It’s nearly 30 years old, but the Nintendo Entertainment System is not just a platform for fueling misty-eyed nostalgia. Savvy gamers are also embracing a growing homebrew scene that’s resulting in new physical releases for the aging, but far-from-dead, gray box.

“[Nintendo] would never acknowledge these kind of games exist,” says contemporary NES developer Sivak (he asks to go by this moniker). But they do, and they’re getting a great reception from gamers who still have their NES plugged into an aerial socket.

The World’s No. 1 Game System

First released as the Famicon in Japan in 1983, the NES came to North America two years later. It was Nintendo’s first venture away from home soil, and it was a move that set the company up as a market leader in the video game industry.

With thoughts of the great video game crash of 1983 still fresh in its mind, Nintendo took a firm approach to licensing on its home console. Any third-party titles needed Nintendo’s approval before being released on the NES, which, along with first-party exclusives such as The Legend of Zelda, and Super Mario Bros., ensured the system had a killer software lineup. Some of the best-loved gaming properties around today, such as Final Fantasy, Castlevania, and Metroid, all made their debut on the NES.

As IGN said when naming the NES as the greatest console of all time, “Nintendo’s quality first-party efforts as well as the incredibly powerful third-party support resurged and revived the home video game industry. If Nintendo didn’t step up to the plate, the industry as a whole may have turned out entirely different.”

The NES continues to endure to this day. Not just from the lasting impression left by NES debuts such as Final Fantasy, Mega Man, and Castlevania, but from the creative possibilities it continues to offer developers.

The Battle Kid phenomenon

Battle Kid: Fortress of Peril released in 2010. It was the first major platform release for the NES since 1995, and the homebrew title has received a great deal of critical acclaim. “Battle Kid is nothing short of genius,” said retro gaming website Retro Collect. Impressive stuff, particularly for a relative newcomer to NES programming.

“I’ve always wanted to make games,” says Battle Kid developer Sivak. “The NES was something I had dreams of, ever since I was young, to make something for.  Obviously back then it wasn’t doable. Yet in 2007, when I found out it was, I started researching and doing some things.  I made three simple games to get accustomed to programming for the system and finally did the first Battle Kid game after feeling confident in programming.”

Battle Kid: Fortress of Peril was 18 months in the making, but Sivak didn’t wait long before following it up. The sequel to Battle Kid, Battle Kid 2: Mountain of Torment, released in December following a development cycle of nearly two years

Sivak wanted to build on his first major release, taking feedback from the playing community, allowing him to “improve aspects that may have been lacking,” in the first title. This resulted in what he describes as “a much bigger game” featuring 650 rooms, 25 types of enemies, and 13 boss battles.

Fan response to both games has been “mostly positive,” says Sivak, but he acknowledges that the difficulty level is too much for some.

“These are hard games, so I know they aren’t for everyone,” he says. “But people know they’re getting into a hard game when they play it, so those who want a challenge get one and they enjoy it.” With notoriously tricky indie platform game I Wanna Be The Guy (PC) one of the main inspirations behind the Battle Kid series, this focus on pixel-perfect jumps and multiples deaths is hardly surprising.

Sivak himself doesn’t get involved in the production process of the cartridge, which publisher RetroZone handles. “I laid out the label and the manual and the box for Battle Kid 2, but none of the actual circuit board or plastic work is me. RetroZone gets the parts, and as far as the plastic goes, it has a mold that mostly matches the shape of the licensed games.”

Neither Battle Kid title is available to download and play on an NES emulator, so the only option available is to play the physical releases. Demand for these has been “somewhat reasonable,” says Sivak. “Obviously, it’s no modern system, but many collectors are out there and there even people who are discovering the older systems [for the first time]. As long as a game looks interesting and fun to players, there will be buyers.

“Most of the games have runs of a few hundred initially, but they get restocked. Demand is highest when something is new, but since there’s still some demand, [there’s] no reason to discontinue.”

Today’s NES gamer

Matt McIntyre is a game collector and NES aficionado based in Nova Scotia, Canada, who regularly blogs about his gaming experiences. He’s been blown away by the quality of the Battle Kid series.

“It holds up amazingly well against the original [NES] library,” says McIntyre, “and that’s even considering the pedestals we place our favorites upon. I think people try to think about these games in terms of what has come before; ‘it’s like Mega Man,’ or ‘it’s like Metroid.’ But these games offer something that may have been missing from the NES library; they fill their own niche.

“When a new title for an old console releases, it’s fine if it pays homage to the classics. But it can’t lose its own identity. These titles bring something to the table that is both exciting and polished.”

For McIntyre, the joy of NES gaming lies partly in recapturing the joys of childhood. “People certainly get attached to what they grew up with,” he says. “Part of what keeps me playing the NES is trying to recapture this nascent sense of discovery and wonder: to discover or rediscover games that pushed the envelope of hardware limitations, or offered a truly unique experience on the platform.

“NES games are close to pure, often spinning out of a concept defined by something as simple as a piece of equipment or particular mechanic. There are lemons, sure. All consoles have them. But sometimes you strike gold and you’re transported back 30 years — sometimes surprised by the elegance, often engrossed in the adventure.”

Like most gamers, McIntyre understands the visceral thrill of opening a new game for the first time. When it’s a cartridge game for a console like the NES, that thrill increases.

“There’s something special about getting a brand-new cartridge that just brings you back,” he says. “I would still love these games were they released purely in digital format, but there’s a certain level of excitement that comes with a physical cart. Taking into account the NES enthusiast’s mentality, there’s the thrill of owning a new cart for one of your favorite consoles. And in terms of the NES library, it canonizes the release. It puts the game up to all of the scrutiny and accolades and consideration that every other title in the library receives. It doesn’t necessarily legitimize a game — the quality of the title regardless of downloadable or cartridge does that. But it makes us think of it clearly as an NES game, because it has arrived.”

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Video games inspire all kinds of peripheral art. Gamers love to build costumes, compose music, and paint original works. It’s only natural that cartographers would eventually get in on the action.

The mapmakers at City Prints art studio in Atlanta decided to take their skills at charting real-world locales and apply them to games like The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Assassin’s Creed.

Each print goes for $40 on the company’s website. For a bit more, fans can get the work expertly framed. For more details or purchasing information, check City Prints’ official website.

Take a look at some of the studio’s work:

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Drawing inspiration from a father switching Mario and Pauline in Donkey Kong, another enterprising gamer has modified a classic title to reverse gender roles. This time, the game is The Legend of Zelda.

In this hacked version of the classic Nintendo Entertainment System role-playing adventure, the game stars Princess Zelda instead of Link. So, the narrative changes from brave man saving a kingdom and woman to a powerful princess saving her kingdom and a man. Sorta changes how one would view The Legend of Zelda, no?

Animator Kenna W. spearheaded the project, and she says in a blog post that she worked in conjunction with her boyfriend to patch the game. Kenna has released a ROM patch that will change an emulated version of The Legend of Zelda to star Zelda.

“For me, I played my first Zelda game when I was pretty young, and at the time, I thought the game did star Princess Zelda,” Kenna wrote. “I figured I’d get to play as a magical battle princess that saved her kingdom. The game was fun, but I was bummed out that I never got to play as Zelda.”

Kenna said the reactions to her version of the classic game have been overwhelmingly positive.

“My friends have all had very strong emotions to the switch of Zelda and Link — all positive so far,” Kenna wrote. “A male friend of mine said he teared up when he saw Zelda holding the sword over her head. … A friend posted a link to my blog with a ‘Because if Miyamoto won’t, we will.’ Another friend told me she couldn’t wait for her baby daughter to be old enough to play as Zelda.”

Kenna says another inspiration for the project was the recent YouTube video “Tropes vs Women in Video Games,” which has received nearly a million views in fewer than two weeks.

Watch the video above to see what The Legend of Zelda looks like starring Zelda.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Violence in video games is always a touchy subject. People worry what hours of virtual gun use might do to player’s real-world behaviors. Meanwhile, at Nintendo, they’re worried about the effects of in-game punching.

Super Mario Bros. creator Shigeru Miyamoto is certain that he doesn’t want Mario wielding an Uzi, but he wasn’t even entirely sold on the idea that the plumber should punch people in the Super Smash Bros. fighting game for the Nintendo 64.

