Yes! You can meet the creator of Giftpia, Chibi-Robo and Archime-DS/LOL/Bakushow, if you happen to be in Tokyo. Golly!

Remember how I met Kenichi Nishi at Design Festa, almost by chance? Well now YOU can meet Kenichi Nishi at Design Festa, not by chance! He will be at this weekend's event, promoting Archime-DS once again. He would love to meet you, and you would love to meet him.

That's this weekend, May 17th and 18th, at Tokyo Big Sight. More details at Ken's blog.

Yoinked from a recent post on the excellent Lovedelic Life blog, here are the three variations on the Archime-DS cover art:

Archime-DS (original Japanese)

Bakushow (UK)

L.O.L. (US)

Neither English-language version tickles my fancy, although I can appreciate what Agetec is trying to do with the US version – they’re emphasising the multiplayer-ness of the game. The UK cover, though, seems like just a messed-up version of the original. With, uh, sparkles.

I’m bothered by the differing titles. It seems to happen quite often with low-profile games – they’re released by different small publishers in each region, who of course aren’t working together to maintain a unified, global identity for the product. So, someone who has heard good things about Archime-DS mightn’t make the connection when they see Bakushow on the store shelf. (Remember Project Rub, aka Feel the Magic XY/XX, aka Kimi no Tame Nara Shineru? Same kind of thing.)

Bakushow, while I’m at it, seems an odd choice of title. I mean, does it make any more sense, to a British person, than Archime-DS? Maybe it’s catchier; I dunno.

Another thing: Agetec aren’t releasing LOL in stores – only over the internet. So why did they change the cover at all? No-one will be browsing.

I’m not complaining about any of this... well, maybe a tiny bit, but mostly I’m just curious as to how and why these packaging choices are made.

At long last, I am very, very happy to present the first half of my interview with Kenichi Nishi, the designer of LOL: Lack Of Love, Giftpia, Chibi-Robo, and most recently Archime-DS, soon to be released in Europe and Australia as LOL.

I also interviewed Fumihiro Kanaya, the programmer of Archime-DS, and Miki Tashiro of Skip, the game's publisher. This is because I am an interviewing machine that cannot be stopped.

Click the linky bit to read words -- words about Archime-DS, Skip and Nintendo's bit Generations games; words about Nishi's approach to game design; about his philosophies and dog. Meet a living treasure of the world of videogames.

We received an email from a nice man called Ash, who has started a blog dedicated to awesome and defunct indie game company Lovedelic, and Lovedelic-related companies such as Skip (Chibi-Robo) and Vanpool (Freshly-Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland), and generally anything or anyone connected in any way with Kenichi Nishi (who you will remember from our Archime-DS review). Needless to say, this blog is right up our alley, and here it is: Lovedelic Life. Go there an' things!

AND! From Lovedelic Life comes the happy news that Archime-DS will be released in the UK in May! Good gracious! KEN-CHAN YOU GOTTA TELL ME THESE THINGS, MAN. Anyway -- good time to be a pom! Or in May it will be, at least. Provided you're not too busy WALLOWING IN MISERY. Oh isn't the weather terrible. It's shocking the things these days.

Second update of the year and I'm already late. It's not my fault! There were monsters.

This is a long, long review of Archime-DS, the latest game from Kenichi Nishi, the creator of Chibi-Robo, Giftpia, and other, similarly unique and neato games. This review is so long that most of it isn't even a review. What is it, instead? Who knows. Not me! I already forgot! It is so amazing and cool and good that my brain just couldn't hold on to it.

I need a cup of tea.