Posted by dkidwell on January 10th, 2006 — Posted in Electroplankton, interface design, Nintendo DS, reviews, technology
The DS has to be the most innovative device to come down the pike in a while – at this point, I’m willing to declare that it’s picked up the innovation torch from Apple’s Ipod (which, while it continues to innovate, is essentially the same device it was at launch in 2001.
Electroplankton is a brilliant piece of software that has done very well in Japan. It is positioned as a media art video game, and was developed by Toshio Iwai, who created SimTunes back in 1996. SimTunes was the first of it’s kind that I’d ever seen, and was quickly installed on every machine in the house. SimTunes allowed kids to paint with music – and Electroplankton looks to be an impressive evolution.
Currently, Electroplankton holds the interesting distinction of being one of the most imported games from Japan to the US. According to the official site, Iwai “packed Electroplankton with the memories of the four devices he loved growing up: a microscope, a tape recorder, a synthesizer, and an NES” It’s worth checking out the link just to hear what else he had to say – look under “About the Artist.”
The game was released here in the US on the 9th, but not to stores. You can only buy a copy online. As of this moment, Amazon has them in stock, but can’t promise delivery until March 26th! Gogamer.com doesn’t have it and EBGames lists it on back order. I ordered if directly from Nintendo an hour ago, but haven’t gotten tracking information yet. Here’s to hoping it arrives by the weekend!
Posted by dkidwell on December 30th, 2005 — Posted in Animal Crossing, Nintendo DS, parenting
My oldest son is a fantastic angler. He can, in 10 short minutes, pull in 5,000 – 9,000 Bells (that’s $$ in Animal Crossing.) Fishing for me, on the other hand, is not at all consistent, and when I do get one in, it isn’t worth nearly as much.
He’ll patiently watch me fish and give me pointers, and then laugh at me when I consistently fail. I get a very well intentioned, ‘hey mom, I’ll do some fishing for you so you can take a break…”
Nice guy, that kid is.
Posted by dkidwell on December 30th, 2005 — Posted in Animal Crossing, Nintendo DS, Nintendogs, parenting
Whew! Quick status update on the games…
Nintendogs:
Max is my German Shepherd, and a natural at Disc competitions. He won 1st place in the open competition today with a total of 21 pts and some very nice jumping catches at long distances. Way to go Max!
On the down side, he’s forgotten how to sit down on command. So do you delete the command and start again or hope that it comes back? At this point, we’re unlikely to do well in the Obedience trials.
My daughter’s beagle, Rachel, seems to not like canned dog food. So, no more for her. Max has an adversion to sticks, and growled at the thing until I put it away.
Animal Crossing – Wild World:
Wrote a ton of letters and sent out gifts to the whole dern town. From playing on the GameCube, I know that letters are key to successful relationships with the town folks. Oh, and bizarre real life parallel – real estate agents with databases that they consistent send relevant and useful correspondence with tend to do really well. If you meet an agent who’s netting 6 Million Gross Commission Income or more you can bet that they are sending out letters. Works in real life, works in Animal Crossing.
Posted by dkidwell on December 29th, 2005 — Posted in Animal Crossing, Nintendo DS, parenting
Code: 3866-0916-4819
Name: Poppy
Town: Speyside
Fruit: Cherry
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The snowmen here are great!
Quick update – gave ya’ll the wrong friend code!
Posted by dkidwell on December 29th, 2005 — Posted in Animal Crossing, Nintendo DS, parenting
Credit where credit is due – it was actually very easy to have our Nintendo DS systems recognize our home network. Relatively intuitive and no issues at all. Likewise, the systems recognize the DS to DS easily with no effort on our part at all.
But, connecting our Nintendo Wifi IDs to the Gaming Hub for Animal Crossing has been less easy. The process is pretty straightforward, as presented on the Nintendo Wifi site, but I’ve yet to successfully make a connection.
Nintendo sent me a wonderful email – rather chipper and optimistic in tone. Seems my issue may be that I have no ‘friends’ in Animal Crossing. So, if any you lovely readers are playing Animal Crossing, leave me a comment and we’ll befriend each other in game.
More to come…