“Mario is a character that, I feel, doesn’t need to use guns,” Miyamoto said in an interview with the The New York Times. “But when it comes to violence, you then have to ask, ‘So, if Mario doesn’t use a gun, is it appropriate for Mario to hit people?’ And, in fact, when we were creating the game Super Smash Bros., we had very long and deep discussions about whether or not we thought it was appropriate for Mario to hit people.”

Miyamoto and Nintendo obviously settled that debate with a resounding “yes.” In fact, he not only punches people, he also kicks them and sets them ablaze with his fire powers. Slapping Luigi around isn’t that far of a leap from jumping on Goombas.

The New York Times asked Miyamoto about the current discussion in the U.S. about game violence in the wake of the Newtown, Conn. elementary-school shooting. The paper asked the famed game designer flat out what he thinks about that conversation.

“That’s a difficult question,” said Miyamoto. “As someone who creates games and understands that children play those games, it’s a subject that I’m very sensitive about. We’ve seen through a variety of media that when people see or experience violence on screen, there is a certain amount of entertainment that people get out of that.”

Miyamoto created a number of Nintendo’s biggest franchises, like The Legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong, and Pikmin. While few of those games ever feature guns, many feature violence. Every Zelda game features sword fighting, and creature-on-creature murder is rampant in Pikmin.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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You’ve probably seen gaming-themed valentines before (like the digital cards we received from multiple developers and publishers), but the ones in the gallery below are special. Why? Because I made them! I originally drew most of these masterpieces back when I was an intern at Bitmob (which later turned into GamesBeat).

I included all of the old valentines and a few new ones. These lovely cards feature characters from games like Mass Effect, World of Warcraft, The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Mega Man, and more. Please share them with your friends, and let them know how much you care! You must expose the world to my artistic genius!

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Once again, we pay attention to our panel of game characters and get change in return!

Microtransactions! They’re not just for free Facebook games you annoy your friends with until they un-friend you anymore! Paying a buck or two here and there sustains most of the major online multiplayer franchises at this point, and now the top-tier console games are cashing in as well. You can pay more in both Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception and Dead Space 3 to skip ahead to the interesting weapons that other players earn through hard work and, y’know, actually playing the game.

But they’re only the tip of a very big wave. We could soon see every game include microtransactions on multiple levels, giving gamers the freedom to spend money whenever they like. What say you, panel of experts? Good thing? Bad thing? Thing?

Launch the gallery below to learn many things!

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Below is an analysis of the evolution of Ganondorf — from his ancient origin to his fallen fate, this is how the bandit king would become known as The King of Evil.

A Tragic Origin (Skyward Sword/Ocarina of Time)

Ganondorf was born into the Gerudo tribe of female thieves and raised by a surrogate mother/witch, Twinrova, to be their king. The Gerudos themselves are cruel and dangerous warriors and no doubt raised Ganondorf to share these very characteristics. It is assumed that, during the period when no male king is present, that Gerudos reproduce by using Hylian soldiers. Thus, Ganondorf, along with many other Gerudos born around the same time, has Hylian blood in him.

The desire to seize is a trait given to him through his Gerudo blood, but his craving for power is engraved into his fate. At the end of Skyward Sword, when Link defeats Demise, it is stated that an incarnation of him will follow the descendants of both Link and Zelda and torture the inhabitants of the land. This is an obvious reference to the constant threats of Ganon; however, it should not be assumed that only Link and Zelda’s descendants were punished for the killing of Demise. There was another person who had just as much to do with Demise’s fall as the heroes did.

If the conflict between Princess Zelda, Link, and Ganondorf were turned into a high school play, it would be like the rivalry between Link, Zelda, and Groose. Each character is analogous to their Ocarina of Time counterparts — Groose being the rival of Link while still displaying a great amount of strength, cunning, and motivation as he helps Link to defeat the Imprisoned. In fact, if it wasn’t for Groose, Demise would have awakened much too early for the heroes to prepare. Groose may as well be just as responsible for his death.

It’s not a coincidence that Groose plays such a vital part in Skyward Sword. With his darker skin, red hair, brute strength, and red jewel on his chest (a color representing Din, the goddess most recognized with the Gerudos), it could be that Groose is the beginning of the Gerudo line. Demise’s plan is also to punish Groose’s descendants by sacrificing one in particular to be the host of his evil spawn. Ganondorf is being punished by his ancestor’s original sin, so to speak, and because of Ganondorf’s actions, the entire Gerudo tribe is eradicated.

A Power-Hungry Fool (Ocarina of Time)

The first chronological appearance of Ganondorf is in The Legend of Zelda’s first venture into 3D.  Ganondorf is the king of a tribe of desert bandits known as the Gerudo. Every 100 years, a male is born into the Gerudo tribe, which consists of nothing but female bandits, and he becomes their king. After the Hyrulean Civil War, Ganondorf forms a relationship between the Hylians and the Gerudos. By gaining the trust of the King of Hyrule, he enters the Sacred Realm through the Temple of Time (previously opened by Young Link’s possession of the Sacred Stones) and takes the Triforce of Power. Using his piece of the Triforce and his army of Gerudos, Ganondorf easily usurps the King. He remains in power for seven years until Link awakens to defeat him and banish all evil from the land.

In OoT, Ganondorf has a very arrogant and intimidating disposition. He is young, strong, cunning, and manipulative, and he knows he is destined for something great. He betrays the trust of the king to find his way into the Temple of Time. He attacks the kingdom at full force, knowing that the army of Hyrule is still recuperating from the Civil War that took place a few years before. Through all this, Ganondorf still sees his successful overtaking as destiny rather than fate — a fate set in motion ages before his birth.

Demise’s resurrection is fulfilled when Ganondorf uses the power of the Triforce to transform himself into a monster of unimaginable power, Ganon. This would be the beginning of the reoccurring plague that Hyrule would have to endure for ages. However, even with his share of the Triforce, the might of Courage and Wisdom proved too much for Ganon. Thus, Ganondorf was sealed in the Sacred Realm.

Like Demise before him, Ganondorf vowed revenge on Link and Zelda’s descendants.

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When I spotted Evoland, which Bordeaux, France-based studio Shiro Games is billing as “short story of adventure video games evolution,” two thoughts crossed my mind. First, it looked like an equally clever but more gorgeous version of Silicon Studio’s 3D Dot Game Heroes, a pixel-heavy throwback to the 8-bit era with modern sensibilities. Then I wondered how the developer was planning to encapsulate the entire history of a genre in one title.

It wasn’t until I talked to Sebastien Vidal, chief executive officer of Shiro and former chief operating officer for NCsoft Europe, that I begun to understand what “evolution” really entailed.

Evoland itself isn’t new. Nicolas Cannasse, founder of Flash game company Motion Twin, made Evoland Classic in about 30 hours for the Ludum Dare #24 Online Game Jam event, where people from around the world give up a weekend to make a game. Cannasse participated in the challenge window that took place from August 24-27, 2012. Out of 1,400 entries, his emerged with the highest overall score. The theme that weekend? Evolution.

Evoland Classic obtained over 300,000 players within a couple months. Now, with such a strong interest in the game, Shiro has decided to make a full commercial version of Evoland, which is coming first for PC and Mac in early March (and later iOS and possibly Android) for under $10.

“Most feedback we had [with Evoland Classic] is that people loved the concept rather than any specific part of the game, which is what makes a lot of people hooked to the idea when they first hear about it,” Vidal told GamesBeat. “This is not a game on which we expect comments about the graphics or the music or an event in the storyline — even if [we] had quite a few on the music.” (Audio was the category in which Evoland Classic scored lowest.)

In fact, the new Evoland doesn’t even have a story in the traditional sense. It’s not a narrative per se but rather a “story” of how action-adventure games have changed throughout the years.

“Like in the Classic version, everything in Evoland is based around unlocking chests that give access to some new feature, generally gameplay- or technology-related,” said Vidal. “Players will go back and forth between different styles of gameplay, but the technology used to created the environment [will] always move forward.”

