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Saturday, November 27, 2004

Random DS thoughts/observations

I've had my DS for a few days now. I've got 42 stars in Super Mario 64 DS, and have beat Feel the Magic XY XX on normal difficulty.
Super Mario 64 DS:
  • Using the touch screen as a control mechanism on Adventure mode is a pain. Using the D-pad works ok in huge areas where you don't need much control, but can be a pain in areas where more fine control is needed.
  • When using the d-pad to walk, and holding down Y to run, I will usually just hold down Y constantly. The only problem with this is, if you have stopped for a minute, and have been holding down Y, as soon as you touch the d-pad, you jet off really fast immediately. This can easily lose you a life if you weren't anticipating it.
  • Some of the mini-games are really fun. I love the one where you draw trampolines for Mario to jump off of. Simple?-yes. But it is a perfect example of a cool control mechanism for the DS. It looks like Yoshi's Touch and Go will have more of this cool type of control.
  • Super Mushroom... Being big in this game is so cool. Running around flattening enemies, signposts and those logs that stick out of the ground is a blast. 1-up 1-up 1-up
Nintendo DS:
  • When the system initially boots up, the "Touch the Touch Screen to continue." message will appear then fade away. This happens a total of 59 times, about once per second. After the 59th time, the system will automatically go to the time/calendar screen. From the time you press the power key to the time the system goes to time/calendar, a little less than 64 seconds elapse. Coincidence?
  • As the clock ticks from second to second it generally slows down compared the clock on my computer. About once every 2 minutes, the clock will skip ahead about a second, and appears to re-sync with the computer clock.
  • Start the system with a DS Card and GBA Game Pak inserted. If either is removed during the time screen, the DS will freeze. Re-inserting the games does not un-freeze it.
  • Removing Super Mario 64 DS during play freezes image on the screen and the system stops responding.
  • Removing WarioWare,inc. Mega Microgame$ [AGB] during play freezes the image, the system stops responding, and odd sounds come out of the speakers.
  • If you remove an AGB Game Pak after pressing "Start GBA game." and then re-insert it before the Game Boy logo goes away, the game seems to boot normally.
  • The clock ticks louder than normal on the 60th second in any given minute.
  • The clock chimes on the 60th minute in any given hour. The chime sounds similar to the sound that plays in PictoChat when entering and leaving chat rooms.
PictoChat
  • You can enter data to transmit wirelessly either via an on-screen keyboard[Keyboard Panel], or a drawing directly on the screen [in the Input Board]. The input board has can hold 5 lines of text. The message that shows up in the Message Display[where it goes after it is transmitted] will resize depending on the size and location of the input. The message box that you send will appear in one of 5 different lengths.
  • PictoChat will not allow you to send a blank message, however if you draw a small amount directly under the end of the bar where it displays your nickname, your input will be hidden, and the message will appear blank.
  • The Pen set on thick uses a paintbrush that is a square with a side length of 2, on thin it is a square with a side length of one.
  • The Eraser set on thick uses a paintbrush that is a square with a side length of 4, on thin it is a square with a side length of one.
  • I mentioned earlier that the send messages will be 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 units long. The Message display area seems to be capable of holding from 287-397 lines of message [I have done several tests on this, but it takes so long to do the test that I have not been able to verify results or send different types of messages and see if it makes a difference. I have an idea for a program and a simple computer interface that would allow the computer to do most of the test, but I don't really want to hack my DS up until I can get another one.]. This includes the "PICT:)CHAT" and the "Now entering [Chat Room letter]: [nickname]" messages.

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