Nanosmiles

Posted by ithamore Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:58:00 GMT

Nanosmiles01

Nanosmiles has been long overdue for a review on TIGSource, especially since Dong was considerate enough to have it translated by Siiseli from Japanese into English for us. The game pits the player against microbes in an arena shmup with a twist: the unarmed player must collect and guide attack units in order to clear each level of enemies. This gives Nanosmiles a blend of direct and indirect control, and it helped to generate enough innovation within the game for it to have been showcased in last year’s Sense of Wonder Night at the Tokyo Game Show. (In case you didn’t know, the deadline for SOWN 2009 is August 16, and there is no entry fee.)

Overall, Nanosmiles is a well rounded game with enough levels to explore the basics of its gameplay and a challenging final level to cap the experience. The darting nature of the directional controls can be annoying at times, but it’s also fitting.

Edit: Dong recently updated EngRish Games with a post about Exelinya Burst, which is a cartoony Every Extend variant with a grappling claw that is now in English.

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Comments

  1. Eclipse said about 3 hours later:

    played Exelinya Burst ages ago… the same author made a lot of awesome games on GP2X too, and he’s currently making a commercial one for Gp2x Wiz.

    We should cover more doujin stuff :D

  2. Quetz said about 3 hours later:

    Ahh this is one of my favorite shooters. Very atmospheric and if nothing else, you have to play it for the soundtrack!

  3. Siiseli said about 4 hours later:

    And no mention about my input on this game :(

  4. ngajoe said about 4 hours later:

    This is a great shooter–I wanna more!!

  5. EToaster said about 4 hours later:

    Man, that final level is pretty ridiculous compared to the rest of the game. I managed to beat it, but it took me a while. It doesn’t really help that all the enemies are pretty much completely random in what they do, so the same strategy doesn’t always work.

  6. AClarkFS said about 5 hours later:

    its a bad habit, but every time I see some sort of award or showcase linked in the articles I glance to the bottom to see how much a game costs…

  7. sinoth said about 6 hours later:

    The last level was a dick move, Dong. I’m gonna fly to Japan and egg your house.

  8. Paul Legovitch said about 8 hours later:

    One of my favorites, thank you Siiseli for the english version.

    I love his other shooter Boidtrancer based on Boids theory for birds movement:

    engrishgames.blogspot.com/2008/02/boidtrancer.html

    The two games have great music and soundfx, Nanosmiles soundtrack has been released by PAUSE (longer and better):

    iimusic.net/plus/2009/01/nanosmiles

    (smilemachine is fantastic)

    Man, I love those two games!

  9. Paul Legovitch said about 17 hours later:

    One of my favorites, thank you Siiseli for the english version.

    I love his other shooter Boidtrancer based on Boids theory for birds movement:

    http://engrishgames.blogspot.com/2008/02/boidtrancer.html

    The two games have great music and soundfx, Nanosmiles soundtrack has been released by PAUSE (longer and better):

    www.iimusic.net/plus/2009/01/nanosmiles

    (smilemachine is fantastic)

    Watch the author at SOWN2008 :

    www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nsnkeCt4Ho

    Watch the last level:

    www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSdkkA_xqMI

    Man, I love those two games!

  10. ithamore said about 17 hours later:

    Sorry, Siiseli. I fixed it.

    On a different note, I would like to say that this is one of my favorite Game Maker games.

  11. Ezuku said 1 day later:

    Very nice concept, but early levels had me pulling my hair out to try and trick my minions into going down a narrow gap in a wall.

  12. J said 1 day later:

    Holy difficulty spike on the last level…but yes, other than that, great game. Had the same problem as Ezuku with my little “options” not wanting to follow me around corners (occasionally getting stuck just inside a wall), and they get a little confused when overlapping an enemy, but those are quibbles and hardly game-breaking.

    I guess I’ll be the first to say something…is “Dong” really the name he’s going for in English?

  13. Siiseli said 4 days later:

    Silly men, I didn’t translate it from japanese to english, I translated from engrish to english.

  14. Sparky said 5 days later:

    Thanks for translating nonetheless, Siiseli :)

    I’d also like to recommend that people check out the rest of Dong’s music, I’m rather fond of it.

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