These unlocks include features like a sword or the ability to save your progress — moments or mechanics that came into the genre as it advanced — as well as technological aspects like graphic upgrades and higher quality music.

“The whole point of the game is progressing through these unlocks to unfold the story of action-adventure gaming,” said Vidal.

He also showed us three screenshots (two included here), where the player unlocks (don’t think of “unlocks” as in extra content; rather, these are core parts of the game that drive its progression) 16-color display, music, and the ability to enter houses (and “freely invade people’s privacy,” the game jokes).

I’m now half-expecting to rummage through other people’s drawers and break their pots — two activities Link from The Legend of Zelda is good at — which wouldn’t be too far off base. Vidal mentioned that Zelda, Dragon Quest, and Final Fantasy were all big influences.

“Evoland Classic was clearly inspired by the Zelda series,” said Vidal, “but we wanted to go beyond that and pay a tribute to the action-adventure genre as a whole rather than to specific titles while also keeping the parodic humor of the original game.”

These “tongue-in-cheek comments” and references to gaming culture also include the names of people, places, and different secrets that you can find.

Shiro is moving further along the technical and gameplay evolution of the genre than Evoland Classic did by including different types of combat (like turn-based Active Time Battle and hack-n-slash), allowing players to switch back and forth between gameplay styles, and having the perspective change from 2D to 3D (both prerendered and real-time). Vidal said that items that block your path in 2D might appear flat in 3D.

“Unlike many games, the content in Evoland is there to serve the gameplay and not the other way around,” he said. “The game inverts the roles, and you end up living a story on a background of gameplay rather than playing a game along a storyline.”

It’s a “game about games,” as he calls it.

“In terms of depth, we actually discussed doing a game about the whole of gaming history, starting with Pong up to full 3D action games,” he said. “But the editorial work just to pick what best represents each style and era would have been huge –and the development time even bigger — so we went back to the roots and ‘only’ expanded on the action-adventure styles. That alone could, in theory, cover many genres of role-playing games, and we cut down to a few cult series that worked with each other and had an overlap in their audiences.”

Vidal says the four-person team is happy with the positive feedback they’ve been receiving on Steam Greenlight, YouTube, and other social networks like Facebook.

“We initially thought [Evoland Classic] would mainly appeal to veterans of the genre, but it turns out a lot of people who have tried the game and never played an RPG really enjoyed it,” he said. “For them, the experience of having a game evolve around them as they played completely overshadowed the fact that it was an action-adventure game. It could have been anything. The evolution was what made it fun for them.”

Evoland’s, well, evolution is what ultimately makes it different from the countless other nostalgic, retro throwbacks on the market.

“I guess Evoland only starts as a retro game and ends as a — fairly — modern one,” said Vidal. “We’re not trying to make a game like the ones in the past — in terms of graphics and/or gameplay — but rather to tell the story of these games.”

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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This ain’t your daddy’s The Legend of Zelda.

Today, Eiji Aonuma, a longtime producer for the Zelda series, announced that a new Zelda is in the works and that the development has a specific mission for the new adventure title: “Rethink the conventions of Zelda.”

Aonuma spoke specifically about doing away with the series trope of completing dungeons in a certain order.

“Our mission in developing this new Zelda game for Wii U is quite plainly to rethink the conventions of Zelda,” Aonuma said in the Nintendo Direct streaming-video show. “I’m referring to things such as the players is supposed to complete dungeons in a certain order. That you are supposed to play by yourself; the things that we’ve come to take for granted recently. We want to set aside these conventions and get back to basics to create a newborn Zelda so players today can enjoy the real essence of the franchise.”

All I hope is that the real essence isn’t a massively multiplayer online game.

Aonuma then went on to show some HD visuals for Wind Waker as an example of what they have in mind for the new game.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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I initially dismissed mobile title Jetpack Joyride as yet another clone of Helicopter Game, a one-note Flash game my friends and I used to play in high school instead of paying attention in class (until we figured out how to install Quake III Arena on the school laptops). The web-based game was incredibly simple — click to lift your chopper or release to let it fall while avoiding hitting anything as you fly through a cave.

But it was so addicting.

Considering that Helicopter Game came out in 2003, I couldn’t believe how Jetpack Joyride jazzed up so many people. It’s the same experience!

Actually, it’s not. Joyride takes the same premise and applies almost a decade’s worth of game psychology to create something even more addicting.

The most significant change is how much easier it is. If you weren’t paying attention when you started Helicopter Game, you could die immediately from touching the bottom of the cave. It required constant alertness. Joyride is more forgiving.

The hallway you fly through always stays totally level, so you never need to worry about your path slithering up and down, narrowing and opening at random. In fact, you can run on the ground or rub your head against the ceiling all you want as long as a laser or a missile is not in the way. You can get in vehicles that change the way you move and give you a buffer when you get hit. And you can buy items that give you everything from a head start to a second chance when you die.

Jetpack Joyride encourages you to keep playing because every run feels like it could be the one. But that’s not all.

You can buy unlockable gadgets, borrowing from Call of Duty’s addictive perks system, to give you different abilities like a jump, quicker falling, missile jamming capabilities, and a bouncy ball that deploys when you die to add a few more meters to your final distance. You can also purchase new outfits and jetpacks to customize your character.

You’ve probably noticed that I’ve been using the word “buy” a lot. That’s right. I haven’t even gotten to the coins yet. Oh God, the coins.

You’ll buy everything in the game with coins that you earn as you play or acquire with real money. That’s how Joyride keeps you hooked and how it gets you to play “just one more time.” You’re always so close to getting the next thing that you absolutely need, and it’s just so easy to start another run that you feel you might as well play just one more time.

Well, that one didn’t count because I died in the first 100 meters. That’s hardly a run. Just one more.

The game even borrows from the Xbox 360′s achievement system with persistent awards and a rotating set of three missions for you to complete, like collecting a certain amount of coins in one run, dying within a specific distance, or high-fiving the scientists that run along the ground.

You’ll want to complete missions, you see, because they unlock stars that will level you up. Then, you can earn more coins to buy more gadgets, so you can make earning coins easier to buy more gadgets to complete more missions. Get it?

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The Wii U’s GamePad is more than a new controller. It’s a way for Nintendo to bring fresh gameplay possibilities to its classic titles. The only limit is imagination.

We asked a few developers how they would like to see the GamePad used in their favorite Nintendo games. Who knows? Maybe their ideas will pop up in the next Metroid or Zelda. I know for sure that a new Four Swords adventure is long overdue.

Ocarina of Time, F-Zero, and Pokémon

Steve Lycett, the executive producer on Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, shared three suggestions. One dealt with a key item in a highly regarded The Legend of Zelda game: “Lens of Truth, Ocarina of Time-style,” he said, “except you use the GamePad to look around your living room for hidden secrets and fairies. A whole window into another world.”

Another thought: “Thirty-player online F-Zero Wii U: Adjust your car setup anytime in the race, from top speed to acceleration — like you can in F-Zero X, but anytime you like. [It] should have five-player split-screen, too, just like All-Stars Racing Transformed.”

Finally, “Pass the Pokémon,” he said. “Tap the GamePad and 3DS together to send Pokémon into your Wii U — sort of like how many people can you get into a phone box, just with Pokémon.”

Zelda and Super Paper Mario

Edmund McMillen, the developer of Super Meat Boy and The Binding of Isaac, said, “I’d like them to make a full Zelda: Four Swords game with it.”

He added, “But I’d also like them to stop making new controllers and just focus on what matters: games.”

Robert Boyd, one of the developers at Zeboyd Games who worked on Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness — Episode 3, also wanted a new Zelda. He had an idea for Mario, too.

“A Super Paper Mario sequel where you have the 3D world on your TV and the 2D world on the GamePad,” he said. “Which world the game focuses on depends on whether you’re using the analog stick or the D-pad.

“Also, a Zelda sequel where they have the map and a touch-controlled item select screen on the GamePad at all times to reduce the amount of time wasted in menus.”

Metroid and Clubhouse Games

James Mielke, the PixelJunk producer at Q-Games, told us, “I haven’t had much time to put a lot of thought into how games might use the GamePad” — the Wii U launched last in Japan on Dec. 8, so he hasn’t had long to play around with it — “but I personally wouldn’t mind seeing the return of the Metroid Prime series. The combination of touchscreen as map/navigation and controller makes a lot of sense for a game like that. I’m sure developers will come up with more unique uses for it, though.”

