What's better than playing pen and paper games with actual pen and paper? According to Icon Games, playing them on a living room television. The reasoning? It's fun as well as environmentally friendly, saving on all that wasted paper. Well, except the electricity you'll be using.
From the makers of Stunt Cars comes a WiiWare collection of games that the majority will probably be familiar to you. Numerous train journeys and Saturday nights that are deprived of spending money have undoubtedly seen many of these pen and paper games in action. Family Games - Pen & Paper Edition will include the following:
- Squares (aka Dots)
- Nine Men's Morris (aka Mill)
- Safecracker
- Matchsticks
- Noughts & Crosses (aka Tic-Tac-Toe)
- 4 In-A-Row
- Battlefleet
- Hangman
The compilation will include a number of different rule-sets and game variations, so in some ways, there's more than the eight to choose from. The Tournament Mode supports up to four players, with over twenty game achievements for players to unlock.
It seems strange to us that this release is coming out on WiiWare and not on DSiWare, as the portability of these quick and easy games would suit the portability of the handheld just right, not forgetting the obvious parallels between the act of writing and the use of the stylus. Hopefully the communal aspect of gathering the family around the TV will be enough to justify the big screen appearance, although the use of the word "edition" in the title suggests we could be seeing more in the Family Games series in some form or another.
Family Games - Pen & Paper Edition is waiting to be rated, with the pricing and release date still to be confirmed.
Comments 15
I'd facepalm but Prosody will edit me. I want my posts to remain Prosody-free D:
But seriously. The whole point of these games is that you do them when you're so bored and there's nothing better to do. Nobody goes "LET'S HAVE A FUN WEEKEND PLAYING BOXES!" These are games played primarily on long train journeys (as the article says), during power cuts, at the back of Maths classes, and played solo after finishing an exam. If you have a Wii on hand, you'd play something FUN. Hell, you'd even play Stunt Cars if there really was nothing better to do.
The developer said after Stunt Cars that they'd try harder with their next game. Nice to see they've kept that promise [/sarcasm]
@Nintenzo Nintendo isn't making it, a third-party developer is. Nintendo's just hosting the service
@Nintenzo Nintendo didn't make it
EDIT: Prosody beat me to teh punch!
Do we REALLY need a game like this?
@TheLonelyGamer
We will never have to pay for paper again
I was surprised over the fact that this isn't headed to DSiWare, as well.
@8: I'm suprised that if this game went anywhere, it wasn't DSiWare. the Wiimote makes for a pretty poor pen, unless you're used to telekenetically writing things on paper that's 6 feet away.
While it is styled on pen/paper visually, the input method isn't designed based on gestures/pen strokes. There are two input types - either using the control pad, or using the pointer.
There are plenty of rule variations in there to tailor the games, or play versions you may not have seen before.
We know it may not be for everbody, but these games are classics for a reason - and with the achievements and work report stats there is plenty to keep you going - and setting up multi-player, multi-game tournaments is a great way to play with friends or family.
This stuff lets me play any of those games in any ruleset or variation I like, with any number of players, it's kinder to the environment as it's both recycled and recyclable and wow, it doesn't even need electricity. Hey with 2 pages I can even make my own achievements. It's also extremely cheap. Isn't technology marvellous?
Raylax - I get it, its not for you.
I agree with everybody here. It seems much better to be playing these games on paper, at least DSiWare would be good. And I get that there are different variations, but with a game there are still limits to what kind of ways you can play, where with paper the possibilities are endless. You can even make your own ways to play if you wanted to. Heck, you would probably get the same enjoyment by using myNotebook to play these games.
@RichIcon: Thanks for explaing the input methods. It's cleared some things up.
i don't even know all those games... lol
Hey this might be fun and ICON (makers of Stunt Cars I like) made this so a plus.
This might have an equal or greater impact than Extreme Hangman (which proves that casual games can sometimes be good).
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