Magnetis

Magnetis, you scratch your head, what is this wonderful sounding game? Well folks it’s another puzzler for WiiWare, but this time with a magnetic twist. The game is being developed by a Parisian studio by the name of Yullaby who contacted us recently to spread the word about their upcoming game.

The goal of the game is to connect magnets facing opposite directions together. When you do, they contract and everything in between disappears. You get more point for longer lines, and even more points for chained reactions, so you're encouraged to plan your moves ahead. Up to 4 players can play in split screen. There are many game modes, like Normal, Time Attack, Block Attack, Battle, Cooperative, and players can even team up (for instance, if you have buddy who's really strong, you can play at 3 against 1). It might not seem like so at first, but there can be quite a bit of strategy involved in planning ahead for your combos.

It's magnetising!

The developers have told Nintendo Life that the overall feel of the game is more arcade or "good old Mega Drive" days than the more casual puzzles out there, although we know that the game is nonetheless easily accessible to everyone, even the ladies!

So who are Yullaby you ask? They’re a small studio mostly comprised of experienced developers (some up to 12 years), who banded together at the end of 2006 to try and make their own games. They have a pronounced taste for games with a good arcade feel to them. Of course, like all young studios, they had (and still have) to develop commission projects in order to get by. WiiWare brought them the opportunity to try and get something of their own out there, so they had to think of a small scale project in order to see what they could do with the Wii. A puzzle game seemed to be the right choice, but much cooler things are also in the works right now! As many other studios, they hope to become fully independent one day, and only make a living by making cool arcade/action games.

Magnetis should be released somewhere in the second quarter of 2009, if the powers that be at the Big N are agreeable. You can of course expect a full review at that time from Nintendo Life: WiiWare at that time.