Finally, Alex Neuse, the co-founder of Gaijin Games, the maker of the Bit.Trip series and Runner 2, said, “A couple of us at the office talked about it, and so far our favorite would be a new 2D Metroid in HD on the TV that’s way overdue to be made with the map for it on the GamePad” (emphasis his).

“Also, if we could ever require more than one GamePad at a time, playing something like Clubhouse Games with virtual hands that you can keep secret from your friends would be rad.”

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Zelda II: The Adventure of Link arrives in the Nintendo eShop today — no longer exclusive to the Ambassador Program. Now’s your chance to play one of the oddest games in the series.

Trust me, Zelda II is tough. My experience with it dates back to childhood, when I swore to beat it after the Nintendo Entertainment System wiped my save file and my sisters “forgot” what happened at the end. (Dear sisters: Bite me.) This is a quest that will probably continue until my death.

But The Adventure of Link is one of my favorites, and I’ve played it on the NES, Game Boy Advance, and now the 3DS. (It’s available on the GameCube and Virtual Console, too.) Yet no matter what system I play it on, the controls remain as stubborn and unintuitive as ever, particularly when it comes to saving your game. Unless you record your progress when you die, saving midgame on the 3DS is a six-step process. Seriously, check the virtual manual.

Below is a look at how some of the weirdest parts of Zelda II compare to other games in the series.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best video game stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week, GamesBeat prepares for the Wii U launch Sunday with all the guides and reviews you’ll ever need, Call of Duty: Black Ops II goes on sale and gets reviewed, and Xbox Live turns 10.

You’ll also find reviews for When Vikings Attack, Angry Birds Star Wars, and a Threeview of Halo 4.

News:

• Sony’s PlayStation 3 hits 70M sold, good enough for third place
• YouTube rolls out new Wii app just in time for the Wii U launch
• Second Quest raises $70K to reimagine Zelda and games through art
• Gogamingo’s startup idea: Compete in tournaments, win real stuff
• Console-quality gaming without the console: OnLive is live in some LG TVs
• Valve cofounder Gabe Newell going to be a hall of famer
• This week in the Nintendo Download: Epic Mickey, Myst, and Hotel Transylvania
• Over 1 million players completed Halo 4′s campaign in the first five days
• Badgeville simplifies gamification for developers
• Rumble Entertainment seeks triple-A quality with Nightmare Guardians tablet game
• After a decade of service, Xbox Live usage hits an all-time high
• ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ Bane signs on as Sam Fisher in Splinter Cell film
• Major League Gaming: Serving 11.7 million viewers in 2012
• ChangYou new free-to-play portal targets midcore and hardcore gamers
• New Grand Theft Auto V trailer balances comedy, drama, and skydiving out of jeeps (video)
• THQ says it is in talks about extending its credit line with bank
• Zynga juggles leadership team as CFO departs for Facebook
• Star Citizen Kickstarter reveals early piloting gameplay
• Sony launches ‘augmented reality’ title Wonderbook: Book of Spells from Harry Potter author
• No second chances: Treyarch will ban anyone caught hacking Call of Duty: Black Ops II
• Here’s what a $99.99 box of Tomb Raider stuff looks like
• PlayStation Plus launches on PS Vita next week
• Call of Duty: Black Ops II’s unlikely cameo: Former CIA chief David Petraeus
• Halo 4 sold a record-breaking $220M in its first 24 hours
• BioWare Montreal using the Battlefield 3 engine for the next Mass Effect
• Notch: Minecraft PC sales just passed 8 million

Mobile news:

• Glu Mobile lays off employees at two offices, closes a third
• Zynga brings its match-three gem game to mobile
• Mobile developer Intellijoy partners with YogiPlay to improve its educational apps (exclusive)
• Mobile game startup Pocket Gems appoints No. 2 exec as CEO
• After 400 million downloads, Storm8 releases new puzzle game to continue customer engagement
• Kixeye: Zynga is ‘desperate’ to get hands on its secrets
• New Kiip expands beyond mobile game rewards to other apps and platforms
• PlayHaven rounds up $8 million to finance international expansion
• Tapjoy runs into new drama over its app download incentives
• Time to get a bit fit: Fitbit One activity tracker now shipping
• Mobile-and-social app analytics firm Swrve raises $6.25M (exclusive)

Wii U:

• 10 things you don’t know about the Nintendo Wii U
• Wii U players could get an unfair advantage in Call of Duty: Black Ops II multiplayer
• Wii U shortage will be severe during holidays, but new console may not outsell Wii in long run
• GamesBeat’s Wii U roundup: Everything you ever wanted to know
• Here is the Wii U menu music (and more)
• Nintendo’s Scott Moffitt gives us the latest on the Wii U launch (interview)

Reviews:

• Donuts and penguins are weapons of war When Vikings Attack (review)
• Nintendo Land: Where the amusement sometimes ends (review)
• New Super Mario Bros. U is far from new (review)
• What’s in the Box?! Call of Duty: Black Ops II Care Package edition (review)
• Breaking down the four different games in Call of Duty: Black Ops II (review)
• Threeview: Halo 4 reviewed by a critic, an analyst, and an academic
• Angry Birds Star Wars plays off of both franchise’s strengths (review)

Pieces of flair:

• New Skyrim: Dragonborn screens reveal expansion’s inner Morrowind (gallery)
• If Halo’s Master Chief had a dating site profile
• Call of Duty: Black Ops II debuts at midnight openings around the world (photo gallery)
• Call of Duty: Black Ops II multiplayer unlock guide
• All-new screenshots for Call of Duty: Black Ops II
• 2D game characters break into the real world

Once upon a time, a hero was born. He defeated evil, saved a princess, and then did the same thing over and over again, only more poorly.

Writer Tevis Thompson no longer thinks The Legend of Zelda is good, but he hasn’t stopped believing in it. Neither has Braid artist David Hellman or the 1,500-plus backers who pledged money to their Kickstarter campaign Second Quest, named so after the post-game challenge in the original Zelda that has since become a regular staple of the series. The Kickstarter ended tonight, surpassing its funding goal of $50,000 for a grand total of nearly $70,000.

“Modern Zeldas are broken at their core,” wrote Tevis in his essay “Saving Zelda,” which appeared in February and inspired the Kickstarter. “By modern, I mean the console Zeldas [from] Ocarina forward (though Link to the Past is not innocent), and by core, I mean their central structure and mechanics.”

But the series still has potential, and that’s what the Second Quest graphic novella is about: giving people, including disengaged Zelda fans, “compelling worlds and a sense of real discovery,” according to the Kickstarter. It’s not about venting frustrations about The Legend of Zelda but turning them into a better vision and an original story that addresses issues in the larger game community as well.

“It’s just a roller coaster ride,” Hellman told GamesBeat in a phone interview. “It’s so exciting to launch the Kickstarter, and we had an incredible show of support immediately from friends and family and the community beyond.

“I think halfway through, we had kind of gone through that initial burst of energy, and the fundraising slowed down — as it always does with Kickstarters, it seems, in the middle,” he said. “And I think we both — being somewhat exhausted from fundraising — began thinking about what we can do for the actual art-making, which this is all for. So there was a need to shift gears there, and we both had been looking ahead while continuing to run the Kickstarter — looking ahead to the art-making, going back to that.”

One of the things that came out of that creative reflection was the six-page Side Quest minicomic, which is releasing in December for all backers. It contains callbacks to Zelda, like a flute-playing boy and landmarks concealing secret entrances, that reflect an affection for and understanding of the games without being parody or identical to them.

“I feel like we’re ending on a great note,” said Hellman. “People are really supportive. We’re doing this live playthrough. Tevis is playing through Zelda live, and I’m drawing illustrations of the adventure as he goes, so it’s a lot of fun.”

Second Quest is unique — for Hellman and Thompson, it’s a personal project. “It’s not about being critical as much as trying to point toward something really precious that I haven’t found recently in the Zelda series,” said Hellman.

