Concrete Man:
Created to construct a dam, Concrete man can actually design a dam and supervise its entire construction. He has stubborn a stubborn personality and will tell off any lazy robots.

Weapon: Concrete Shot
Concrete shot creates a temporary foothold as soon as it touches the ground. It can also be used to stop enemies in their tracks.

Tornado Man:
Works for the Weather Manipulation Office to help control and stop the formation of large storms all over the world.

Weapon: Tornado Blow
Tornado Blow launches a huge tornado that covers the entire game area. Heavy enemies will take damage, but lighter ones will be blown entirely off-screen.

Magma Man:
Magma Man serves as the safety control robot at a large geothermal power plant. He is able to work in incredibly hot environments and loves to visit hot spas.

Weapon: Magma Bazooka
Magma Bazooka shoots a cluster of fireballs that spread out after launching. It can also be charged by holding down the shot button.

All DLC has been available since May 30. That’s everything for now, and we have no plans for future DLC at the moment.

Wonder why that is…

Afterthoughts: Final Fantasy CC: My Life as a King [1Up via VG247]

The 2D fighter will run you 900 Wii Points and features 16 characters, a two player versus mode and tons of silly translations.

The two Virtual Console releases seem to be setting the stage for Samurai Shodown Anthology which is set to hit the Wii in the forth quarter of the year for $US 30. That retail game will include Samurai Shodown, Samurai Shodown II, Samurai Shodown III, Samurai Shodown IV, Samurai Shodown V and, you guessed it, Samurai Shodown VI. Man, that’s a lot of roman numerals.

Doetinchem, January 9th 2008 – Engine Software, developer based in the Netherlands, today announces that it has started its first development project for the Nintendo WiiWare service. The debut title, for now dubbed “Project Bang!”, will be a casual game type with very addictive gameplay using the unique Wii Remote controller functionality, and will support a two-player battle mode.

Nintendo’s WiiWare service is a new downloadable game content service that is scheduled to be launched in March 2008. Players will be able to purchase and download WiiWare games directly from the Wii Shop Channel in exchange for Wii Points. “WiiWare brings new levels of creativity and value to the ever-growing population of Wii owners.”, as stated by Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime.

Ruud van de Moosdyk, VP of Development at Engine Software: “We are very excited about our first game for the WiiWare service. When we acquired our official Wii license last year we already had several concepts written up that would be ideal for WiiWare, and Project Bang! is the first to actually go into production. We wanted to get rolling on this exciting new platform early on, and I am quite happy we are now on schedule to do just that. “

In the near future Engine Software will be releasing more information (including the final name), and screenshots of Project Bang!, as well as more news regarding future plans for the platform. Project Bang! is scheduled to be completed early on in the service’s operational status, but no exact date can be given at this time.

“We want to become the best, the go-to place, the studio that is known for carving out our own part of the industry. Double Six is going to be the place to go for the absolutely best games on digital platforms”

Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, Brooksby then goes on to explain that they will be creating games that are sometimes arcadey, sometimes casual, and sometimes quite complex. It’s really all over the place. Head over there and read their article…it helps if you imagine him speaking like a breathlessly over-excited kid. Points for enthusiasm!

Kuju targets digital downloads with new Double Six studio {GamesIndustry.biz]

“I can confirm as we originally said at the announcement of the WiiWare service earlier in the year that WiiWare games will come in a range of sizes but we will encourage smaller, more compact games for the service,” a Nintendo spokesperson told Eurogamer today.

So no 40MB cap, which makes sense considering games like Crystal Chronicles. The Nintendo spokesperson also explains that the one game a month limit is something they are considering instituting during the launch window to address volume issues, and that no pricing details have been released. In other words, IGN was mistaken.

Man, give a guy a microphone and they just go crazy.

Nintendo refutes WiiWare size cap [Eurogamer]

Wii-k in Review Podcast: 11/12/07 [IGN, via Go Nintendo]

Nic Watt (pictured above) knows. And he knows that if you’re an aspiring developer with a big idea but a small bank balance, WiiWare might be just what you’re looking for. Watt’s Creative Director at startup Aussie dev Nnooo! Games, who are the team behind the recently-announced Pop for WiiWare. Being the first Wetern game announced for the service, and also being located in Sydney, I caught up with Nic and found out how he and his small team have turned a simple game idea from a lazy daydream into a real, honest-to-God WiiWare title.Turns out the whole thing involved a bit of planning, a bit of know-how and, as is often the case, a bit of luck. Moving to Australia from the UK in 2006 to establish his own studio, but without a platform to develop on, Watt decided to get in touch with an old friend at Nintendo of America. See what was shaking. They got talking, and Watt got to asking about how the Wii was going with regards to an XBLA-ish downloadable games service.

