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Game Category Entries Review

Written by Brakken
August, 2005

NeoFlash has held their first coding competition for amateur programmers to flex their muscles and show their skills programming on the Nintendo DS. Prizes are of course NeoFlash's own development kits for the console. The contest went well with a total of twenty three entries from various programmers from around the world ranging in all ages.

Before I get into the review itself I think the public should of aware of why NeoFlash decided to run this home brew coding competition. First you must understand the origins of the NeoFlash itself.

The NeoFlash is basically a re-labeled XG2005 that comes with a hardware based PassMe device. Though the XG2005 cart itself is their own creation the initial PassMe/Passthrough design was created DarkFader and Natrium. DarkFader was the first person to bypass the Nintendo DS encryption. DarkFader made his Passthrough design public so anyone could use it. NeoFlash had all legal right to use the design, but failed to give any sort of public credit to DarkFader.

Now here is where things get interesting. DarkFader was the first person to crack the Nintendo DS encryption and released the first *two Nintendo DS, but these games failed to run on the NeoFlash as the NeoFlash itself has been made to only play retail games that have been specially modified to work with it.

DarkFader was soon then hired by NeoFlash to create a way to copy and patch retail games that would only work on the NeoFlash and then he released the first few patched games himself, but due to unknown circumstances gave the NeoFlash team the source code to do it themselves and quit.

Next NeoFlash created an underground group named the Golden Sun Team which started copying and releasing retail games. It is thought that their sole intention was not to produce a legitimate backup/development unit, but to create a copying device to play illegally copies of Nintendo DS games.

As they were the only company to hold the key to playing retail games, they used this to their advantage. Also by misleading consumers by charging them a lot of money for hardware they could obtain elsewhere they have built themselves a small empire, but now with the release of the newer booting solutions they are a sinking ship.

The word on the net is that to try to remedy this situation and make their company look legitimate they came up with this coding competition for legal cover up and unfortunately many coders decided to participate in this. Most of these coders are well aware of the circumstances surrounding their business venture and have decided to participate for their own person gain (the prizes). Hopefully the coders who did enter were not aware of what NeoFlash is and what they stand for will never help NeoFlash again.

With all of that in the air I am now going to start the review of the games that were created. One must keep in mind that creating games in general is no easy task, but then to create them for a video game console system is a whole other issue.

Each game has been reviewed by me and also to add an original twist to things I have hired outside help for this one in the form of twelve year. Alex is his name and he's a hardcore console gamer, but has never experienced any homebrew in his life which will give a unique perspective on each game as he was unaware of what it takes to create a Nintendo DS game.



3D Ping Pong
Programmer - delfare


In this game you are presented with a ping-pong paddle in a first perspective and get to paddle away! Unfortunately the game itself runs so slow that you will win every time. The graphics are simply non-textured polygons which I was not impressed with.

  2  1  2  2  
It sucked
Entertained me as much as a flight to Japan with nothing to do


Antarex
Programmer - Pocket_Lucho



This game is a 2D overhead scrolling shooter with very good graphics, sound, gameplay and overall very fun. When playing the game you have the ability to switch the color of your laser and depending on what color you use and what color the enemy as you may or may not be able to the kill them. The 2D graphics, as I mentioned before, are excellent. Sadly I could not beat the first level's boss so I didn't get to experience any new textures. I believe this game could be sold in retail stores and make quite a bit of money.

  10   10  9   10  
Switching laser colors to kill certain enemies was awesome
No way to tell how far you were before the end boss (which I couldn't beat)


ArkanoiDS
Programmer - Diffuse


Unfortunately I tried to boot this game on both of F2A and the SuperCard using the PassMe, but all I was greeted with was a blue screen.



DrugWars DS
Programmer - DragonMinded


Having played drug wars quite a lot on an old 486 so there wasn't much new here. It was a faithful port with updated graphics and featured of course the good gameplay path found an original PC game.

  10  1   10   10  
Sells drugs without getting arrested
I would say, but if my mom read this she'd get mad


DSGoo
Programmer - Headspin


I really wouldn't consider this a game, but more of a tech demo. Basically you use the stylus to distort celebrities faces in various ways. I particularly didn't like this demo/game.

  2  0  2  2  
Screwing up Celebs faces
Wasn't playable for more then a few minutes as it really did suck


Dual Step Revolution
Programmer - Shoryu


The graphics and music in this game is what first caught my attention, but after figuring out you have to play with the buttons it made the experience pointless (compared to the original DDR which of course you dance around on a pad). If it wasn't for lack of this fact this game would have really kicked some major butt.

  2   10  1  1  
The sound was great
No dance pad = no point


Earth Invaders
Programmer - Smealum


This game was a run-of-the-mill shooter which had poor control, average, play excellent music and below par graphics. I believe this could have been worked out a little more before releasing it.