For that reason, they don’t see themselves doing this again with another troubled series. “Without our investment in Zelda, this wouldn’t happen,” said Thompson. “We not only personally have a history with Zelda ourselves but also the fact that Zelda once did the kinds of things that we come to games for. I’m critical, actually, of a lot of modern games, but I wouldn’t necessarily take the time to create something along these lines because the love’s not there. But also because [those games] never tried to do those kinds of things — that sense of adventure or a huge world to explore. Very few games have actually done that that well.”

Second Quest deals with more than just Zelda, though. Thompson and Hellman have inserted their own experiences and thoughts about gaming into the comic: disintegration of franchises, female characters, the scripted qualities of games … even time spent in China. Thompson also believes that cross-fertilizing games across different forms of media and shaping those experiences into other forms, including art, is worthwhile.

“I think David and I both could see a future of making art out of video game experiences but not necessarily this kind of project,” he said.

Thompson and Hellman largely contribute their success to a combination of preparation and support from the community as well as fortuitous events. Kickstarter chose their campaign as its Project of the Day in their second week, which brought in more interest.

“I feel like at the end of the Kickstarter, now I know how to do a Kickstarter,” said Thompson. “Now I’m really ready to do one even though we just did it. We’re not making it up as we go along — we had a lot of plans. But some of them just went out the window once we saw what was working and what wasn’t.”

Figuring out how to communicate their passion with others and explain the campaign was a big obstacle, but it was also key to gaining an audience. Getting people on board also helped push the campaign in the right direction. They’re now working with Fangamer, which is handling physical production and fulfillment for Second Quest.

“It kind of ends up being a lot of people helping out, and it’s really something to have a success and to know that it’s because of so many great contributions from other people,” said Hellman.

The 50-page, full-color hardback of Second Quest releases to contributors in October and to the public in late 2013.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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That’s when I said to myself, “Who is going to save Nintendo?”

New IP the lifeblood of kids media

Be it games, films, cartoons, or characters, a kids’ media company needs to continuously create new IP to connect with each new generation. What no one ever brings up when discussing Nintendo is that they have not created a breakout IP or character in over 20 years. Their hit games are rehashes and different variations of Mario Bros, Metroid, and The Legend of Zelda. This appeals to people like me who grew up on these titles. We fanboys, turned fan-parents, endlessly debate about which Zelda is the best and argue how Nintendo messed up with Metroid: Other M. We anxiously await  each new release as everyone now does for Apple products.

However, our kids could care less. They have no connection or legacy to Mario and Luigi. This was reinforced on a recent trip through Times Square. Kids were lining up to take pics of someone in an Angry Birds costume while Mario and Luigi dejectedly looked on.

Games can no longer live on one system

Nintendo’s adamant stance on only allowing their characters on its own hardware is just making it dig its own grave. Who cares how good the Nintendo 3DS is if the new generation has no exposure to Nintendo’s IP. Kids 2 to 8 aren’t playing the Wii or DS; they are on iPods, iPhones, and iPads. If you want to attract users to your hardware, you need more software from third-party developers. Game developers have ditched Nintendo and gone for more open mobile platforms like iOS and Android. The only draw for Nintendo’s hardware is its own games based on its own characters. Again, this only appeals to Nintendo fans who are 35 and up, hardly the group to build a kids brand around.

Generational evolutions of WWE and Disney

This strategy of Nintendo targeting fan boys who grew up on its product is interesting because it actually relates to World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), who came to prominence at the same time as Nintendo in the mid 1980s. The 10-year-olds back then grew up on Hulk Hogan and the cartoonish side of wrestling (it was also called the World Wrestling Federation then). But in the 90s, these kids got into their 20s, and the WWF started faltering. Vince McMahon and co. took notice and made their product appeal to a young adult audience by introducing them to Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock. The Attitude Era essentially saved the WWE. Then that audience entered their 30s, had their own kids, and got too busy to watch WWE. Once again, WWE took notice, toned down their product and went PG to get the new generation of 10-year-olds.

Disney Animation is also a good example of what could happen to Nintendo. In the late 90s, Disney’s films became stagnant and failed to produce lasting breakout IP. Fortunately, Pixar came along and created new, refreshing characters everyone loved. Disney’s own IP became so dated that 5 year olds today are surprised when they see Mickey Mouse in a cartoon. They just see him as a logo. Go to any Disney store or theme park and it’s Pixar’s IP that the kids are latching on to. If Disney hadn’t bought Pixar, its entire Animation division could very well be closed. And without new IP, it can’t sell merchandise, books, and clothes that really keep the House of Mouse growing. Its stock prices tell a great story. Since Disney’s purchase of Pixar in 2006, its stock has gone from $30 to over $50. Since the peak of the Wii and DS in 2008, Nintendo’s stock price has gone from $71 to $15.

Can Nintendo find its own Pixar?

But Nintendo is stubborn and will not acknowledge their weaknesses. If it did, it would have gone and bought up some of the studios that were creating hits on the mobile platforms. Everyone knows how hard it is to find and nurture talent, so when it comes available, you should grab it.

Nintendo needs to sell more hardware in order to keep selling the old IP that made it rich. But you need new IP to grow and attract new kids to buy the hardware you sell. But without new IP, your hardware and old IP becomes irrelevant. It’s going to be interesting to see the consumer response to Nintendo’s new console, the Wii U. If it fails to connect, Nintendo may need to find its own Pixar or reinvent itself as the WWE did.

Pavel Bains is a former chief financial officer/chief operating officer with 10 years of experience delivering top games for Disney, EA, Activision, and Atari. He now is the CEO of Storypanda, a 500 Startups-backed iPad publishing platform for children’s books. 

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Yes, the Wii U has a battery, but it isn’t very powerful.

Just as in most computing devices, the Wii U will use a button-style battery to power the system clock even when the owner unplugs the console. That means you don’t have to reset the hardware’s internal timekeeper every time it loses juice.

These batteries are common across all kinds of devices. What’s uncommon is how easy Nintendo made it to replace the battery. Typically, one of these coin-cell batteries will last for longer than most people will use a device.

For example, The Legend of Zelda for the Nintendo Entertainment System made history when it released with a battery inside its cartridge so players could save their game. A lot of those batteries still work today, more than 25 years later.

But they do die. If it dies on a Wii U, Nintendo included a hatch that users can screw off to quickly access the battery. The full instructions are in the image to the right.

Replacements are not expensive. Amazon has a pair of Energizers for $1.99.

Again, according to the manual, this backup battery is only powering the clock, so it should last a long time without requiring attention.

Veteran gamers may remember that the Sega Saturn had a little trouble with its battery backup since it was drawing power into a memory unit as well as the clock. This drained the cells faster than just powering a clock would.

The Wii U uses Flash memory, which doesn’t require constant power.

Source: NeoGAF

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Navigate to ShigeruMiyamoto.com, and it redirects you to Nintendo’s official website. Interestingly, a WhoIs search reveals that Nintendo registered the domain in 2009. As now-former NeoGAF forum user “Metroid Hunter” pointed out, other high-profile Nintendo names won’t take users to a company-related site.

However, SuperMario.com, Metroid.com, DonkeyKong.com, and other popular Nintendo properties will navigate to a related site owned by the gaming company. Super Mario and The Legend of Zelda creator Shigeru Miyamoto has become almost as iconic in the gaming world as the characters he creates, and it seems that he has practically become a Nintendo intellectual property himself.

The game designer is one of the few industry names that has become synonymous with the company he works for. Some of it seems cultural. As our own Rus McLaughlin puts it, “Japanese employees tend to self-identify roles much more than, say, an American would.” While that is slowly changing, the 59-year-old Miyamoto comes from a traditional Japanese upbringing. It’s a background in which employees place a high value on group involvement and loyalty to a company. Miyamoto joined Nintendo when he was 24, and after 35 years, it’s unlikely that he will ever work for another company.

This also raises the question, what will Nintendo do with the domain name — be it soon or after Miyamoto departs? Maybe the company simply picked up the domain to prevent squatters from taking it. He is worth a lot to Nintendo, and it’s likely that the company does not want his name associated with any other entity. This is akin to Apple shooting down App Store submissions that include Steve Jobs’ name. More interesting than Nintendo’s ownership of the domain is that it seems that the company owns his name.

