Sonic creator Yuji Naka has been a busy bunny of late - his new development team Prope, not satisfied with sweetly innocent throw-and-catch sim Let’s Catch, has crafted a game where you don’t have to pick up a controller at all. Because Let’s Tap is controlled by tapping on a cardboard box, with an upside-down remote positioned horizontally at the end of it.

Weird? Yep, very. But it works. The game comes with a box intended for this very purpose, though you can use pretty much any container of a similar size - the example shown when you’re learning the controls is a tissue box, so you’ve got an idea of the kind of proportions I’m talking about.

The first of five modes is named ‘running tap’ which sees you guiding a simplistic figure across a neon track against three other runners - tapping with your left and right hands helps you to run faster, and pressing down sharply executes a jump, allowing you to clear hurdles. Once I’d recalibrated the remote to a slightly more sensitive setting (I was really having to batter the box to action a leap) it worked just fine. There are plenty of levels, and it’s bound to be a hoot in multiplayer, assuming you’ve got a few small cardboard boxes lying around (a DS Lite box is just about perfect).

There’s a rhythm-action game which requires you to tap along with the beat - while the tunes are really quite catchy, it seemed quite hard to fail. It wasn’t entirely clear when I should have been tapping with my left hand and when with my right, but that’s the language barrier for you. With most of the menu options in English, it’s fairly import-friendly, but this was the one game where I wasn’t sure about what I was supposed to be doing.

The third mode tasks you with removing hexagonal tiles, which are stacked up with an item on top - the idea being that you remove them all without letting said object slip. You tap to select a block, tap again to stop a meter showing which direction you’ll be removing it in, and then gently tap to shake the tile free. It’s very tricky, but will undoubtedly be rewarding once you master it - I got down to two layers before losing out.

A strange Balloon Fight-esque game is the fourth option - instead of pressing buttons to keep your avatar afloat, you’re powering a strange creature by tapping, and destroying obstacles with missiles fired with a firmer whack on the box. I’ve not spent much time with this yet, but it looks like it could be addictive.

Finally, there are several visualisers - ranging from fireworks displays, with explosions triggered whenever you tap, to sumi-e paintings where your fingers daub splats of paint or longer brushstrokes for more vigorous taps. The fishtank one, where you’re presented with a series of koi carp, turtles and other fish as you create ripples in the water, is utterly gorgeous. One of these offers more of a game-like experience, rather akin to those bath toys where you press to squirt bubbles to manouevre balls into small containers - here you tap to guide spherical gems into jars of increasing height.

It’s all fairly slight, but it does offer a pretty unique experience (even if it could reasonably be replicated with the DK Bongos). Innovation for innovation’s sake? Perhaps, but then it’s nice to see someone trying something different on Wii, and it’s quite beautifully presented. It’s very Japanese, but let’s hope Let’s Tap makes it to Europe - though it would certainly benefit from a budget price. I’ll have a full review for you very soon.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008 at 9:43 pm by Chris Schilling
Early impressions, Japanese oddities, Latest Games, Random Nintendo Craziness, Wii.