I’ve just spent the last hour or so playing Q Games’ latest downloadable title on the PS3, PixelJunk Eden. It’s a mere £4.99, and already I feel like I’ve had my money’s worth. It’s essentially the weirdest, artiest platformer you’ve ever played. You play a little creature called a grimp, who has to swing and jump from flowers in a set of colourful gardens, spinning and jumping into floating enemies to make them release pollen. This in turn helps your garden to grow, which allows you to collect the glowing Spectra which enable your hub garden to grow so you can access further, harder levels. It’s a real sensory experience, with some gloriously abstract visuals and a pulsing ambient soundtrack - but aside from the HD, it could easily be done on Wii.

Which leads me to wonder why it isn’t on Wii, particularly given Q Games previously cosy relationship with Nintendo (the developer was behind Starfox Command and Digidrive, a Japanese-only puzzler which formed part of the Bit Generations series of experimental GBA games). The Bit Generations games were exactly the sort of thing you’d expect to see on WiiWare - simple ideas turned into interesting games, which might not necessarily appeal to the casual crowd, but which gamers would love to see more of. With Q Games now creating titles for Sony’s service, it makes one query why Nintendo hasn’t snapped up an independent developer of its own, and set it to work on WiiWare titles, released exclusively on Nintendo’s download service alone.

Of course, this might all be moot if Nintendo already has such plans in places - but there’s no way of knowing thanks to its policy of keeping quiet about WiiWare games until the week of their release. But while it’s nice to be surprised by an unexpected gem, us Nintendoites could do with knowing that these sort of ideas are at least at the back of Nintendo’s mind, even if it’s reluctant to talk about them.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, July 31st, 2008 at 2:23 pm by Chris Schilling
Columns & Opinion, WiiWare.