DSIWARE GETTING DOUBLE CUBIC ART STYLE GAMES, ANIMAL CROSSING/MARIO CALCULATORS

Submitted not to send stateside readers into jealous piques, but more to illuminate the kinds of games that will certainly becoming to the stateside DSiWare Store after the new unit’s April release: a new post from Japan’s Game Watch [Google translated here] which shows off the rest of next week’s downloadable software selection in addition to Mr. Driller, as previously noted.

Among other Mahjong and Japanese e-book apps, the update will see the addition of two Nintendo-themed $2 calculators, one Super Mario Bros. styled, and one with an Animal Crossing skin. Game Watch promises both will have specific throwbacks to their respective games, and, curiously, highlight twice that the calculators can convert human to dog years.

But the real story here is, as always, Skip/Nintendo’s ongoing series of Art Style games, and the pick of the litter here appears to be the above puzzle game Hacolife, in which you race against the clock to fold laid flat squares into perfect cubes, where they’re picked up by the warehouse robo-arm and carried away.

Also added to the Art Style lineup (and again seemingly incomprehensibly titled): Nalaku, which looks nothing if not avertical version of cult PlayStation puzzler Intelligent Qube, and, as TinyCartridge aptly notes, might be the first Art Style/bit Generations game with an actual playable human avatar (Aquario‘s diver doesn’t quite count).

I’m not fully sure I’ve bought into the gameplay hook on this one, but the theme song loop on the game’s home page makes me feel like I’ve just stepped through the pearly CV/Gates and am being directly exposed to the face of the God of Synthesizers, which may sway me in the end.

DSiWare home [Nintendo, via Game Watch, thanks to TinyCartridge for the re-YouTubes]

Previously:
Nintendo's DSiWare makes holiday debut – Offworld
DSi getting more downloadable Art Style, Tetris Attack – Offworld
New Mr. Driller coming to DSiWare/WiiWare – Offworld
Katamari Damacy coming to DSi as… a block puzzle game? – Offworld
Listen: YMCK's Bowser-busting hardcore Mario remix – Offworld
Listen, too: Another PicoPict YMCK NES mega-mix – Offworld