Daily Buzz – Gaming – July 22, 2009
Posted by Generate Studios on July 23rd 2009 in Generate Insight Daily Buzz
Topic: Nintendo DS Treasure World
There is an emerging trend in video-gaming that engages tweens/teens in the ‘explore and find’ experience. With the swell in childhood obesity and the low level of physical inactivity among today’s youth, this new type of gaming was designed to get kids off their couches and exercising game-play in the real world. The game that has gotten buzz on our boards is ‘Treasure World’ by Nintendo DS. This game takes kids on a wifi-based treasure hunt outside. The game acts as a ‘treasure detector, collector, creative canvas and community gateway’.
The story follows the Star Sweep, an old space-faring man who scours the universe for all sorts of goodies with the help of his robotic buddy the Wish Finder. After crash landing on Earth, he’s tasked the user to help him refuel his ship with stardust – quite handily, Wi-Fi signals on Earth feature the exact same properties as stardust, so all you have to do is roam the real world scooping up Wi-Fi signals to earn stardust that will refill his tank.
To earn stardust the user simply sets their system to detect signals. From then on, all the user has to do is turn it on, close the DS, and wander around. The user will probably score a few dozen hits in their first few minutes of Wi-Fi searching. The system will alert the user with a recognizable beep when it’s discovered a new signal, encouraging players to keep on walking.
To build on this ‘explore and find’ gaming trend, we have also seen some buzz around the app Hidden Park, Locomatrix.
Why “Treasure World” is buzz-worthy:
- Physical Fun-ness! – A unique, fun way of getting the kids out of the house, engaged in physical activity and immersed in a treasure hunt
- Rewarded for activity – rewarding players with objects and goodies when they’re captured in the Treasure World universe. And there is an enormous amount of items to score within this game. Those items can either be collected from Wi-Fi signals or paid by using collected stardust as money.
-Customizable avatars – Users can pimp out their avatar with wigs, masks, shirts, pants, and belts, and you can earn items like giant robots, anime dolls, 8-bit sprites, teddy bears, etc. – as well as unlock songs and character animations too.
-Collection experience – Hunting and gathering items in the outside world to then collect goodies in the Treasure World Universe.
- Community Appeal – Users can upload their profile to the Club Treasure World website. User’s entire DS profile will be copied over, and the website will mirror every aspect of your progress on the handheld.
