My “Today’s Link” posts will be highlighting something from another blog or site that caught my eye. Think of it as “the best thing I saw all day” kind of a post.
Today’s link is about a Nintendo DS game called Treasure World, which I first read about at Offworld.
I can’t speak with authority about this game, as I don’t own it (yet) but the gist of it is this: You “explore” with your DS, looking for WiFi hot-spots, which are “Stars” from where your DS collects “Star Dust” that you can trade in for treasures.
That probably doesn’t make sense. Here’s a quote from the Offworld post:
Here’s the storybook premise: a Star Sweep — he’s the beardy one whose facial hair not coincidentally is teased into the shape of a star — crash-lands onto Earth alongside his robo-sidekick the Wish Finder. In order to get the necessary fuel to re-power Halley, his starship, he needs you to help him collect star dust. In return, he’ll trade you some of his vast collection of some 2500+ treasures, 20 star-dust-currency-units at a time.
How do you collect star-dust? By setting the Wish Finder to hunt for treasure by taking your DS out into the wild, where it can scan stars — stars here meaning the thousands of now-ubiquitous Wi-Fi signals that canvas and cloud every major metropolitan city. The DS catalogs every signal it runs across, and will, at times, also find its own special Treasure locked away in that star, above and beyond the ones you can purchase from the Hunter.
If a premise like this doesn’t warm your game-loving heart, you are DEAD INSIDE. But it doesn’t end there, it’s actually just beginning. Read the entire Offworld article to see how collecting treasures will eventually lead you to composing music that others can listen to — online. This game is going to be insane.
I can’t wait to pick it up.
That sounds really cool. Of course, I’m sure that if I got it for my son, he’d end up standing in the middle of the street or something, searching for WiFi spots.
Yeah, I’m worried about myself, driving around hunting for spots and being completely oblivious to the road at hand.
Did I mention that I picked this up yesterday and haven’t turned the DS off yet? Of course, I’m basically waiting for the hourly and random shooting star treasures, but I also found myself taking many scenic routes on my trip through town today to try to find new hotspots.
Grrr… thanks, Tony!
@Brock – Ha! That is awesome. I’m heading in to the Best Buy in Burlington (VT) to see if they have this (and some other games). I need to pick up some Vermont hot spots before I head back to Ohio.
What do you think of it so far?
I’ve been driving all over creation searching for new hotspots. It’s evil, is what I think of it.
It’s not much in the way of a game, at least not on the cartridge. The cart is basically the tool by which you leverage your wardriving talents into procuring more loot.
It’s insanely addictive though. I basically haven’t turned my DS off for 3 days.