Letters to Developers: Mario Paint Wii

Little known fact (or "unknown" fact, whichever you prefer); I work part-time at a daycare center. I found out that some of the two year-olds do something that beats the crap out of what I do for fun:

They roll balls of colorful paint around canvasses, look cute, then eat graham crackers.

Now aside from wishing I was a kid again, seeing these bright and beautiful pieces of work made me think of a fun game idea.

There hasn't been enough good "art" games in the history of video gaming. I'm a believer that video games can be art, but that is a different conversation. We're talking about using your virtual cursor to create. In fact, the most recent successful incarnations that I can think of in this limited genre are Colors! and Inchworm for the DS, both homebrew digital painting application.

And considering the touch-screen capabilities, it is surprising we aren't seeing more on the handheld market.

But the most memorable game in this area hands down is Mario Paint. Borrowing the immortal Mario name but scarcely having anything to do with it, Mario Paint rests in history as one of the only original IPs that Nintendo hasn't dug up.

Question... why not? Looking at the Wii's hardware, an update to one of the Super Nintendo's most beloved games is more than within reason. Let's start with the logistics of a Nintendo decision to bring the game back.

Infamously, Nintendo is working to ride the line between "casual" and "core" games. Looking at their first-party software library, they are doing a pretty good job. There's a good mix of games, and some do a good job to allow players to mix up their core gaming with their casual. But no game would appease both sides as well as a new Mario Paint. This is especially considering the original game still has a very strong showing online, with impressive tunes being made using Mario Paint's music maker, like the immortal "Still Alive" song from Portal.

It would appear on the Wii for about $10-15 (depending on the features involved), and using a Nunchuk could truly make virtual art fun! And the possible control schemes in multiple modes using the Remote and Nunchuk make this game petition-worthy. We could see modes like:

Simple, by-numbers painting - If you are one of the 9 people that have played around with the Photo Channel, you'll agree that the Wii Remote has potential for drawing mustaches on a picture of your friend. And even though the Photo Channel can be considered poorly executed, the idea of being able to use the wiimote to doodle, cut/copy/paste, and other basic MS Paint actions has got me thinking. If even more options and finer-tuned controls were added to this idea, couldn't this make an enjoyable Wii Ware game on its own?

Music Composer - This sold Mario Paint. Being able to create your favorite Nintendo tunes on your SNES was wicked-sweet. With Wii Music on the way, some would argue this feature useless. Since, as of now, Wii Music will feature a mode that is nothing like the music creator in Mario Paint, it would be a great addition to the bundle.

Gnat Attack - Clicking on the coffee mug let you play one of my favorite mini-games ever. If the magic of point-and-click wasp killing could be translated in a classic, fun way to the Wii, this game would be an instant hit.

Movie/animation studio - Mario Paint gave us the ability to create mini-movies on the Super Nintendo. They even provided Super Mario World characters to create the feeling that we are an animation studio director. Of course, it was very limited at the time. With much more power in the Wii's hardware, this is another mini-genre that would have a perfect fit with Nintendo. Could we make Link run up and kiss Peach as Mario shakes his fist in anger in our own Nintendo-themed soap opera?

Motion painting - That little ball painting story from before is what made me believe this could be a triple-A time waster. Imagine that each of your button presses and slight motions in the Nunchuk and Remote could create a beautiful array of colors. Or perhaps pointing the remote at the screen with a color selected while flicking the Nunchuk would allow you to splatter paint on the screen. You could choose your canvas, your shading and texture, and each slight motion and tilt would change the effect on the screen to create infinite possibilities in your virtual art.

This last idea isn't very far off from seeing birth. With the development of Wii Spray on the way, we could possibly see quality virtual graffiti in this console generation. But a Nintendo-developed one would not only use less hardware like a pc and projector screen, but would come with the quality precision that Nintendo is known for. Even using the IR sensor itself would open up enough possibilities that it could make a sufficient downloadable title. But having a free-paint mode that lets your hands truly do the work could reboot a genre long lost.

There are plenty of games that developers should be rolling out with, that only gamers seem to have the vision for. Sure, it is not as if I am the only one to think of it, but googling "Mario Paint Wii" sure doesn't come up with many results, and they revolve around the time the Wii was first coming out. If there is a game that comes to your mind that should see the light of day, feel free to keep the roundtable going on it.

Ten things Nintendo should have said instead of "Sorry about E3"

Since E3 let out over a month ago, top Nintendo executives have come out of the woodwork to either somewhat or blatantly apologize for their part in the show.

Gamers that know about this also know that their excuses are pretty sub-par and typical. Sure, we can understand that some great games are on their way, but Nintendo did nothing more than destroy their credibility, or what was left of it, as a true gamer-serving company.

