Just four games this time, as the letter 'B' holds surprisingly slim pickings for DSiWare - to the extent that I'm listing half of these under AKAs.
Quick recap: To facilitate this exercise I played every game made available on the DSiWare service and, once I had weeded out the mountains of completely rubbish, I have divided the remainder into four categories:
Hidden Gems: Games you've probably never heard of that are utterly brilliant
Well Known & Wonderful: Still gems, still potentially brilliant, but perhaps not quite so 'hidden'
Honourable Mentions: Those games that are good, but lack the real spark required to fit into one of the top two categories
Also Rans: Not bad enough to be completely ignored, but probably not quite good enough to warrant higher status
Two caveats: Firstly, I don't enjoy RPGs. Like, at all. So you won't see any of those at any point. And secondly it's very hard to define 'Hidden Gem' on DSiWare, as the service itself was never hugely popular, so please excuse a potential few miss-categorisations along the way!
So, onward with the selections...
Known in some territories as Spotto!, this puzzle game leans away from the cerebral and towards the action side of things. The player takes control of a hand-grenade lobbing duck (I think) as he seeks to rid a mansion of it's ghost infestation.
I'm a big proponent of the idea that a little charm goes a long way, and this is exactly the sort of game that benefits hugely from just that. It's a short game and a simple idea, but the whole thing is so entirely endearing that I had to give it a hidden gem spot.
Played over two screens, your little bird friend stands at the bottom of the screen, bedecked in an army helmet, and armed with five bombs.
Above, a number of ghosts hang in the air, with their gaping maws turned upwards giving them the look of those bizarre deep sea fish.
To aim a bomb a small wheel is rotated on the touchscreen. A small amount of it's flight-path is shown but not enough to make the game too easy. This control choice seemed odd to me at first, but having played other, similar games since that use more a more direct form of touch-screen aiming, I can confirm this is absolutely the better option.
And so you make your way through the levels, rebounding bombs from walls, items, and moving platforms, with the goal of landing them in the mouths of the ghouls. There isn't much more to it than that and, frankly, there doesn't need to be. It's just a small, simple, hugely enjoyable little time-waster.
Well Known & Wonderful:
I've committed to not listing any of the G.G. Series titles as hidden gems because they were pretty prominent on DSiWare by virtue of their sheer number. They were both frequently released and frequently on sale.
Black x Block is another game that ties stylishly simple design with brutal difficulty. With a stick-person avatar and outlined level components, it has a very similar aesthetic to 10 Second Run, another G.G. Series game that achieved the same status in my 'Numbers' entry.
On this occasion your little person is picking up and rotating Tetris style pieces in order to build their way to the exit. An early level might require you build stairs, for example, but later on you may need to build similar stairs, but then dismantle them to use the pieces to build another climbable platform elsewhere on the stage.
The easy to understand concept quickly gives rise to some fiendishly difficult levels, with the ability to get stuck behind a construction of your own making a particularly common pitfall.
Thankfully, it's a game rife with revelatory moments and it's these, for the most part, that make the game a lot of fun to play, and prevent it from become console-hurlingly frustrating!
Bird and Beans
As far as I can tell there is no relationship between this game and the above mentioned 'Bird and Bombs'. This effort has actually been re-packaged from one (or is it two?) of the many mini-games in Warioware. What initially appears to be a slightly too simple action game in the vein of Pang!, Bird and Beans (AKA Pyoro) uses brilliantly balanced risk, reward, attack, and defence mechanics and quickly reveal itself as something quite different.
As you may expect, given the games origins, it's a simple affair in which your small avian avatar moves across the the bottom of the top screen trying to capture beans that rain from above, an action performed with it's diagonally protruding tongue. Initially it seems as simple as: The higher up the screen the bean is captured, the more points you earn - but there is more too it than that.
Things are first complicated when a bean hits the floor and leaves a hole you are unable to cross; reducing the play area. Luckily there are different coloured beans that repair small or large gaps and it's this element that moves the game away from simple score chasing by adding an (admittedly simplistic) level of strategy. Rather than simply plucking as many beans from the sky as possible, you have to choose which colour bean grab at the right time.
If a bean hits you on the head, it's game over. So ensuring you always have enough floorspace available to avoid them is the key to success.
And that's not all. As you progress to a certain point in your score tally (neatly represented by a changing background) a whole new game mode is unlocked that, while ostensibly similar, is in fact completely unique to play.
But I'll leave that part for you to discover for yourself.
Boxlife (Art Style series)
Possessing what instantly became one of my favourite theme tunes of all time, this DSiWare exclusive in the well known Art Style series is a puzzle game with two very different modes of play. They are both built on the premise of cutting out patterns from flat squares, which are then folded into cube shaped boxes to make profit. But, while one mode has rigid goals and level by level progression, the other is much more open.
At the beginning you have no choice but to spend some time in the 'R & D' department. In this mode the game teaches you a pattern and then sets a puzzle around cutting a set number of boxes from a sheet of virtual card with zero waste. This mode is fun but pretty limited. It does build your understanding nicely and is useful - as per the moniker - for learning the basics.
Factory mode is the real meat and gravy of the game. In this version you have an endless ream of card that you call forward as needed. Waste is inevitable here, and will eat into profits, so getting the most boxes for the least card is where you'd think the secret of success would lie.
However, it's not long before explosive canisters start to fall from the sky and your only defence from the devastating impact they have on your 'waste' tally is to box them up ship them elsewhere.
The goal here is to gradually hit larger and larger production targets. As you do this you are rewarded by upgrades to your house, shown in cute pixel art on the title screen with four elements that can swapped out for upgraded versions. It's a neat little touch and a very cute and stylish way to show your progress.
Or.
Boxlife is an artistic commentary on capitalism in which you play a homeless man lured from your tatty tent by a gang of terrorists who recruit you to work in a bomb factory. You are well rewarded for efforts, and as such can upgrade from a tent, to a shack, and ever upwards until you achieve the dream of a detached house, pets and the white picket fence... just don't look behind the facade!
Whatever the backstory, Boxlife is a fantastic puzzle game. There are times when the touch controls won't do exactly as you like, and it's probably not a game with broad appeal, but I'd urge anyone to give it a go, and pretty much insist on it for puzzle game fans.
Quality over quantity very much the theme for the 'B' section, with all these games very much worth a play.
Let's hope the standard remains. The quantity is definitely high for 'C', the other thing though... let's see about that next time.
I hope to see you then!
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