Atlus Readies Stylus-Based Surgery Game For DS

Thanks to GameSpot for its article discussing Atlus' announcement of a stylus-utilizing touchscreen surgery game for the Nintendo DS handheld. According to the article about Caduceus: Surgical Operation: "The player steps into the role of a talented young surgeon who must operate on different maladies in each of the game's stages... Actions such as cutting the patient or getting rid of an unidentified parasite are done with the [Nintendo DS] stylus. In addition, while operating, the player must cheer on the patient using the device's voice recognition." There's also a couple of screenshots of the forthcoming Life & Death-eque game, featuring the "Hurted Heart" mission, on the Japanese-language NTT site.

Comments

This Is Why The DS Is Cool

[MBCook]

How could you do a game like this on the PSP or GBA? You couldn't. Controll would be just too much of an issue. But with the DS's touch screen, you can do surgery, or add an alien autopsy to your game. You could even do an "Operation" game of sorts (don't touch the sides!).

These are the kind of things that Nintendo was talking about when they said we'd get new kinds of gameplay. At E3 there was a carving demo that would let your carve things. They could do things like that to let you make your own piece in a board game. It may take some time, but I think we are going to see some VERY interesting games from the DS. Even if some aren't good, the innovation will be great.

How about a game where you "raise" a little AI robot or something. You could design it yourself, and be able to add user created objects to it's little "playpen" to explore and see how it reacts to things. You could "program" it by connecting little logic blocks (sort of how you program the Lego Mindstorms software).

And of course, now we could get a VERY cool version of Mario Paint.

Mario Paint!

[OneIsNotPrime]

Great point!

Seriously, how many of us would love to see a greatly enhanced sequel to this classic. The DS would be ideal, but I could also envision a GC/next gen version that utilizes the Mario Sunshine engine and allows one to create their own 3D Mario adventure.

It could feature a user friendly 3d modeler (with premade models of all the Nintendo favorites, of course). Design your own character or bad guy, apply premade or user-created texture maps/bump maps, etc., then create animations of the character through a smart interface. Put the characters in a designed game world and give them routes to walk on, triggers to react to, etc. Create worlds with premade or user designed objects, events, and triggers. Also let the user create some hilariously lame in game music, of course. Then create an overworld and even make in-game cinemas with your characters and user recorded audio! Imagine the possibilites...

Meanwhile, relive some Mario Paint goodness here.

Re:Argh! No!

[mrgreen4242]

stylus input freakin' SUCKS BALLS. It's is rubbish.

Tell that to the MILLIONS of PDA users in the world. Or the tblet PC users (ok, not that great of an example =p). Either way, they will tell you that touchscreen input is an efficient, fast, intuituve way to interface with a computer system.

Many games play well with a joystick and buttons; shooters, side scrollers, etc. Some games play well with a mouse and keyb; FPS, and RTS. Playing a FPS on a console with a gamepad doesn't even compare to using a mouse and keyb. PLaying a RTS game with a controller is next to impossible, hence the complete lack of RTS on consoles.

The touchscreen can do some things as well as a mouse, some not as well, and some better, but as you point out, they are similar. FPS would be marginally better with touchscreen than with control pads, but not up to the keyb/mouse. RTS games, on the other hand, would be arguabley better suited to touchscreen input. Games likes one, which sounds very interesting, tho I doubt it will ever be released here, due to people like yourself who only want the same old same old.

As mentioned above, I hope that graphical adventure games make a comeback with the DS. The interface is perfect (thouch screen, extra screen for text messages, inventory, etc, voice recognition could add a whole new level to an old genre).

The idea of modeling your own game items/characters is interesting, and would be better excecuted with a stylus than a directional pad. Mario Party's line tracing games are a good example of why precise control with a joypad is not ideal.

PC Games

[Pluvius]

I've noted several times that the only way the dualscreen and touchscreen would be any more than gimmicks is if there were computer-style games made for the system. Looks like at least one developer has realized that.

Rob