FingerGaming

“A new application that adds more fun to your ‘DICE-O’ game experience has arrived!”

Yes, the application you’ve been waiting for, CARDDASS READER, is now available in the App Store as a free download. It’s Japanese toy company Bandai’s first North American release for the iPhone and iPod Touch to carry the company brand name, so let’s look past the somewhat unfortunate title and congratulate them for this major milestone. Welcome to the App Store, Bandai!

But…what is it?

You’re familiar with Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, right? It’s a TV series about a bunch of teenagers who transform into mecha-dinosaurs to fight monsters, basically. The action scenes in Power Rangers were taken from Bandai’s long-running Super Sentai Series.

CARDDASS READER brings together characters from every individual Super Sentai series for a gigantic crossover battle. Exciting stuff, especially if you’re a fan.

Apparently, CARDDASS READER is an extension application for Super Sentai Battle: Dice-O, a game that’s one part arcade machine and one part collectible card game. CARDDASS READER allows you to use your iPhone’s camera to take pictures of Super Sentai Battle cards you buy or obtain through the Dice-O arcade game to unlock commercials and promotional videos.

Unfortunately, none of Dice-O’s necessary gameplay components are available outside of Japan. You won’t find any Super Sentai Battle machines at your local arcade, and if you want to play the collectible card game, you’ll have to import.

So why is CARDDASS READER available in North America?

Good question! I have no idea.

Still, it’s an interesting addition to the App Store, and it could indicate that Bandai intends to bring more of its content to North America in the future. Hopefully, Bandai’s next iPhone release will be more…you know, usable.

Tags: bandai, card game, carddass reader, dice-o, iphone oddities, power rangers

Despite their prominence overseas, visual novels are largely despised in the western world. There’s plenty of criticism to be leveled at the genre, to be sure — visual novels contain little gameplay, they often cater to bizarre niches and fetishes, and many titles are blatantly pornographic. Yet they remain popular among many audiences in Japan.

Few visual novel games are available in the English language, either, giving North American gamers little first-hand experience with the genre. Thanks to the ease of publishing in the App Store, however, visual novels have flourished on the iPhone. The platform has hosted ports of successful PC games like Gift and Memories Off, and many titles are available for purchase in North America, though they often lack English language support.

Daidai Inc’s My Neighbor Girl, released today, is one of the App Store’s few visual novels to feature a full English translation. Even more remarkably, it also includes English dubbing for the dialog sequences — and it’s drop-dead hilarious.

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Tags: adventure, daidai, iphone oddities, my neighbor girl, simulation, visual novel

Every so often, while browsing the new App Store releases, I come across a game that I’ve seen dozens of times before. It might be called Crazy Eggs, or Eggs Collector, or Eggs from USSR, or The Eggs. Each one is a simple, Game & Watch-styled LCD game in which a wolf character catches falling eggs. Miss three eggs, and the game is over.

After watching thousands of new apps roll in over the past several months, I can safely say that “Eggs” is one of the most-cloned game in the App Store. Curiously, each “new” version of Eggs is written by a different author, yet it features the exact same gameplay (and often, the exact same graphics) as the numerous clones that came before it.

So what is “Eggs?” Let’s find out!

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Tags: Action, eggs, game & watch, iphone oddities, nu pogodi, Puzzle

Sometimes, I come across an App Store release that makes me pause and consider just how ridiculous and improbable the iPhone’s software library can be. There are good games. There are bad games. There are really bad games. And then there are games that can only exist on the iPhone, and could never be released on any other platform, ever.

Example: Wonderland Quest, a hidden-object game published by Friskies. Yes. The cat food brand.

Wonderland Quest challenges players to find hidden pieces of Friskies-brand cat food hidden throughout a number of painted backdrops. The pieces are often cleverly hidden — a cloud can be in the shape of a fish, or a logo on a tennis shoe can be a concealed cow’s head. It’s decently fun, believe it or not, and it’s free.

It’s also a game based on cat food. This kind of thing hasn’t been seen since the days of Chase the Chuck Wagon. No one’s going to release a Purina-branded dog food game for the Nintendo DS, or a PSP game where the object is to wrestle an animal into a Snuggie.

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Tags: friskies, hidden object, iphone oddities, Puzzle, wonderland quest