Nintendo’s Forgotten DS Mouse Experiment was Bundled with Slide Journey: MagKid

Japan has at all times been the place the place Nintendo’s wildest concepts come to life. In 2007, one developer took it to the subsequent stage by creating a tool that reworked your total DS right into a desktop mouse. The “Slide Controller” was an official product, albeit a fairly wacky one, that got here completely with “Slide Journey: MagKid.” This system plugs into the DS’s backside GBA slot and incorporates a vivid purple LED sensor.

Simply stick it in, slap a teeny magnet known as the “Magazine Child” onto the touchscreen, and plop your DS down wherever it may possibly sit flat. Then simply slide the hand-held round such as you’re dragging a cursor together with you. The sensor tracks the motion spot on, and the magnet character will observe alongside in actual time. Enemies scatter, objects pop into place, and the entire world your child’s character is exploring simply feels so alive and interactive.

One stage will embrace you searching for for robotic items and assembling them by sliding into glowing pickups. Boss battles? Fast dodges and loads of motion as you smash your enemies into partitions and risks. When the DS provides a rumbly kick on collisions, it provides to the mayhem, equivalent to if you clip a wall too arduous, inflicting your grip to jerk. Acquire a component precisely so, and also you’ll get a pleasant little buzz indicating that you simply’ve obtained it. That sensor, nevertheless, is sort of temperamental; some surfaces permit it to slip as easily as silk, whereas others merely throw it off. You’ll have numerous enjoyable experimenting with completely different positions in your desk to find out what works greatest.

However that’s not all; MagKid contains three main modes to play with. You’ve obtained your typical robotic meeting, by which you’re chasing unusual items by confined areas. Then there’s a trail-building job by which you tie collectively defeated foes to earn a excessive rating. On high of that, there are a variety of mini-games that may be unlocked by scanning particular playing cards, including a wide range of new powers and twists to the gameplay.

The story is instructed by a succession of lovable cutscenes, and it revolves round a teen and his magnetic buddy who’re up in opposition to a slew of dwelling hazards. The textual content is all in Japanese, however the motion speaks for itself; you possibly can see this teen sliding right into a swarm of bugs or dodging an enormous spider boss that cracks if you get it good.

Agenda, a studio recognized for growing some unusual DS video games, created this. They used off-the-shelf optical know-how and scaled it down to slot in a GBA-sized brick. Nintendo will need to have favored it as a result of they granted it official peripheral standing, albeit solely in Japan. It was accessible for some time, initially priced round 5,800 yen, nevertheless it was by no means distributed elsewhere.

Right this moment, in the event you can nonetheless discover a entire set, it’s going to value you lots of of {dollars} on public sale websites. If yow will discover a unfastened controller, that’s a unique story, however even with out it, the sport remains to be fulfilling to play, with the touchscreen used to tug the magnetic character round. Only one factor to recollect: you probably have a DS Lite or an authentic mannequin, you’re all set. Nonetheless, the newer DSi fashions received’t work as a result of they don’t have the right slot for the controller to plug into.