WarioWare D.I.Y. - Contest #1 (America) - Machines and Robots (3 of 3)

Here are the last few microgames that have won the Design Challenge #1 in the Americas. The theme is "Machines," and I'm pretty surprised at the variety of interpretations of that word. We've had stuff from the assembly lines and science fiction that the word is normally associated with, and we've had less advanced technology that constitute macines as well, like the abacus one in the second page. There are only 12 microgames this time, because of math. There are 48 winning entries, and I've shown 36 of them. Mabe next time, I'll split them up 16 each, or as equal portions as possible if there will be an amount other than 48. 1. "Toy Picking" by Ron 2. "Abduction" by Boojoh 3. "Mail Room" by cravipat 4. "AtomicHero" by Kyle 5. "Metroid II" by Orohu 6. "On the Line" by Asho 7. "Barrel Roll" by Chase 8. "BOMB!" by Jared 9. "RobotOdyssey" by enmadaioh 10. "MonkeyWrench" by Hero X 11. "Soup Nuke'em" by Jeff 12. "SquishOmatic" by Rynen10K My favorites in this set are "On the Line" and "SquishOmatic." There are a lot of touches that go on in "On the Line," and it provides an easy indicator for which of the parts on the conveyor belt are defective. It even indicates to reject the red-outlined parts in the description, so there's no trial-and-error involved. "SquishOmatic" has "Powerhouse" as its song (you may have heard it in Looney Tunes) which fits in nicely with the heavy machinery around. The directional buttons are easy to read and are placed right below where the little bug will run to. The bug also runs pretty fast so you don't really have to anticipate when the pistons will go up and down. Of course, it's easier once you understand the rhythm. "Abduction" gets a runner-up for me because of how hilarious sucking up what must be 30 cows is like. (Oh, it's 12. This person is good at conserving objects!) I don't know why, but I had to giggle when the words "Defeat them!" flew by in "AtomicHero." This microgame reminds me so much of Astro Boy, I would be shocked if this Kyle fellow wasn't inspired by the series. "Toy Picking" shows which toy you're supposed to get on the far left. I didn't recognize it for what it was the first few times I played this, but I'd attribute that to myself. After all, it says "grab" right there. I do like how each of the toys are easily distinguishable from each other, but I also would've liked the microgame better if you tap on the claw directly rather than the weird floating buttons on the right. This set does have a few problems among its microgames, however. For some reason, some of my taps don't register for "MonkeyWrench." I think this is because you're supposed to tap the wrench, not the monkey or the entire screen. The timing is obvious because there's a moving triangle and a red X. But at first I thought you were supposed to just tap the screen at the right time and I was wondering why nothing was happening. I tried the monkey in this video and you can see how that turned out. "RobotOdyssey" was unclear in how to program the robot, but I think that's more out of limitations of the engine than anything else. This is no more trial and error than in a standard Nintendo-made microgame, though I do feel that it's too complicated for WarioWare. "Metroid II" has you attack the belly of the Alpha Metroid, but its movements are random, and Samus's shots will not necessarily hit it even if you time your shots perfectly. You have to predict where it's going, but it's traveling around randomly. However, I do like how the counters at the bottom actually reflect the situation: Each shot will deplete the meter in the middle by 1, and defeating the creature depletes the meter on the right by 1. I'm going to look forward to the results of the next contest, since this one went well beyond my expectations. Some of these microgames are flawed, but they are still all great. They would not win the contest otherwise. I would bet Nintendo got hundreds of entries for this, and it's already an achievement to get the top cut. I'm sure all of these guys want their microgames to be shown to the world, and the winners got what they wished.