind-set which is laughable coming from Nintendo, instead of bundled, seems excessive to me. They're not reasonably priced for what they are, and making them pricey in this way makes them inaccessible at best or just plain extortionate towards the fans at worst.

I blame WarioWare for this, honestly. It's like they figure they can get away selling one mini-game at a time now, just like how they sold age-old NES games at stupefyingly high prices. It's bad enough the GBA was just a portable SNES (And the GB was an ugly brick, even if it did have Tetris).
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

dessgeega · Posted: Fri Aug 04, 2006 5:37 am Post subject:

hey, warioware is probably the best thing nintendo's released in ten years.

anyway, it took me a while to get through all the stages in coloris (there are fifty total), and i'm probably going to replay the advanced stages once i take a break from rhythm tengoku.

the other games have seemed shorter, but it's really about the replaying (as it usually should be).
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Dracko · . Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613

dessgeega · Posted: Fri Aug 04, 2006 5:55 am Post subject:

i'm not following you.
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Dracko · . Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613

I'm saying it's a question of content. WarioWare, mini-game fest as it was, had tons of the blighted things, well integrated at that.

Coloris, as colourful as you make it sound, and it does sound interesting to me, seems like it would be reasonably more complete alongside the other games. All of these things look like min-games. Lengthy ones, but hey, you could play Bejeweled constantly if you felt the need to.

I'm also saying Nintendo has a history of selling less content than it reasonably should judging by prices, on these sort of pretentious grounds, like "roots" or "making games fun again".
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"