DGamer Brings Social Networking to DS
By Toronto Thumbs Staff - May 14th, 2008
When the DS version of The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian launches Friday, May 16, it’ll come with a little something extra. Not only will the title’s release coincide with that of the film, but it will also mark the launch of DGamer, Disney’s own social networking game community aimed towards kids of all ages. The service barely gets a mention on the game’s box art, but many players may end up spending more time with DGamer than with Prince Caspian (which is still a very fun game, trust me).
Brian Green from Fall Line Studios and Michelle Liem from Disney Interactive Studios were in Toronto last week and they demonstrated both DGamer and The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian for Toronto Thumbs.
DGamer has been compared to Xbox LIVE because games that include DGamer functionality have “honors” that can be unlocked by completing various tasks in-game, much like LIVE has its infamous achievements. But in a way, the social aspect of DGamer is arguably more social than the comparison might imply.
Players can use the service to chat with friends and check leaderboards, but also to send virtual gifts, participate in polls, and show off their customized avatars. In fact, DGamer marks the first time gamers will be able to use their Nintendo DS to communicate with PCs and other DS systems over the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection in a family-friendly manner.
Right now, there’s no functionality to invite friends from a DGamer chat directly into a game, but that’s not to say it won’t happen somewhere down the line. Right now, both Green and Liem are very much focusing attention on the fact that DGamer already does a lot of cool things, but won’t rule out or confirm any future possibilities.
The user avatars are a lot like Miis, only more robust. You can choose from different types of eyes, noses, mouths, face shapes, and skin colours just like you can with a Mii. But the real fun is in accessorizing your avatar. Right off the bat, you have several different top and bottom clothing designs to choose from, and each piece of clothing has several colour schemes. So if you and your buddy have a thing for argyle sweaters, you can at least have different-coloured ones.
Various DGamer Honors can be unlocked in-game.
Other customizable options allow for the use of costumes (there’s a great Buzz Lightyear outfit available from the get-go) and hand-held accessories such as cell phones, mp3 players, and even a Nintendo DS. Additional outfits and accessories are unlockable by playing different DGamer titles. I’ve been playing The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian and have unlocked a sword so far.
The avatars are obviously the digital representation of yourself in the world of DGamer. One of the main draws to the service is the chat room interface. Right now, the service hasn’t officially launched, so the chat rooms tend to be on the empty side.
Because the program infrastructure was developed by the family-friendly Disney, the information that can be sent between users is heavily moderated. For instance, all usernames in DGamer must first be approved. I registered “megashaun” around 6:30 p.m. and by the next time I logged into DGamer (around 10 p.m.), it had been accepted. In the meantime, I had been assigned an easy-to-remember handle of Guest318385984. Actually, I can’t remember what the number was, so I just mashed the keyboard instead. Not that it even matters, because the approval process was fast enough for my liking.
In chat mode, players can use an on-screen keyboard to type and send their messages. There’s a heavy word filter in place that won’t allow you to send a message of “hell” but will allow you to say “hello.” Other words I tried but were blocked included “Satan,” “Beelzebub,” “TorontoThumbs,” and “4colorrebellion.” Sorry, guys. At least you’re in good company. In truth, the system may just be designed to that if certain safe words are not listed in it, you won’t be able to send them. This also means some misspellings of words will not be allowed - which is a good thing. Get kids to spell correctly at an early enough age and we may be able to stop the degradation of the English language.
An avatar acts out “impatient.”
Another fun thing about the chats, though, is that you can select different actions for your avatar to perform (clapping, blowing bubbles, laughing, etc.). In addition to the somewhat free-form chat, there are multiple commonly-used phrases stored as macros that are accessible via three quick taps on the screen: one to select the macro function, another to select the type of macro (like “hello”) and then another to select the actual message (like “How are you doing?”).
Considering Nintendo’s apparent hesitance with wetting its toes in the online world, it may seem a little odd that something as robust as DGamer would even exist. While it does use the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection to access the internet, DGamer actually makes use of the existing infrastructure Disney had in place for Disney.com. Since the site already featured moderated user interactions, applying it to DGamer was easier than developing the entire infrastructure from scratch.
DGamer will be featured in upcoming games from Disney Interactive Studios this year, and it’s expected that every game they publish from now on will include some sort of DGamer interaction. While previously-released stills from the DS version of Ultimate Band showed characters in-game that resembled DGamer avatars, neither Brian Green not Michelle Liem were able to comment on whether the game would include the avatars as playable characters.
But we’ll all find out soon enough.