Attempts to reach Nintendo representatives for comment on the purchase of the domain were unsuccessful. GamesBeat will update accordingly.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Do you know the three Cs of comic cons? Comics (obviously), celebrities (buy their expensive autographs so that they pretend to acknowledged your existence for five seconds), and cosplay (nerd talk for costumes).

I’m partial to the cosplay. Sometimes stunning, often hilarious, the gallery below features some of the best costumed attendees at the recent New York Comic Con, with a couple of other odds and ends thrown in. Thanks to our good friend Rich McGrath for taking these pictures for us!

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Video game developers don’t seem to design their creations to last for decades. Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda might hold up over the years, but others, like Duck Hunt, become trapped in limbo as technology moves beyond them. When Activision releases a new entry in the Call of Duty series, the true intention isn’t for it to build an audience over several years but to hit all at once and stay successful until the next big installment in the series launches (usually the next year). This same mentality appears in some tech companies, no matter if the end products are computer components or software: If you want to maintain profits, you have to get things done quickly.

So it is a large leap to go from fast-paced technology development and headfirst into designing board games, but that’s exactly what Days of Wonder cofounders Eric Hautemont and Mark Kaufman did. Days of Wonder is the company behind German-style games like Ticket to Ride and Small World. German or European-style board games emphasize strategy over competition and often have economic themes and promote fairness and inclusion that keeps players at the table until the very last turn.

Days of Wonder’s first game, Ticket to Ride, actually won the German Spiel des Jahres (game of the year) award in 2004, making it the youngest company to ever win that title.

“Our exit strategy is death,” said Hautemont in an interview with GamesBeat. “People always ask me what our exit strategy is if the whole board game idea doesn’t work out, and I like to say it’s death. When you develop board games you are designing a product that will last, hopefully for decades, hopefully longer than you.”

Hautemont and Kaufman started Days of Wonder in 2002 with $600,000 and in a year it was already profitable. The Los Altos, Calif.-based company has 16 employees and has managed to increase both revenue and profitability every year. This stems from the company’s development philosophy that dictates that making quality games requires spending a great deal of time refining them.

“For video game and tech companies it’s always go, go, go,” said Hautemont. “Board games can’t follow that schedule and remain profitable. The idea is that a board game, say, like Monopoly, is initially successful, but the real profit comes from decades of growth.”

“We do have a calendar we work by,” said Kaufman. “But how do we take the time to make the product we want and that the end-user will be happy with? If we can’t get it done, we have to consider if a game is really as good as we want it.”

Monopoly gained popularity 77 years ago but is still a household name. Hasbro puts new touches on the game occasionally, but one fact remains constant: People like playing Monopoly and pass that tradition on. Families years from now will still play it and keep the interest alive for generations.

Days of Wonder is rare in that it expends a great deal of effort when designing or publishing board games, but it also creates all the digital versions in-house. So Ticket to Ride on iOS and Steam came from the same 16-man team that helped make the tabletop game.

When Apple unveiled the original iPad, Ticket to Ride was one of the very first games available for it in the app store. Since then, it has sold over a million copies and ranks 56 on the list of top grossing apps and first among other iOS board games.

But digital platforms are not as sustainable as physical games. The original iPad isn’t nearly as powerful as its shiny retina-displayed sister, and some games no longer work for it now that developers are embracing the new iPad’s faster processor.

“You don’t have to worry about tables changing,” said Kaufman. “I mean, you can count on there always being a surface to play a board game on. With technology, things are always advancing and that can present a problem. Right now, all Days of Wonder products in the app store are compatible with all models of iPads, though the iPad 1 versions don’t utilize features that the newer tablets allow. We will support a platform as long as there are customers using it who want our product.”

It’s inevitable that games just won’t run on the original iPad anymore, but Days of Wonder takes the sensible approach of slowly evolving its products and not completely dropping older platforms, like other iOS developers have.

“I think many companies can benefit from slowing down production,” said Hautemont. “THQ, Zynga — quality comes from taking time with development and production and not forcing things out into a market quickly.”

This strategy might have come in handy when THQ poured millions into the uDraw tablet that saw success on the Wii but fell flat on the 360 and PlayStation 3. The result was a very shaky fourth quarter for THQ and an unprecedented stock plunge. But Days of Wonder also doesn’t have to worry about keeping shareholders happy with constant new intellectual properties and blockbuster games and can take a slow and steady approach where developers have to keep pushing forward.

“Every company is different,” said Kaufman. “If you are a public company, you have a need to constantly be moving, or else you’ll get in trouble with your shareholders. We have no intention of ever taking Days of Wonder public.”

Hautemont and Kaufman found a niche that works for them. They left the fast-paced world of publicly traded companies and to forge ahead on their own, doing something they enjoy on their own time. Their business model works well for board games that are only truly successful when they can stand the test of time. But perhaps video game companies should take a step back and see that a quality-driven revenue might ultimately be more sustainable than perpetually taking a risk on potential triple-A titles.

For now, averaging one new game a year and maintaining a high level of polish across all its products is what Days of Wonder wants to do and probably will still do 50 years from now.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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We’ve all seen video-game sprite art before, but these five artists on Etsy.com depict their favorite 8-bit characters in different ways. One specializes in bead work, another prefers cross-stitch, a Nintendo lover brings his favorite games to life through paint, a Mega Man devotee gives plain pixels a little lift, and a Minecraft fan turns the 2D into the 3D.

GamesBeat spoke with the artists to learn more about how pixels on a screen can evolve into so much more — and what it takes to transform these digital images into two-sided crafts and fully embodied creations. The process is different for every style, but the motivation behind them is the same: to turn a love of video games into something tangible.

Bead Sprites: 8BitNerd’s shop

Tyler Wynne (“8BitNerd” on Etsy) re-creates the sprites from popular Nintendo series like The Legend of Zelda and Pokémon (the games he grew up on) as 2D bead work — a good choice for someone who, like Wynne, “can’t draw or paint to save my life.” He typically makes two a day.

“It started out for fun and just because I always wanted things in my room or kitchen that were related to video games,”  he said.

To make the bead sprites, Wynne first figures out what character he wants to make and how many pegboards he needs. He also decides what music he wants to listen to while doing it, which helps him stay focused.

“I first do the outline of the piece; then I work my way through each color, one at a time,” he said. “I find it’s easier to stay on track that way. Once I have the piece all laid out on the board, I use two pieces of wax paper. I don’t use the ‘Perler’ [ironing] paper just because I don’t think the beads melt right when using it. I generally iron the first side of the sprite longer than the other. This is so the back will be nice and reinforced, so I don’t have to worry about the piece breaking in half. I do the front for about half the time, so I can keep the holes on the sprite visible. I think when you melt the holes of the beads completely closed, it loses the 8-bit effect.”

He adds, “When I take off the wax paper, I have to do it very carefully so I don’t pull any unmelted beads out of place and don’t leave any trace of the paper on the finished sprite. Also, when using the beads, the sprites tend to start to flex up when they are drying, so I always put something on top to keep it flat.”

According to Wynne, it doesn’t matter which character you choose. “A video game character from, say, Super Nintendo would be a little easier to do than one from PlayStation 3,” he said. “But every character can be done. Some may just take more time than others.”

That doesn’t mean disasters don’t happen. Lugia from Pokémon (pictured left) was a recent custom order that almost ended in pieces. “After about two hours of working on the thing, I accidentally hit the board when I was reaching for my monster, and the entire piece exploded!” said Wynne. “But Lugia was finally finished, and the customer loved it!

“I think the more passionate you are about the character you are doing, the better it comes out.”

Favorite games: Resident Evil 2, Zombies Ate My Neighbors, Comix Zone, Team Fortress 2, and UFC Undisputed 3

Cross-stitch Sprites: Pandakabobs’ shop

Molly Prower (“pandakabobs” on Etsy) likes to “sew retro,” as the slogan of her shop reads. She combines video games, which she’s been playing her whole life, with a skill her grandmother taught her: cross-stitch.

“It’s great because it’s a pretty portable hobby, so I can take it anywhere,” she said. “I find it pretty meditative in its own way as well.”