  4  8  3  5  
The music was pretty cool
Ship moved too fast


FLUX
Programmer - rize


Flux is kind of like a Tetris Attack clone which are given various color pieces which you much match and eventually when you lineup enough they disappear giving you points. Overall a simple game with lack of background music, but it would be a decent time killer nonetheless.

  3  3  6  5  
It moved slow giving you time to think.
Took to long to break em'


Gorilla
Programmer - DesktopMan


When I first booted up Gorilla I thought it was going to be an awesome Rampage! clone, but was dissapointed as all you, do is stand on the roof of a building and throwing bananas at each other. Another dis-satisfying game.

  3  8  8  8  
The interactive scenario was cool
There were like no bonuses you could pickup


Grid Challenge
Programmer - By Miqualke


When starting a grid challenge you are greeted with the ability to create a saved game which is not a feature of any of the other games and then are greeted with the background music from Final Fantasy which I totally digged! It's basically a puzzle game that supports the touchscreen, but touchscreen support is really bugged and barely works half the time. If you don't mind having the touch the same spot of the screen over 20 times to get something done and I guess this would be a good puzzle game for you.

  2  1  1  4  
Little smilely face
Controls


JumpingBarnabe
Programmer - Alekmaul

This is basically a Frogger or clone which features really poor sound and, but if you liked Frogger your I'm pretty sure you could spend many hours wasting away playing this game.

  1  1  2  1  
Reminded me of some old Atari game
Annonying music - TIP: Throw this damn game away


Magic Lines
Programmer - Foxy



This is another puzzle game where you try to line a bunch of nodes together to complete a puzzle. The graphics are good but the lack of sound is disappointing. Again if you're in a puzzle games I would suggest this one.

  3  1  1  1  
Graphics
Control, gamplay, sound and everything else you could possibly think of


MasterMindDS
Programmer - Nikolas Lahtinen



Mastermind DS was about the best puzzle game I've played out of all of these puzzle games. Other then the lack of some really nice sprites was great. I'd highly recommend this game!

  4  7  9  6  
n/a
n/a


Nibbles
Programmer - DesktopMan

I'm not even going to comment on this one.

  6  7  8  8  
The laugh when you lost
Was not enough depth to it


Starfighter Skirmish
Programmer - connor9



This was one of the better games that play is of course it was based on one my favorite franchises, Star Wars. The graphics, sound and control are tight and of course you get to choose from a wide selection of spacecraft. Basically you had an in cockpit view of the outside world and you just try to kill off the other computer-controlled bots.

  10   10  8  7  
Wide variety of starships
Handling of the ships


StripedRectangle
Programmer - Proto_T


There's not much to say about this game this was basically just a clone of Tetris, but with a twist. Blocks fall from both sides in and you try to match the colors by moving the Rose left to right. Okay so it's more like Tetris Attack then Tetris.

  4  1  9  9  
It's Tetris
It's Tetris


Sushi The Cat DS
Programmer - N3TKaT & Kamui


Sushi the cat was a funny side scrolling adventure game where you take control of one out of two felines and try to make your way through various levels by jumping on your enemies heads. I think the best part about this game was the sound of the cat makes when you die.

  6  8  8  8  
Yucki's "meow" was cool
The mouse boss was too hard


Teenage Queen NDS
Programmer - Foxy



Teenage Queen is basically poker played on the street with some shady looking females. Nothing new here.

  5  3   10  5  
It was Poker
It wasn't like real poker, instead it was like street poker with like $20


Tetris
Programmer - DesktopMan



Tetris is as Tetris does. It never gets old, never gets overused and you never get bored of it. Go Tetris go!

  3  3  7  7  
It's Tetris
It's Tetris


YatzyDOS
Programmer - d3tr0it


Like the name was Yatzy, but had the worst graphics I've ever seen on in the Nintendo DS game. They might as well just made a black-and-white.

  1  3  8  3  
The simpleness
The worst graphic's I've ever seen


Yoshis Bad Brother
Programmer - Seddy


Out of all the games I played this was the most completely thought out Project. Other then a minor bug I found was when Yoshi jumped which in turn slow down the game. I recommend playing this one first at all of them.

  9  1  6  5  
Yoshi's brother shooting bullets!
Game lag while jumping




In closing I say I really enjoyed to get see a lot of entries in this competition and even though some of them were not up to par it still takes a lot of time, dedication and effort to create something so complex. I would urge all of these authors to continue their work and wish them good luck on that or any new endeavors they pursue. As you may have noticed a few of the entries that were on the forums were not reviewed this was because on NeoFlash's main webpage they were not listed as entries so I'm not sure the reasoning behind this because I have been unable to contact Neo flash. Possibly I will update the review at a later time to include those releases.

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