Third Annual Christmas Game Coding Competition at http://www.drunkencoders.com has ended and counts more than 20 entries.

All submissions are up and can be downloaded either from the original release place or from PDRoms.

The entry list:

(NDS) Virus DS XMAS-Edition – alternative download: //files/1460
(NDS) Snowflakes – alternative download: //files/1461
(NDS) Santas Robot Helper – alternative download: //files/1462/
(NDS) Snowfall Demo – alternative download: //files/1463/
(NDS) JNKPlat – alternative download: http://www.pdroms.de/files/1447/
(NDS) XMAS Gifts – alternative download: //files/1452/
(NDS) Snowman Attack – alternative download: //files/1465/
(NDS) Leo Toddler – alternative download: //files/1466/
(NDS) Evil Santa Attacks – alternative download: //files/1453/
(NDS) Santa’s Challenge – alternative download: //files/1467/
(NDS) XMAS Pede – alternative download: //files/1468/
(NDS) Scogger – alternative download: //files/1469/
(NDS) Halo DS (Beta) – alternative download: //files/1470/
(GBA) The Christmas Turkey – alternative download: //files/1464/
(GBA) Bauble Break – alternative download: //files/1471/
(NDS) Present Factory – alternative download: //files/1472/
(NDS) Uummarmiut – alternative download: //files/1473/
(NDS) Wecker DS XMAS Edition – alternative download: //files/1475/
(NDS) Entry – alternative download: //files/1476/
(GBA) Lily and the lost Angel – alternative download: //files/880/
(NDS) Ramming Santa – alternative download: //files/1477/
(NDS) Saving Santa – alternative download: //files/1478/
(NDS) PuzzleManiak – alternative download: //files/676/

Please note while the time passes, the original entries might have been replaced with newer versions.

http://www.drunkencoders.com/compo/index.php?page=entries

In “Chat Noir” it’s your job to keep the cat inside the playingfield, by blocking her way out. It’s a port of the identical called flash game, which can be found here: http://www.gamedesign.jp/flash/chatnoir/chatnoir.html

Thanks to http://www.dev-fr.org for the news.

http://www.dev-fr.org/projets/(ndsjeu)-chat-noir-ds/msg18796/?topicseen#new

Finger Drum is exactly what it tells. Use the stylus/touchpen to start the drum action.

Thanks to http://www.dev-fr.org for the news.

http://mathieu.veron.free.fr/ds/

DekuTree64 has updated his art/painting program Animanatee.

Changes:

– Error checking on file access.
– Changed export format to .avi instead of .flc.
– Added a button so you can save without exporting, since it takes a while.
– Added a progress bar when saving.

http://forum.gbadev.org/viewtopic.php?t=14116

To understand POWDER, you should first understand roguelikes. “Roguelike” is a term applied to a wide variety of games which share a common inspiration from the game Rogue. A non-exhaustive list of such games would be: ADOM, Nethack, Crawl, Diablo (I & II), Moria, and Angband.

Powder is not a port of an existing roguelike. It is built around replayability and long term ergonomics, not short term learning. It uses actual graphic tiles (16×16) rather than the traditional characters.

Changes:

