I’m so very happy that I picked up an R4 for my Nintendo DS. Not only do I get to test out all of the potentially shitty games before I waste any money on them, I also get to enjoy the fruits of the homebrew community’s massive labors. For instance, the latest innovation to hit the dual screen, Colors! (their exclamation point, not mine.)
Colors! is a painting app for the DS, but with the amazingly fantastic addition of pressure sensitivity, which affects the opacity and brush size as you sketch along. Bongweasel gave it a shot this morning and informed me that it is a must-have for anyone with the ability to play it. You get the basic Photoshop-style tools, and the awesome ability to repeat the actual drawing process as a short movie. The images are 512×384, which isn’t huge but definitely big enough to keep me sketching. They’re even working on adding DS-to-DS cooperative painting capability, which would be kind of neat if I knew anybody who could draw with a DS. Maybe if you set it up over wifi (which I’ve always been too lazy to do) it could be a nifty feature.
I’m going to load this up as soon as I get home, as I’ll need something to distract myself on the flight to Portland for my friend’s wedding. Have a look-see at the gallery, there are some fairly impressive sketches in there considering the medium. And if you’re interested in how they accomplished the pressure sensetivity, head on over to this thread and try to wrap your brain around what they have to say.
I’m currently looking forward to loading a bunch of homebrew apps onto my DS, as I was profoundly oblivious towards the subject prior to today. I mean I knew that they’d successfully ported the SCUMM engine and a lot of other emulators onto it, but how about Warcraft Tower Defense, DSQuake, and a whole slew of other possibilities? I’m particularly interested in seeing how reading comics and books works on the DS, as that could really make my bathroom breaks at work a lot more entertaining.
If any of you have suggestions, comment away. I’ll be posting a full rundown of my thoughts on anything I try out this weekend.
I just asked about one of these in the forums http://forums.badassmofo.com/showthread.php?t=49505
I’m having trouble with the R4 site, how much is one going to run me?
I bought mine at modrevolution.com, without their added in memory card since I got a better deal locally. The R4 is about 40 bucks, and I got a nice 2 gig microsd card for another 35 after tax. I’m pissed though, since I accidentally washed the little microsd usb adapter in one of my pants pockets. Now I have to use the little microsd-to-sd adapter in my laptop for transferring anything.
Amazon has those fuckers. A little pricier, but no bullshitting with shady distributors.
Also, amazon has microSD’s for *cheep* $15-18 w/sd adapter.