Harold and the PictoChat Battle Stage

Today in class we discussed the story  Harold and the Purple Crayon. I couldn’t help but make a fairly obvious comparison to the PictoChat Battle Stage in Super Smash Brothers Brawl for the Wii. For those who have yet to play the game the PictoChat stage is based on the DS Lite’s chat interface in which up to 16 people can communicate not only through traditional typed text but also gives the option of  chatting through drawn pictures and written words using a Stylis and the DS Lite touch screen in an MS Paint-esque format. The Stage for Super Smash Brothers is simply a blank page in which drawings randomly appear that the player can interact with in ways varying from simply standing on the drawings to one image in which a drawn person  blows on characters within the game making them react accordingly. Regardless of the drawing’s actions the player is forced to adapt to whatever appears on the spot. Of course there is some repetition but for the most part the drawings are in a random enough fashion to make the stage challenging and interesting.

Although, currently the drawings within the stage are pre-drawn and determined by the game itself my hope is that Nintendo will eventually use this concept to make the player themselves the “Harold”, if you will. This could be accomplished by using the multiplayer function of the game with the option of assigning 2 or more “players” and one person or more to be the “drawer(s)”. The drawer would then create pictures with the Wiimote that would appear on the screen in real time and could even use motion to simulate their drawings movement . For example if the drawer were to create a teeter-totter they would then press A to select the object and move the wiimote back and forth to simulate the way a teeter totter would move. This concept could also be applied to integrate the DS lite with the Wii.  This method would allow one person to use the PictoChat function of the DS to create drawings and send them wirelessly to SSBB game that is currently in play. If the DS lite is used rather than the Wiimote the user would be able to use the built in microphone to simulate wind blowing, vibration and other various movements. The gameplay would in turn gain even more replay value and would result in more diverse game play. What is most unique about this concept is that with the Wii’s online capabilities Nintendo could create a patch to add these features to the game and release it for free or most likely sale on the Wii console without even having to remake the game itself. Which, in turn, allows Nintendo to be the metaphorical “Harold”  of their game franchise by adding content when the desire or concept arises whether or not the game is in development or has been on the market for several months making for an overallmore dynamic and fluid game experience.