Releasing a possessed creature on the otherside of a dimensional portal should no longer cause problems.
Releasing possession after your body has died but left a corpse will no longer leave you as some weird ghost. This also prevents you from picking up your own corpse and eating it, which has dire reprecussions.
Releasing possession after your body is a statue is likewise fixed (JCM)
If you polymorph and drop something on the ground due to lacking space and that item merges with an existing item, it no longer crashes.
New tridude rooms have a unique tridude to act as the leader to avoid infighting.
Zapping a wand of create trap outside of the map no longer crashes.
Rays bouncing off the map boundaries no longer risk crash.
You can read equipped scrolls, books, and zap equipped wands and drink equipped potions. No particular advantage is currently conferred by such, other than looking cool, but it seemed odd you had to unequip things to do this. (Bill Walker)
Starting inventory has been normalized and you start the game wearing your armour and weapon. Your bonus item may still be better, so you likely still want to look in your inventory at the start. This means no more starting the game with an evil -2 floppy had and dagger, but also no more starting with a +3 holy artifact warhammer. (David Damerell, Richard Quirk, Stu)
Dying while possessing a creature and being on a different level from your body will no longer corrupt the mob list of your old level.
Zapping a wand of teleport at yourself and dying after the teleport will no longer crash.
Zapping a wand of teleport at yourself will no longer teleport items on the square you teleport *to*, and instead teleport them from the square you teleport *from*.
Quit & Save will immediately put you at the main menu rather than letting you spy on the local dungeon life. (Clare Boothby)
Help and tutorial docs now talk about how to use the stylus/mouse.
[SDL], [DS]: Starting image now fills the screen. It has also been made darker as the original image was calibrated against the original GBA.
[SDL]: Linux and Windows users will find their screen size a bit larger to bring it in line with the DS screen. There is method to my madness.
The title menu now has an Options choice that lets you change the options and read the help without starting a game.

http://www.zincland.com/powder/index.php?pagename=release

Kukulcan is currently in task of porting Xump (originally developed by “Psilocybin Dev”) to the Nintendo DS.

Description:

Instructions:
The game consists of a 20×12 playfield which is filled with various types of blocks. Your job is to make the blue blocks disappear from the playfield by stepping on them. There are five main types of block, each of which behave differently;

Grey Blocks: A grey block allows you to step on it with out disappearing when you stand on it. Your start point is always a grey block, the last block you step on must be a grey block as well.
Grey Arrow Blocks: Arrow blocks forward you AUTOMATICALLY in the given direction without warning, with exception to the
two way arrow blocks which have either a vertical or horizontal black line. You may only walk over two way arrow blocks in the direction of the arrows. Arrow blocks do not disappear when you step on them
Warp Blocks: Warp blocks always come in a double pack. If you jump in, you come out at the other warp block. Warp blocks are grey and have a hole in them, they do not disappear when you step on them.
Blue Blocks: Blue blocks have to be destroyed by stepping on them. Be warned that blue blocks disappear after a short while of standing on them, or when you leave the block.
Darkblue Blocks: Darkblue blocks turn into blue blocks, be careful: Darkblue blocks are sometimes an essential part of the puzzle elements.

Thanks to Mollusk for the news!

http://kukulcan.dev-fr.org/p3811/2008-01-07-kukulcan-beta-update.html

myke38 has improved his Starcraft fangame StarLite. It’s now available in it’s second release.

http://www.playeradvance.org/forum/showthread.php?t=17883

DuSTED is a DS homebrew application, which is a tile editor for GBA and DS hardware-based graphics tiles that actually runs on the DS. It works, but its in a very rough state. It is licensed under the terms of the GPLv3.

devkitARM is required to build it, and homebrew capable DS hardware (or an emulator) is required to run the resulting executable.

http://digitalbytes.net/projects.php#dusted

Bfth Software released their second Nintendo DS homebrew game called “Quadrangular”. It’s similar to Tetris but with different shapes.

In this early version only the first mode works.

http://palib.info/forum/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=4069&forum=9

Falafel has released a game called Grid Soccer.

Here is Falafel’s description:

hello everyone!

Well this is my first homebrew game 🙂

It’s a 2 player game you can play during boring lectures ^_^
the objective is to get to the goal on either side of the field (the one with the moving cube in your colour is the one you have to hit)
and if you hit a point where you hit another line you “bounce” and you can put down an extra line.
if the screen goes red, red player wins.
green is the same but (guess what?) green player wins :p
and blue means your stuck and noone wins (or whatever you want to happen anyway)
press B to restart

Have fun!

Thanks to http://www.dev-fr.org for the screenshot.

http://forum.gbadev.org/viewtopic.php?t=14795