Japanese Sites for Made in Ore and Asobu! Made in Ore Go Live

Haha Little big planet wii will conquer!!!

This is quite possibly the Nintendo title(s) title I'm most looking forward to right now. I'm also hoping that the DS version takes advantage of some of the unique DSi features, but we'll see.

The key to success in my mind is how exactly they end up allowing the creations to be shared. I'm hoping for something akin to the Check Mii Out Channel, ie something that will be a new channel on the main menu with frequent contests, ability to browse and download freely, etc.

Oh I can't wait to play 200 different versions of "stick the dick into the woman/man/animal/cosmic horror"...

Me, I think user generated content is a waste of time. Anyone who actually invests enough time to become good enough to produce quality material comparable with professional designers is just a small step away from being able to make his own game with a proper development tool. Especially for simple genres it just doesn't make sense to tie yourself to a clunky, limited system in a game when you can just go program your own with little effort and get to do everything you want instead of just the few things the designers of the tool accounted for. It's understandable with complex base games like 3d engines that you can't easily make yourself but something like a shmup or a microgame really isn't difficult to make.

@KDR
"program your own with little effort"? The average user to download this title will be very unlikely to know how to program anything at all, and small, cheap tools like this would be nice for them. Don't assume everyone has the same level of programming knowledge or aptitude that you have.

I only ever took one computer science course, and I found Pascal confusing enough, but one of the games I have spent the most time with over the past year has been Jumper 2 Editor, a free level editor for making 10-level platforming worlds. And even if I did have the programming know-how to make such a game, I wouldn't have the graphical skills to make and animate an interesting world to play in.

I don't expect Warioware to be nearly as compelling, but user-generated content isn't necessarily a waste of time, and game editors are definitely valuable and fun tools. In fact, you mention a shmup isn't difficult to make, but for me it would be impossible, so if someone released a title that allowed you to create your own, I'd be all over that. Blast Works is the only example I can think of, but because of mixed reviews I'm waiting to see it in the bargain bin.

@KDR

I also have to disagree with you. My profession is programming (not games, but made simple ones for fun from the time I was in middle school), and while it's technically possible to (1) get one of the few homebrew carts that work with the DSi, (2) get a dev kit or library and learn the basics, and (3) slowly piece together your own minigame collection, the time investment necessary would outweight the enjoyment, and I would only be able to run it off a special flashcart, while here you'll be able to share with other friends online in some easy manner.

I want to have a quick way to put together my own quirky microgames and show them off -- imagine creating your own microgame collection with various parodies of common events in your office (avoid the boss as he comes by for a question, stop a coworker from taking one of your drinks out of the fridge, etc) and then being able to hand a coworker the game on your DS to give it a quick playthrough. That's good social gaming plus a chance to use humor / creativity without being bogged down in the code for weeks, and that's how I envision the use of a title like this one.

^^good shmups are by no means easy to make....the amount of time Cave invests in fine-tuning and perfecting bullet patterns, removing dead spots, etc. is pretty monumental, as their release schedule (and phenomenal game quality) dictate...garden variety shmups are very easy to make, but again, the same could be said of garden variety FPSes or RPGs, given the sheer multitude of engines available with which to work.

I saw the whole site as well as two Nintendo Channel videos. Apparently, you can sing to the DS the song you have in mind, and the game will translate your song into notes!

@KDR: Too much win!!!

Some helpful bilingual individual read through the Japanese site and summarized the information:
http://www.andriasang.com/e/articles/2009/04/14/made_in_ore_detailed/

Sounds fantastic.

Blast Works is pretty nice, but you do have to be willing to invest the time to craft something decent; thankfully there's a number of talented folk who seem to spend a lot of spare time making quality stuff for it and the download function is brilliantly executed.

"program your own with little effort"? The average user to download this title will be very unlikely to know how to program anything at all, and small, cheap tools like this would be nice for them. Don't assume everyone has the same level of programming knowledge or aptitude that you have.

The average user also won't make anything good with the tool. The difference between becoming good enough to make something good with the tool and becoming good enough to make what you want with a more universal tool (whether that tool is a regular programming language or Flash) is fairly small.

And even if I did have the programming know-how to make such a game, I wouldn't have the graphical skills to make and animate an interesting world to play in.

Well, you'll need those graphical skills for Made in Ore.

Warioswoods:
Don't make a DS game then. It's easier to start with the PC. People make all kinds of stuff with flash. Yeah, you could probably make an injoke fairly easily but stuff that's enjoyable for people on the other side of the anonymizing series of tubes will not be as easy to make.

^^good shmups are by no means easy to make....the amount of time Cave invests in fine-tuning and perfecting bullet patterns, removing dead spots, etc. is pretty monumental, as their release schedule (and phenomenal game quality) dictate...garden variety shmups are very easy to make, but again, the same could be said of garden variety FPSes or RPGs, given the sheer multitude of engines available with which to work.

I was talking about the effort to get the code going, the content tends to take the same amount of work (often more in the easy tools because easy and intuitive tend to conflict with powerful and efficient). The time spent on tuning the content is roughly the same no matter what tool you use and a game offering UGC functionality won't change it.

Blast Works is pretty nice, but you do have to be willing to invest the time to craft something decent; thankfully there's a number of talented folk who seem to spend a lot of spare time making quality stuff for it and the download function is brilliantly executed.

I found it extremely limiting. They didn't even realize that the special capture gimmick TF employs isn't something people will want in all their own levels so there's tons of hacky crap being pulled to get basic concepts like powerups.