I now know who Oink Games is!

Actually I found out a few weeks ago but forgot to post it here.

For those who don’t remember, Oink Games is the mysterious co-developer who turned up in the credits of  Chibi-Robo: Photo Finder. Well I contacted them on Twitter for more info and they were nice enough to reply. It turns out some of the staff were formerly programmer at Skip and previously worked on the bitGenerations and ArtStyle series, including Orbient, Aquario, Boxlife and PentaTentacles.

So that’s pretty cool! Anyone who’s kept an eye on Skip’s infrequently updated site will have noticed that their in-house staff have certainly dwindled over the past few years but it’s cool that Skip can contract them back in on a project-by-project basis. So there’s hope for another game with the size and scope of Captain Rainbow again… Right?

Read Full Post »

Lovedelic bargains to be had

Play-Asia is having a huge sale to celebrate Chinese New Year. 5000 items discounted! And there are a few Lovedelic school games included. Here’s what’s left.

Sakura Note – £25.21

Bit Generations: Boundish – £6.26

Captain Rainbow – £12.57 [EDIT – As Douglas points out, Captain Rainbow has already reverted to its whopping £41 price tag. Ouch! I hope you all picked it up while you had the chance]

I particularly recommend that you pick up Captain Rainbow if you don’t already own it. It’s an absolutely essential Skip game and I can’t believe how cheaply it’s being sold. Personally, I’ll be buying Sakura Note. I’ve been putting off getting the Audio adventure in the hope that an English translation would be announced, but it doesn’t look very likely at this point.

Read Full Post »

Art Style x Bit Generations

Some clever and talented person on Deviantart has created an image that shows what the Art Style DSi games might look like if they had been released in boxes and in the same theme as Skip’s previous experimental series, Bit Generations. The results are suitably stylish and leave me a little bit cold toward the whole digital download thing. On the one hand I’m grateful for the fact that DSiWare has allowed for these games to get a UK release where the Bit Generations games didn’t, but I sure do miss the tangibility of a lovingly designed and crafter physical product.

I guess if I was feeling really sad then I could save all my Art Style games to seperate SD cards and package them up in boxes made from these mock-up packages. Thankfully, though, my obsession hasn’t quite escalated to that level of fanatacism yet.

Thanks to the ever-interesting Tiny Cartridge for the heads-up.

Read Full Post »

More Art Style games

Just a quick not to say that US Wii owners will find Art Style: Rotohex available for download today. It’s a remake of bit Generations: Dialhex, which I was never much of a fan of. I won’t be downloading this new one but there are others out there who adored Dialhex, so maybe Rotohex is worth a try for the uninitiated.

In other news, I completed Art Style: Cubello this week and thought it was a brilliant little game. It was made specifically for Wii (it’s not part of the bit Generations series) and makes great use of the controller. It’s basically a 3D rotational puzzle where you have to match four or more cubes of the same colour by firing them into the screen. If you like simple but addictive puzzle games (and low-fi synthesized speech) then make sure you give it a try.

Read Full Post »

New bits and bobs

There haven’t been many post here lately due to my hectically busy life. Sorry about that… Here’s all the stuff that I didn’t report when I should have done.

Chibi-Robo! is being re-released on Wii with slightly new controls and a 16:9 widescreen display.

Three more bit Generations games are coming to WiiWare under the Art Style label.

The latest gamesTM has an interview with Kenichi Nishi about newtonica.

Oh and it looks like newtonica 2.0 is in the works. Not sure if it’ll be a free update or a full sequel though.

Read Full Post »

bit Generations is back, and newtonica updated

A new game called Art Style: Orbient was released on the USA WiiWare service yesterday to little fanfare. I almost overlooked it myself actually until I read the very familiar description and realised that it is actually a big screen remake of skip’s GBA game bit Generations: Orbital.

It seems that Nintendo has finally decided to make the bit Generations series of lo-fi, high-gameplay titles available to people outside of Japan and has even taken the trouble to redo all of the graphics and sounds. I guess this is why skip was advertising for new staff to work on a similar project a while ago. It’s interesting that Nintendo would change the label of the series from ‘bit Generations’ to ‘Art Style’. Perhaps they wanted to distance themselves from the Touch Generations label, or maybe they wanted to create a brand to rival Sony’s very similar PixelJunk label.* Or maybe, just maybe, they’re intending to create more games under the Art Style brand, beyond those already available on GBA.

I downloaded Orbient last night and it really is a very good remake. The new graphics are much more attractive and do a much better job of indicating how the gravitational fields are working. The actual levels seem like they might be different too which is good. Regardless, I thought Orbital was one of the better bit Generations games so I’m chuffed to see it up on WiiWare and would recommend that everyone gives it a go, even if they’ve played the original before.

Read Full Post »

Skip interview of awesome

Good morning!!! I mean that, hence the exclamation marks. Most Saturday mornings are pretty uneventful times but this particular one is very different because I’ve received an email from the good people at Eegra, informing me that the first part of their exclusive Skip interview is UP.

Though it’s only part one of two, Patrick Alexander’s interview sheds so much light on the enigmatic folk at Skip and Route24 that I may have to invest in a pair of sunglasses. Now go there immediately and soak up the info.

I have to say, however, that I’m concerned that both Skip and Kenichi Nishi are interested in moving to digital downloads. They’re right, downloads are more environmentally friendly, but the current state of console downloads will make it extremely hard for people like me to actually play those new games. These services are often region-locked and you can’t import a download can you?

Good morning?

Read Full Post »