Amateur developers get their chance to make games on the DS.
When playing a video game, it's almost inevitable that at some point you are going to run out of new things to see and do. Wario Ware: DIY helps to combat that by giving you the opportunity to make your own stuff and download more stuff that people all over have created. The game ships with just under a hundred microgames to use as examples of of what can be done with the creation tools, and to harvest for objects and sounds to use in your own ideas. Then it leaves you on your own to decide what you want to do with the tools you're given. A few tutorials and some programming challenges are included to help ease players into the practice of programming new material, and there are more than a dozen pre-made games that are missing art for the player to create themselves.
Games, music. and grayscale comics are all available for creation. Evertything can be made entirely from scratch, or can be pasted together from elements found in other creations. Importing and altering other stuff is strongly encouraged in the tutorials, possibly as a method of getting people who are unsure of their own artistic abilities something to build off of. Programming games is simple enough. A system wherein players can determine how objects behave by selecting certain words or phrases means that making games doesn't force you to get waist deep in coding to complete something.
What hurts the game the most is the content-sharing system that Nintendo has come up with. Each copy of the game has its own online "warehouse" where the player can store two of each of their creations at a time. More games are found online as part of themed "contests" which players submit games to and the developers judge for distribution after a deadline passes. Nintendo also releases two games of its own design every week or so, and puts out games made by professional developers under the name of "Big Name Games." This system allows you to find enough content online to keep things fresh, but it would have been nicer if it was possible to find more stuff online and store more on your DS cartridge so as to avoid letting things get stale if you find yourself stuck without a wi-fi hotspot.
The Wii component, DIY Showcase is nice, but it really doesn't provide you with much other than a cheap place to store more of your content and some new developer-made games, along with another way to download content from the Internet. If you can't get your DS connected to the web you can always use this to reach Nintendo's online content. It's cheap enough that if you really enjoy the games Nintendo packed in with the DS game, you can get more of them here. But it's not a full game of it's own, just a way to play your content on the Wii with some new stuff without the option to create any more.
It is very, very nice to have a program for creating your own microgames to take with you wherever you go. This grants you the opportunity to work on ideas whenever you have the chance, or to quickly start work on them if you come up with an idea during the course of your day. It would be very nice if sharing them were easier, but there is enough content online to at least keep things fresh if you find yourself becoming dedicated to this game. If the idea of making your own games sounds fun to you, by all means give Wario Ware: DIY a shot.
