It's called Petit Computer, known as Puchicon in Japan.
http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2012/0 ... si_and_3ds
I'm pretty excited about this, I heard about it a long time ago and thought it was the kind of thing that would never be localized.
It seems surprisingly full-featured. Here are some examples of things that have been made with it:
Spectacle Hurricane, a Space Harrier clone
Super TryGunners, a space shooter
Genesis's Columns
Fantasy Zone (made in the older version of the program, the current one is mk. II)
The intro from Ys 3 (really smooth scrolling)
It looks like you can do almost anything on the level of most 8 or 16 bit games, probably limited by size somewhat.
If you want to get to know more about it ahead of time and don't know Japanese, you can run the manual through Google Translate like I'm doing.
Starting here, and you have to change the "p01" to "p02" etc. manually because the buttons lose their functionality in Translate.
Here are the included sprites, and here are included BG tiles (further down). Looks like music is a standard MIDI set, programmable through MML, and there are a number of included songs and sound effects too.
It comes with 23 built in example programs, some simple and some complex, ranging from a calculator and guess-the-number all the way to a first person RPG and a fighting game. You can re-save all of them and edit them any way you like, which should be very helpful for learning the system.
No date given, and no official word on a localization outside of North America.
http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2012/0 ... si_and_3ds
Quote:
Gamebridge has announced it's bringing DSiWare game creation software Petit Computer to North America this summer.
The package serves as an introduction to the BASIC programming language that's powered games for decades. If you're not artistically inclined you can use the 512 pre-packed sprites and 256 backgrounds, or using the DSi's touch screen to draw your own.
After you've finished coding and tweaking you can share your creations online with other users by generating QR codes using a PC or Mac. This way you'll be able to pick at others' code to see how they've created their titles, a feature we can see being very popular.
Petit Computer is out on DSiWare and in the eShop later this year. You can find out more at the Petit Computer site.
The package serves as an introduction to the BASIC programming language that's powered games for decades. If you're not artistically inclined you can use the 512 pre-packed sprites and 256 backgrounds, or using the DSi's touch screen to draw your own.
After you've finished coding and tweaking you can share your creations online with other users by generating QR codes using a PC or Mac. This way you'll be able to pick at others' code to see how they've created their titles, a feature we can see being very popular.
Petit Computer is out on DSiWare and in the eShop later this year. You can find out more at the Petit Computer site.
I'm pretty excited about this, I heard about it a long time ago and thought it was the kind of thing that would never be localized.
It seems surprisingly full-featured. Here are some examples of things that have been made with it:
Spectacle Hurricane, a Space Harrier clone
Super TryGunners, a space shooter
Genesis's Columns
Fantasy Zone (made in the older version of the program, the current one is mk. II)
The intro from Ys 3 (really smooth scrolling)
It looks like you can do almost anything on the level of most 8 or 16 bit games, probably limited by size somewhat.
If you want to get to know more about it ahead of time and don't know Japanese, you can run the manual through Google Translate like I'm doing.
Starting here, and you have to change the "p01" to "p02" etc. manually because the buttons lose their functionality in Translate.
Here are the included sprites, and here are included BG tiles (further down). Looks like music is a standard MIDI set, programmable through MML, and there are a number of included songs and sound effects too.
It comes with 23 built in example programs, some simple and some complex, ranging from a calculator and guess-the-number all the way to a first person RPG and a fighting game. You can re-save all of them and edit them any way you like, which should be very helpful for learning the system.
No date given, and no official word on a localization outside of North America.