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Viva Pinata development is 'complete'
Rare has yet to provide a release date for Viva Pinata: Pocket Paradise, but according to the company, the game is now "complete." The announcement came in Rare's community letter, Scribes, which tongue-in-cheekly stated that the software would be sold this Sunday at flea markets. (Because we don't know how high your gullibility meter is, we'll state the obvious -- they were joking.)Apparently, though, all that's left for the title is the manufacturing phase, so we'll assume that the game will be available for purchase in a matter of months. We've learned that DS carts take about two months to assemble, so could we seeing Pocket Paradise as soon as July or August? Your guess is as good as ours!%Gallery-8991%[Via Game|Life]
Promotional Consideration: DS Style, the Freshmaker
Promotional Consideration is a weekly feature about the Nintendo DS advertisements you usually flip past, change the channel on, or just tune out.Square Enix has rolled out no less than seven commercials for its DS Style line of "non-games," one for each of the series' seven casual software titles. They're low-budget productions shot with simple scripts, spartan sets, and a single actress in most of the scenes.Bring your trivial dilemmas past the post break, where we've posted a medley of the 15-second spots past the post break, as well as early 90s commercials for the minty product referenced in this installment's title.
Lila Dreams devs are blogging up new MMO insights
Back in late January, Eliah posted about an interesting little MMO called Lila Dreams, that was intriguing for a few reasons. Not only is it being developed as a 2D game in Java and Flash on Kongregate.com (a website probably most known for the extremely popular Desktop Tower Defense game), but the premise sounds terrific: the game takes place all inside a little girl's dream, with platforming and "gardening," and "mood-based world altering." Sure, it might not appeal to the Counterstrike crowd, but to experienced game players and developers that just sounds perfect.Since we first posted about it, the developers of the game have been blogging, and now there's quite a bit to read there about the process behind the game, including some good tidbits about how to make an RPG without a grind, and how to include microtransactions that vibe with both players and the people who want to make money from them.It'll definitely be interesting to see what comes of this. It certainly seems new, and as a great movie once said, the new needs friends.[Via KTR]
Get serious with new DS Style screens
We're expecting a load of news when the Square Enix Party starts. For now, we've got new screens from the DS Style series, which is obviously too serious for parties. Specifically, new screens were released of Flower Blooming DS: Gardening Life, Shall We Listen to Classical Music on the DS?, and three World Walking map programs: Italy, France and Taiwan.We could kind of see picking up a DS map program instead of a guidebook when we go on vacation, since we tend to take the DS with us anyway. We are definitely feeling a strong urge to buy the classical music "game" as well, since it's being developed by iNiS. Smart move, Squeenix.
The New York Times Garden Expert: garden like it's 1993
While you gotta wonder who at the Gray Lady thought this thing up, the New York Times Garden Expert does seem like it might actually be kinda useful now that spring is finally here. Looking like a cross between a novelty fridge magnet and a circa-1993 RadioShack discount PDA, the Garden Expert contains 1000 answers to common gardening questions culled from the NYT's Garden Expert column, like "What flowers attract butterflies?" Not the highest of high-tech, but for $20 it's pretty hard to complain. And say, isn't a certain day coming up?[Via OhGizmo]
DS Style details emerge-- screenshot-style
The first screenshots of Square Enix's DS Style series of nongames have shown up, and they look ... well, functional. The problem with nongames is that it's impossible to build hype for something that is used just for looking at a map of France, or teaching yourself yoga, even if the software in question is extremely well-designed.These screens answer the biggest question we had about the series: how could a game about listening to classical music possibly fill two screens meaningfully? The answer: dog animations and quizzing you on your feelings about the music.
Square Enix brings lifestyle titles to DS
Continuing its praiseworthy support for the Nintendo DS, Square Enix has announced DS Style, a new line of software for the casual gaming audience. According to the latest issue of Famitsu, the company is venturing away from its RPG franchises for a moment, focusing instead on leisure activities like yoga, classical music, and gardening. It might not sound as exciting as SRPG battles or Chocobo mini-games, but different strokes for different folks.Square Enix will also be releasing DS travel guides based on the popular World Walking tour book series in Japan. These guides will provide maps and other useful information for sightseers visiting countries like France or Thailand. Check past the post break for the full list of destination guides and verbose titles from Square Enix's DS Style lineup. [Via NeoGAF]
Matsushita Electric Works busts out remote-controlled garden
Even if you've got the greenest thumb in your neighborhood, sometimes exerting all that effort to hydrate your flora just doesn't seem worthwhile. Presumably satisfying the couch dweller in us all, Matsushita Electric Works has remarkably created yet another invention that keeps us firmly planted on that oh-so-comfortable couch, all while giving the utmost attention to those needy azaleas. The remote-controlled Aiterrarium is an indoor gardening system in which the florescent lighting, temperature, humidity, and food / water supply is all controlled via the internet; with just a few clicks, you can make critical tweaks to the environment of your indoor greenhouse, and thanks to an "optional camera system," you don't even have to be home to watch your plant life blossom (or perish). While these are being primarily aimed at universities and agricultural research centers, there's just two things stopping you from snapping up your own -- scrounging up the ¥600,000 ($5,017) required to purchase one, and finding the motivation to actually dial up Matsushita.[Via Far East Gizmos]
