Looking Ahead to a Wild World

Out In The Wild World

Before we go into Wild World's online and wireless play options, it's worth noting that Nintendo has not done away with your ability to have up to four people share a single town. But instead of everyone living in their own separate house in a dedicated acre on the map, all residents sharing the game now become housemates, sharing the mortgage payments and decorating responsibilities. Unfortunately, this mode is limited to people who are sharing the same game card and won't be something that remote players can get into — effectively limiting the otherwise tantalizing possibility to real-world roommates.

Wild World will also introduce, for the first time, simultaneous multiplayer modes via local wireless. Up to four players can be in a town at one time as long as they remain within wireless range, interacting with residents, digging holes, and generally making a mess of the landscape. The town host will be able to organize such events as scavenger hunts and fishing tournaments for his guests to participate in. Host and guests will all be able to chat via text chat; voice chat has been omitted.

This guy's in charge of your town's security. Don't you feel safe?

Visitors to towns will be able to do practically anything they could in their own towns, ranging from the ever-popular tree-felling to interacting with the town's residents. No doubt many animals will be asking about visitors who haven't dropped by in awhile, for example. Visitors will also be able to leave their imprint behind in the form of personalized designs even after they've left, and residents will move between towns as well as occasionally leave letters behind that wash up on shore in a bottle. Mail can be written for town residents or players in the town currently being visited, but both the visitor and host must be online and in that town to do so; Nintendo will not be offering facilities to pass letters between games.

You invite other players into your town by going up to the town gate. Here, you'll find Booker and Copper, who will be happy to open up your gate to either let you out to visit someone else, or to open your gate and let others in, either via local wireless or online via the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection. (Rather than repeat exactly what this means for you and what you need to do to get your Nintendo DS system online, please refer to our Wi-Fi FAQ, if you haven't already. It will get you up-to-speed on the ins and outs of connecting.)

Wild World online will only operate with a friend list; there will be no support for random matching with town visitors. (Which, when you think about it, is for the best, if you value protecting your precious trees from wayward axes — if your friends do it, you can at least waltz over to their towns and reciprocate.) You can build up your friend list either via the Friend Registration Key method, sending keys via e-mail or what not to people you'd like to play with, or by registering people as friends when you've played with them via local wireless. Of course, even friends can cause trouble, and to that end, Wild World will let you kick visitors out of your stomping grounds if you so desire.

Finally, something we don't have any real information on as of yet, but is interesting nonetheless: Wild World will support Tag Mode, presumably a variation on Nintendogs' Bark Mode. When you put your Nintendogs game into Bark Mode, your Nintendo DS continually broadcasts searching for nearby Nintendo DS units, and will rendezvous with them so that your dogs can play with each other, and exchange gifts if you desire. Nintendo has not yet revealed anything beyond the existence of Tag Mode, but it can be safely speculated that it will be used to introduce the existence of your town to other players, perhaps even to introduce people to each others' Friend Lists for later Wi-Fi Connection play.

Several of us here at N-Sider have been looking forward to this game since it was announced, and we are making plans to build a large Wild World community with both old friends and new. We hope to see you drop by our towns sometime. Just, please... leave the axe at home.