He was told yes, actually, something like that was coming. So the two stayed in contact, and Nnooo ended up pitching a bunch of game ideas to Nintendo. Some “very complex”, others very, very simple. None were functional demos, mind – they were just very rough, very general ideas. But Nintendo liked what they heard. So on the strength of naught but a bunch of game ideas, Nnooo signed some NDAs, were told about WiiWare and promptly sent a dev kit to get to work on.

Now they just needed a game. Of the 10-15 ideas which they pitched to Nintendo, they settled on Pop, a game Watt describes as drawing from influences like Every Extend Extra, Tetris, Lumines, Geometry Wars and even Elektroplankton.

“We are aiming for an experience which is simple to understand but gets under your skin and keeps you entranced for long periods of time”, he says of the game’s core ideas. After mocking up a PC version using mouse controls, which helped the team “get a feel for whether it would be fun or not”, work began on Pop in April of this year, just before WiiWare’s official announcement.

So why WiiWare? Easy answer: it’s low-risk, high-return development. It works for people like Watt, who has a small team and a small budget. “The great thing about WiiWare and services like it is we can offer titles at a lower cost than their disc based counterparts” Watt says. “This means that an apparently simple title like Pop can be sold for a significantly less than the US$40+ one would pay for a disc based game.”

OK, but why WiiWare specifically? Why not XBLA or PSN? The PlayStation Network especially has shown it’s willing to take a risk on small games with big ideas. But Watt was sold on Nintendo’s particular approach to the service. When it comes to WiiWare titles, it’s ideas Nintendo are focusing on, not names, team sizes or budgets.

After all, Watt and Nnooo were sent a dev kit on the back of nothing more than a handful of game ideas. Not reputation (though the devs have been drawn from Nintendo, Visual Science, Sierra, SCi, EA and Team Bondi), not a large up-front investment and certainly not an expensive, risky and time-consuming demo. “Nintendo understand not only that small companies like ours cannot afford to create loads of demos in the hope of getting a game signed but also that the Wii is quite unique and you really need to get access to the hardware to be able to make a decent game, demo or prototype.”

Which doesn’t sound like the Nintendo we know. But then, Watt says at least some Western WiiWare titles are being groomed and overseen by Nintendo of America. So rather than simply acting as the traditional localiser and distributor for Japanese titles, NoA will be handling the acquisition and publishing of Western WiiWare titles themselves. Giving a non-Japanese division that kind of clout is an uncharacteristic step for Nintendo, and a welcome one for a company still struggling with its Japano-centric business strategies.

Other aspects of the service I asked about were either covered by Watt’s NDA or are still undecided. They’re still mulling over whether to include the ability to feature demos of titles, for example, while he couldn’t tell me a Western release date or pricing structure for the games either (though you can expect the games to be cheap).

As we finish up I let Watt get one final plug in for the game by asking what exactly it’s going be like. Mostly because their initial description came off sounding a little sparse, and led to a little bit of tongue-flapping.

“Like Every Extend Extra, Geometry Wars, Tetris and Lumines Pop has waves of gameplay which get progressively more challenging and fast paced”, he says. “It also has deep mechanics in its scoring which allow experienced players to not only score high but also jump past easy levels quickly so they can get to the harder ones”.

That make things any clearer? Pop should be out at, or very close to, the launch of WiiWare in the West. Which will be sometime next year.

Paid Downloads for Wii Ware Games [IGN]

There is a sophisticated scoring system which includes not only chains, multipliers and power-ups [but] also a series of bonus rounds which are unlocked and played between stages.

Thanks Nic for the clarification. Nic also let me know that the game won’t launch until Wii Ware hits, which makes perfect sense. Unlike the “next week” from my original post. My bad.

UPDATE: Luke over at the mothership has his story up. He’s also fired off a Q&A to Nnooo, which we should hopefully see the answers to in short order.

Hit the jump for the images.