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.

Re:"cheer on the patient" ????

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm guessing that this patient belongs to some cut-rate HMO that won't pay for frills like anesthesia.... "You can do it! Don't start writhing on me now! The pain will only make you stronger!"

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.

Mods

[Cyberop5]

First thing I'd do is create a plastic surgery mod for m' ladies ;)

Life and Death!

[prockcore]

Man I loved that game, and I sucked at it! I used to play on my ][gs. I couldn't get past the apendectomy. The game didn't like my sutures or something.

But man, if I ever had to perform an emergency apendectomy, i could. Oh sure, you'd bleed to death later because aparently I can't sew, but at least you wouldn't die from apendicitis.