Mario Kart Wii to popularize turn-based online multiplayer?
Thursday, May 29th, 2008 at 10:13am by David
12-player worldwide online multiplayer is a blast, but what if you want to play Mario Kart Wii with a friend and can’t find the right time to meet up? Send your friend a Time Trial challenge! In a way, it’s like playing Advance Wars through the mail. One player races on the course of their choice and then sends their result to a friend. That friend takes their turn when they have time to do so. Results are shared and you can brag the heck out of it; repeat.
In theory, this sounds fantastic. In practice, though, the system Nintendo has created to do this has faults. It’s admirable of them to create a game specific Mario Kart Wii Channel that allows you to check online status of friends and more without the need to insert your Mario Kart Wii disc. Unfortunately, it’s not a very intuitive channel to navigate. You can see that a friend has sent you a time trial challenge, but it’s not terribly obvious where to go to accept the challenge. It’s sad to see what is actually a great way to play turned into what feels like a last minute add-on. A little more polish and this would’ve been a huge hit that might’ve started a new gaming trend.
It’s a great concept, despite its flaws, but how could other games implement turn-based online multiplayer? A quick, online challenge is fun, but a game that can be played over a longer period of time would be a blast. WiiWare Chess that notifies you when a friend makes their move through the Wii Message Board would be nice to see. Anyone who has played Scramble on Facebook could easily see turn-based online Boggle becoming a great WiiWare title. What other games could benefit from a multi-player option like this?
May 29th, 2008 at 10:39 am
Take this for a spin.
Sort of an improved Warbook. You start with the concept of Final Fantasy My life as a King with a twist. Instead of sending out adventurers to go explore dungeons you send them out to wage war on other kingdoms, the kingdoms of your friends. You can now spend your tithes on defenses and siege weapon research etc. You would still manage the town etc and you could build alliances and trade with people. All in a delayed manner that alerts the person by a big glowing blue light of death.
May 29th, 2008 at 11:32 am
chess would be great, there are so many good 1st party characters that could be used, too.
could be an easy game to whip up and downloadable it could be a big hit.
May 29th, 2008 at 11:49 am
Turn based online gaming is something that could definitely appeal to the casual audience that Nintendo is going for.
Like you mentioned, Facebook has been doing this with some games with a crazy amount of success. There’s 500,000 people playing Scrabulous on Facebook every day. A WiiWare version of Scramble or Scrabulous would work extremely well, but again you’re getting into the Pop or Defend Your Castle issue of paying for a something that is readily accessible for free.
I remember playing turn based games on BBS’s back in the mid to late 90’s. Barren Realms Elite (BRE) was a popular one, text based at the time but certainly could be updated to a graphic form very easily i’m sure. You could have teams of friends competing or online leader boards. Here’s a link to a Wikipedia article about it for you youngin’s out there:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barren_Realms_Elite
Any strategy game or board game could lend itself to the turn based online, maybe something like Risk or Settlers of Catan?
May 29th, 2008 at 11:50 am
It took me a couple of weeks to figure out to go to the Downloaded Ghosts area to do a challenge. This doesn’t make sense because I never downloaded the ghost, it was offered. Good post.
May 29th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
Advance Wars via Wiiware. 2d, 3d I don’t care. Advance Wars needs to hit the Wii soon in some form. If Fire Emblem can make the jump, AW should do so too.
and please no one say battalion Wars, it’s Battalion Wars, not Advance Wars.
May 29th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
Man, I still haven’t figured out how to send a ghost, it’s not even mentioned in the manual. So I have to go to Downloaded Ghosts and fiddle around there. Thought I already did so, but awright…
June 18th, 2008 at 9:42 pm
I think this right on. Wouldn’t be the first time nintend help influence a new cultural movement. In 2-3 years this game will be looked on as simplistic by many who will forget that nintendo strived to be different with their mario type based games