So really, they can say anything they want to try making up for it, even if it won't work for some of us. Here are some of the things they may as well say:

1. - We were pretty drunk, guys. Iwata passed out on the futon after a mighty long 500 rounds of cow racing (man we fucking LOVE cow racing). Did you know you guys get a free Wii Remote with that? Seriously, that’s fan-TASTIC.
2. - Look, last time we checked, lots of crazy booth babes that like casual games come to E3. And when we looked into the crowd, we realized that crowd-surfing with balance boards wouldn’t exactly work this time. Late the party pretty much sums it up.
   
3. - Seriously? And you guys aren’t irate about Microsoft just copying us left and right? Go ask them who pwns the console market now? That’s right, THESE guys (with thumbs pointing towards them).
4. - We just WEREN’T prepared. How can we fill time like that when we take so long to develop games? Don’t get us wrong, we’re making some kick-ass titles that you just have to wait for. Grumble all you fucking want. You know that when we shit, we shit GOLD. In the meantime, we will fill our time slot with better things than showing you our incomplete games. We’ll show you graphs and talk about our philosophies.
5. - Look we’re sorry, but it’s E3, not a fucking godsend to video games. It’s nothing like it used to be, and we’ll announce our games when we fucking want to. Don’t be tethered like the rest of the “your dumb”-asses out there.
6. - You guys weren't happy? We're working to make an affordable gyroscope add-on and you're taking the time to bitch about how we should have done that to begin with? Fuck it, we're SO over. I want my Starter jacket back, asshole.
7. - Hello? Hello? Can you hear us? Yeah, we're talking over Wii Speak and - - hey, shut up guys, they can't hear me if the rest of the room is talking! Hello? Yeah, sorry about that, Ted can be a bit - - dude, dude, SILENCE YOUR PHONE!
8. - We're sorry. Really. We're sorry for the Gamecube. We're sorry for not even announcing some fun Virtual Console games like an online Goldeneye. We're sorry that we rely too much on third-party support when we create hardware that supports shovelware. We're sorry that we take every second possible to show you, in powerpoint fashion, that we're number one. We're sorry that we haven't taken our innovative system and done enough truly innovative things with it. We're sorry that we don't value the things you do, like high definition graphics. We'll make it up to you. You know we're good for it, right?
9. - Gotcha! ...No, really, we fucked up.
10. - Yeah, yeah, you want changes, right? Send your wishlists to Reggie. If it makes you feel better, here's a clue at what you can look forward to: we're going to add waggle ability to the console itself. Then you dance with the remote AND the Wii in hand! Oh, and we're dropping the warranty. It prints money!
    

FPS games aren't dying, just doing a bit of repeating

Each year in gaming, a new First-Person Shooter steals the lives of gamers and many “game of the year” nominations. From a crude perspective, the game usually bears the same general formula as “last year’s” hit FPS while being carried by an attractively-named game engine and wearing the disguise of a vague-titled piece of entertainment that may-or-may-not have aliens and a government conspiracy in it.

Every once in a while, certain games spark life to this beaten genre, even when gaining inspiration from even older titles. Metroid Prime let us experience morph ball mode and the screw attack in a whole new way, Bioshock gave us a compelling narrative in comparison to other first-person experiences.

But even when facing these few diamonds in the rough, the future is bleak for the FPS genre. Are we seeing too many games from our own perspective? With a formula as simple and specific as “you see things you shoot, along with the gun you’re using and the arm that holds it,” isn’t it easy to retread old ground?

The video game industry will always repeat itself, and it apparently doesn’t take long to do so. If you like FPS games like I do, you’ll be eager to see some changes (aside from shiny new engines) that take the genre in a new direction. And here are some ways to do it:

• Give us a breath of fresh air - - make up some reason that the character can smoothly move from first-person to third-person perspective.

• Add some mystery ingredients to the game. If we know we are person A fighting battle B for reason C, it can get boring. By making use of the fact that we CAN’T see who we are, why not leave our own identities secret for a good portion of the game? We don’t see that enough.

• The point of a first-person perspective is to experience a game as if you truly ARE the character. What can be more realistic than actual first-person tasks? Doing dishes, scratching graffiti into bathroom stalls, shoving food into your face, watching a bacon double-cheeseburger disappear JUST under the camera. Sounds like a better Wii game than most other third-party offerings.

• Why stick to one character? Games like Call of Duty 4 put you in the shoes of a number of people. What’s exciting about controlling other people, though? In fact, here's an on-the-spot idea for a game that could stand being made based on multiple-character control:

Imagine that you take the role of a parasite that is slowly taking over the Earth (take notes, hungry developers). You can invade the human brain and work your way to another by forcing your host to (brace yourself for the awesomeness) ram their body into the next host. Then, your parasite makes the jump to a different host that has different roles and abilities, which then lets you further the game by finding hosts with specific abilities and access to different areas. And this would be the first FPS that you would run into another person for a (good) reason. I suppose you would either leave the last host's corpse behind, or it would be controlled by one of your spawn. I know, gross.



Oh, and the host you control would walk around like a drunk person, a little more tough, and fun, to control.

See? We can keep this genre alive, and maybe even unique. Unless you want your grandchildren to be playing Halo 18, I suggest we do something, folks.