Dude, I Totally Tapped That Box

Prope's upcoming Wii game, Let's Tap, is the latest in a long line of releases for Nintendo's platform that comes with a unique peripheral that you'll need to fully experience the game. But this isn't some pesky plastic shell that you'll cram your Remote into, and you won't need to take off your shoes to stand on some little balance board, either. Let's Tap comes with a small cardboard box that is absolutely key to the experience.

OK, fine, I'll explain.

The setup is simple: you take your Wii Remote and set it face-down on top of the cardboard box, which is sitting on a table or other stable surface. Through some mystical feat of high-sensitivity movement detection, the Remote will pick up your taps on the cardboard and translate them into in-game input. It seems to mostly detect the speed and, to some extent, maybe the hardness of your taps. This basic mechanic is applied across a couple of different modes that were being shown at Tokyo Game Show 2008.

Tap Runner is the main mode being shown here at the show, and it's a fairly standard side-scrolling footrace. The races take place on a variety of obstacle courses, occasionally requiring you to make jumps with some accuracy, but mainly centering on your ability to run quickly. Of course, you run by tapping the box. Jumping is done by letting off of the box with both hands. The whole thing felt like I was down on my hands and knees with an old NES Power Pad, trying to cheat the running games by slapping the pads with my hands and letting off of both pads to jump over hurdles. Also, I went through three different race courses and seemed to jump a lot more than I intended to, but that's probably something you get used to as you spend more time with the game.

In addition to the Tap Runner mode, there will also be some little visualizers, such as a goofy-looking paint program that slaps ink all over the place as you tap things out on the box. The game will also have a rhythm-based mode. The video for that makes it look similar to Namco's Taiko no Tatsujin series. Another mode shows a fly-over of a city and you can launch fireworks over the city by tapping the box.

It's certainly in a league of its own--I've never seen anything quite like Let's Tap--but the game also seems like complete and total madness. Especially awesome is the product shot, which shows the box the game comes in with the box that you need to use to play sticking out of the other box. That said, it's kind of fun, too, and the graphics have a certain charm to them that gives most of the game a good, stylized look. It'll be interesting to see how well the game pans out in Japan, as that's probably one of the things Sega is looking at before even considering publishing this domestically.