Her shop features characters from Metroid, Super Mario Bros., and even Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, among others. Prower uses a needle and thread (“or floss — I don’t know what the technical term for that is”), a sewing circle, an Aida (a cloth woven to form a grid of holes), and a laptop to make the designs.

“The sprites are usually screenshots taken from different sources online” — like her favorite, spriters-resource.com — “pulled into Photoshop, and then just zoomed in on so I can see the individual pixels,” she said. “Then it’s just [about] picking colors out — I usually eyeball them since normal cross-stitch patterns come with a guide of which colors to use — and sewing. A lot of sewing. It’s very monotonous and time-consuming — a 16-by-24 pixel sprite can take anywhere from two to four hours to make — and takes a lot of patience. But it’s just like regular cross-stitching: counting how many squares to stitch and switching up colors. Anyone can do it, and there are a lot of tutorials online for people who would want to learn how.

“Once I have an Aida cloth pretty much filled with sprites, I paint the back of the stitched areas with glue. I’ve used a couple of different brands, but I always use some kind of heavy-duty waterproof glue. I let that dry and then very carefully cut each one out. If it’s just a patch, I’m done there. But if it’s another item like a pin or a keychain, there’s a bit more assembly involved. I usually sew felt backs on to those items so that they look a bit more finished. And then I take some painkillers for all the hand cramps and arthritis.”

But not every sprite looks good offscreen, says Prower, since she takes them out of the game and blows them up to two or three times their size. “Genesis games are like that,” she said. “I did a Tails that I really don’t like because it just looks blurry at the stitched size. Pokémon sprites can also look really funny when they’re enlarged. Some other sprites don’t look so swell when they’re taken out of their natural game setting, too — for example, Arthur from Ghosts ‘n Goblins. I want to sew that guy so bad, but every time I pull the sprite up and look at it alone, it just doesn’t look as interesting to me.”

What Prower fills her inventory with depends on how much “time it takes to make the sprites and what’s going to sell.” Bigger sprites take longer, so she mostly sticks to the classics and popular characters like Sonic and Mario instead of trying to predict what people want. But that doesn’t stop her from creating what she loves, too.

“I think I’m actually sewing my first game-related sprite for myself now: one of the bosses from the NES game The Guardian Legend,” she said. “That was — is — my favorite game on the NES. It needs to be rereleased, because my cartridge is broken, and it doesn’t play the background music on key. My next pieces are going to be from a DS game that I really enjoyed.”

Favorite games: The Guardian Legend, Final Fantasy VII,  Dr. Mario, The World Ends With You, Rhythm Heaven, Puzzle Fighter, and Fallout 3

Sprite Paintings and Mosaics: SaturnValleyArt’s shop

Matt Cleary (“SaturnValleyArt” on Etsy) sells a little bit of everything in his shop, including sprites like Wynne’s and mosaics formed from jewelry beads. But he also takes 8-bit characters and paints them on wooden wall hangings and plaques — like the Lemmings piece pictured at the top of this article.

He’s a big Nintendo fan, and his work speaks for itself. “I’m very nostalgic,” said Cleary. “I think we all are. And Nintendo was huge when I was a kid. The Power Glove was the epitome of cool, although now we all realize it was an absolute piece of garbage. All of the characters I’ve chosen to make so far were from some of my favorite games — the ones I played the most. [Mario, Zelda, and Mega Man] are obviously classics among Nintendo gamers. I loved those games and others, and I love re-creating them.”

He didn’t always make these designs the same way. “I started with sanding down and painting wooden jewelry beads and then gluing them to a backdrop,” said Cleary. “Each bead represented one pixel in a Nintendo sprite, so it was a very time-consuming process. Now, I mostly just create a stencil on my computer and use it to paint the sprites layer by layer onto a wooden board, shelf, clock, etc.”

In the future, Cleary wants to make art based on Double Dragon, Paper Boy, Ice Hockey, and StarTropics, but he’s set his goals even higher. “Eventually, I’d like to build my own house to look exactly like the ones in Paperboy and have random strangers mowing my lawn and unicycling down my sidewalk.”

Favorite games: Super Mario Bros. 3, Tecmo Super Bowl, StarTropics, The Legend of Zelda, Earthbound, Maniac Mansion, Punch-Out!!, and Mario Kart

Read on for Mega Man and Minecraft. …

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If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best video game stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week, Cliff Bleszinski leaves Epic Games, online developer Kixeye comes under fire after a former employee blogs about alleged racism in the workplace, and Zynga pre-announces weak third quarter earnings.

You’ll also find reviews for Resident Evil 6, FIFA 13, and Bad Piggies, as well was previews for Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, Skylanders Giants, and Medal of Honor: Warfighter.

News:

• The DeanBeat: Raptr’s gamer data shows that building real communities pays off in profits (it’s the community, stupid)
• Words With Friends co-creators leave Zynga
• Rovio teases Star Wars-themed Angry Birds
• Loot Drop reveals RPG storyline on Kickstarter
• Photo gallery of Skylanders creator Toys for Bob studio
• Activision gives Skylanders Giants the mega-investment treatment
• Zynga ‘pre-announces’ weak earnings again for third quarter
• Full Mario, Zelda, and Star Fox retail titles headed to 3DS eShop
• The 3DS eShop’s best game, Pushmo, gets a sequel in Crashmo
• AppFlood is one of the fastest growing developer-to-developer ad networks
• Kixeye fires four after investigation into allegations of racism
• Dishonored isn’t a Choose Your Own Adventure game, but this trailer is
• Artillery aims to make web browsers into game consoles (exclusive)
• Cliff Bleszinski leaves Epic Games
• Bethesda hires former Star Wars: The Old Republic executive producer to run new Austin studio
• George Washington stars as the villain in Assassin’s Creed III extra content
• Patch notes: Minecraft Xbox 360 Edition update includes Creative Mode, strongholds, and dozens more
• Game veterans launch a two-fer ‘old-school RPG’ game on Kickstarter
• Kixeye takes ‘substantial corrective action’ after black contractor calls out alleged racist behavior at social gaming firm
• Notch to Callaham: ‘Thanks for the personal attack’ (UPDATED)
• Ubisoft continues support for Ghost Recon: Future Soldier with new multiplayer maps
• Resident Evil 6′s science is not just for ‘old men in tweed suits’
• Buy certain games on the 3DS eShop, get Donkey Kong: Original Edition free
• Possible box art appears for the unconfirmed Star Wars: First Assault Xbox Live Arcade game
• Mass Effect trilogy on Xbox 360 won’t include any of the paid DLC
• Aaargh! KingsIsle Entertainment’s Pirate101 online game world to launch as early as Oct. 8
• Maingear launches a 17-inch gaming laptop with free custom paint jobs
• What were the cheapest and most expensive consoles in gaming history? (infographic)

Mobile news:

• Angry Birds maker Rovio plans to reveal its mobile book app
• Battlefield 3 graphics for mobile? EA has developer DICE on the job
• Directly record your iPhone games with Kamcord

MMO news:

• Mists of Pandaria sales fall short of previous two World of Warcraft expansions

Interviews:

• How animators bring Skylanders Giants to life (video interview)
• How Toys for Bob turned Activision into a giant toy company with Skylanders (interview)

Reviews:

• FIFA Soccer 13 strives for perfection through gameplay imperfection (review)
• Bad Piggies is a painfully challenging departure from Angry Birds (review)
• Resident Evil 6 thrives on its silliness but stumbles when things get serious (review)
• Pokémon Black and White Versions 2 take few risks but still offer classic thrills (review)

Previews:

• Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance may need to rise above its surprisingly conventional design (hands-on preview)
• How animators bring Skylanders to life (video interview)
• Medal of Honor: Warfighter wants to be ‘Saving Private Ryan meets Hurt Locker,’ but its gameplay is in the way (hands-on preview)
• Activision gives Skylanders Giants the all-in, mega-investment treatment (hands-on preview)
• Giant robots with frickin’ laser beams: MechWarrior Online closed beta (hands-on preview)
• Will Call of Duty: Black Ops Declassified lure gamers to the PlayStation Vita? (hands-on preview)
• Beef up your NBA 2K13 career with Facebook and mobile apps (preview)

Pitch us in one Tweet:

• The top 10 games of ‘Pitch us in one Tweet’ (#2: Colour Bind)
• The top 10 games of ‘Pitch us in one Tweet’ (#3: Hackycat)
• The top 10 games of ‘Pitch us in one Tweet’ (#4: Ring Run Circus)
• The top 10 games of ‘Pitch us in one Tweet’ (#5: Dunk Dreams)

Pieces of flair:

• Gaming art for your Twitter header (Part 4: It came from Japan)
• A insider’s photo tour of the Toys for Bob game studio, where Skylanders are born (photo gallery)
• Gaming art for your Twitter header (Part 3: PC)
• Steampunk NES’s creator spent 20 hours on the coolest gift a nephew ever got (gallery)z
• Gaming art for your Twitter header (Part 2: Popular franchises)
• Gaming art for your Twitter header (Part 1: The modern era)
• Mmm…10 video game cakes and other sweets (gallery)
• 15 bizarre Street Fighter Alpha mysteries

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Twitter has over 500 million users. That’s a lot of potential eyeballs checking out your tweets. Now that Twitter lets you add a header image at the top of your profile, why not show your followers cool art from video game series that you enjoy?

We’re releasing seven days’ worth of artwork, each with a different theme:

• Monday: The modern era
• Tuesday: Popular franchises
• Wednesday: PC
• Thursday: It came from Japan
• Friday: Mobile
• Saturday: Retro arcade
• Sunday: Consoles

Today’s batch of headers features 10 entries from popular video game franchises. Right-click (or Ctrl-click for Macs) the picture you want and hit “save image as” to save to your computer. To add the header to your Twitter profile, please follow these steps:

1. Sign in to your account.
2. Go to “settings” and click on the “design” tab.
3. Scroll down to the “customize your own” section.
4. Click on “change header” and select the image you want to upload. No need to scale.
5. Click “save.”

Gears of War

Street Fighter

Castlevania

Grand Theft Auto

The Legend of Zelda

Mega Man

Mortal Kombat

God of War

Super Mario Bros.

Sonic the Hedgehog

For gaming-themed Timeline covers for your Facebook profile, click here.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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I don’t think I’ve ever been more jealous of a child, specifically the one that gets to live in this incredible Legend of Zelda-themed bedroom. Originally posted on Reddit, this Hyrulian dwelling features many memorable icons from Nintendo’s famous fantasy series, including the Great Deku Tree, a fairy fountain, and Link and Princess Zelda themselves. My bedroom had some stickers. Sigh.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Marinko Milosevski‘s gaming posters are almost too beautiful. Staring blankly at my screen while saliva slides down my chin is all I can do to keep from openly weeping.

Homages to some of the most popular entries in The Legend of Zelda series, Shadow of the Colossus, Ico, and Super Metroid are included in the set. Personally, Milosevski’s poster portraying The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker is my favorite. Which one would you most like to hang on your wall?

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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The Sifteo Cubes, one of the coolest pieces of technology in gaming, just got a little cooler. Sifteo has announced that the next generation of its innovative, interactive blocks are coming soon.

The small devices are motion-aware 1.7 inch blocks with touch-sensitive screens, but what really makes them special is their capability to communicate with each other by contact. Up to 12 cubes can work together to play a single game.

“Sifteo Cubes combine the timeless, and tactile, tabletop play experiences seen throughout history — think dominoes, Lego, mahjong, building blocks, cards, and so on — and fuses them with breakthrough computer and video game technology, creating an Intelligent Play experience that will stretch the imagination and boost critical thinking powers,” said Sifteo in a press release sent to GamesBeat. The new versions of the gaming blocks will offer, “richer graphics, juicier colors, and updated sensing technology.”

The first Sifteo Cubes debuted last September. While the originals depended on a wireless connection with a computer, these new versions are completely portable thanks to the Sifteo Base, a small device that plays audio and stores games while connecting to the interactive blocks wirelessly.

“We’re extremely proud of the original Sifteo Cubes product, and the next-generation Sifteo Cubes are the next step in Sifteo’s mission to make classic play interactive,” said company president and cofounder Dave Merrill in the press release. “Creating a completely portable system has been a top priority since we started Sifteo, and today we’re incredibly excited to be achieving that goal and more.”

Sifteo also announced a partnership with Nickelodeon for licensed games, including a title based on the newest version of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Richard Garfield, the creator of the collectible card game Magic: The Gathering, is also working on a new game for the next generation of the cubes.

The new Sifteo Cubes will be available in November. A Sifteo Pack comes bundled with three of the devices, the Sifteo Base, five AAA batteries (which the cubes run on), a USB cable, a carrying case, four games pre-installed, and a voucher for another title called Sandwich Kingdom, which the company describes as its version of a The Legend of Zelda-type adventure (presumably with more cold cuts). The whole package will go for $129.95, with additional cubes costing $29.95 each.

If you’re still curious exactly how this technology works, you can see the cubes in action in the video below.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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As August slowly creeps along, we find ourselves coming closer to the end of summer. You could spend your last sunny days outside enjoying the fleeting moments of warm afternoons with leaf-covered trees gently swaying in the wind. Or you could spend them inside looking at this gallery of gaming-themed sand sculptures!

And don’t pull an Anakin Skywalker and tell me how much you hate sand! I know you don’t despise it more than having to go outside, you stereotypical gamers you. And I say that with the greatest level of endearment.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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“The Legend of Zelda: Hyrule Historia,” a 248-page comprehensive guide to Nintendo’s popular video game series, has shot to No. 1 on Amazon’s Top 100 list in less than 24 hours.

Publisher Dark Horse Comics confirmed the news today. At the time of the email, the book sat right below E L James’s controversial Fifty Shades of Grey on Amazon’s best-sellers chart. Now it’s rocketed to the top spot.

The hardcover contains new concept art, a complete history of the Hyrule kingdom, “the official chronology” of the games, and more. Producer and game designer Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of the long-running franchise, provides the introduction.

In addition, Akira Himekawa, who has illustrated 10 volumes of The Legend of Zelda manga from Viz Media, is contributing an exclusive comic to the book. Himekawa’s final submission, published in 2010, recapped the events of Phantom Hourglass for Nintendo DS.

Dark Horse noted that the cover (partially pictured above) on its product page is not the final version and only used it for solicitations.

The book’s rise on Amazon isn’t surprising, given the franchise’s popularity. Its $20.99 price — compared to the regular list price of $34.99 — no doubt helped push sales…well, skyward.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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If you’re like me, you’re constantly looking for top-notch art to use as the background image for your iPhone (or iPod Touch). Well, Reddit user LeapYourBar recently created a set of stunning wallpapers based on some of the most iconic characters in gaming, such as Mario, Sonic, Mega Man, and Donkey Kong. These pictures use a grungy, simple design, but their minimalist look add a certain amount of class to your phone.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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The video game industry is littered with great characters, but they’re often a bit … well, one-dimensional. They usually show up in adventure after adventure doing the same exact things, acting the same exact way, even saying the same exact lines. So it’s fun to see some of the biggest icons in virtual entertainment act out of character, even if just for the sake of crude, not-safe-for-work entertainment.

“50 Shades of Grey” is an erotic novel known for explicit scenes of bondage and sadism. Duke Nukem is a game character known for saying macho one liners and the word “balls.” So what happens if Duke Nukem narrates “50 Shades of Grey?” Hilarity, my friends. Absolute hilarity.

The action-adventure series Uncharted has made a name for itself with its likable and well-acted hero, Nathan Drake. But does he become a bit less endearing when he’s shilling for Subway? Yes. Yes he does. Let’s never speak of this again.

The Mario Bros. are arguably the most popular duo in all of gaming, but they’re not the only famous pair of brothers in history. I mean, the Wright Bros. have some claim to fame themselves, having invented the airplane and all that. Well, how do we decide the superior team? With a rap battle, of course!

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I usually think of stained glass as an art form reserved for churches, but the Internet has shown me that the medium is well suited to showcasing some of gaming’s greatest icons.

The gallery below features the likes of Mario, Halo’s Master Chief, Half-Life’s Gordon Freeman, and other classic characters from some of the most popular titles in the industry.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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