A handful of months ago, I wrote a bit about what was good (and not) among some of my recent DSiWare purchases—the recommendations therein are still good today, by the way; hurrah for the long tail! Today, I've only got good news for you, which should please the optimists.

As I did last time, I'll lead off with the best. NST has now hit two-for-two on the service after their debut of Mario vs. Donkey Kong 3 last June, coming up to bat most recently with the 200-point Aura-Aura Climber. Played with the d-pad and a button, you guide Aura-Aura from the ground to the sky by jumping off grapple points and grabbing the next. A number of obstacles, upgrades, and bonuses like bombs await you through both a score attack mode with several stages and an endless mode where your goal is to climb as high as you can. This game is basically an incredible value and is my current favorite on the service; don't hesitate to grab this one.

On the more cerebral front, we have the 500-point picture puzzler Glow Artisan, which I think would find itself right at home in the DSi of any Picross fan. You create pictures in Artisan by sliding out colored tiles from the edges, mixing tiles (i.e. blue and yellow make green) and judiciously using row erasures. You can finagle with it endlessly, but medals are awarded (and bonus puzzles unlocked) if you solve in the fewest number of moves.

These bonus puzzles resemble photos you'll see after solving them; you can even create your own puzzles with the DSi Camera. I'm definitely a Glow Artisan fan, even if I have a hard time keeping all the moves I want to make in my head—particularly when I'm periodically interrupted by a 3-year-old boy who wants to see what I'm doing.


Finally, we have the somewhat unfortunately-named Globulos Party, which is fun, but I think perhaps a little overpriced at 500 points. It's effectively the same game as the free online Flash game Globulos, but nicer-looking and playable with local friends instead of online competitors. In Party, you've got 20 games (some of which are effectively the same as others), many with varied arenas to play in, but they're all played by aiming your three little glob dudes with a direction and velocity while your opponent does the same, then letting them fly during each turn until the game's winning conditions are met.

My 7-year-old daughter and I had some good fun playing it last night; playing with someone else is a lot more fun than against the somewhat easy AI. It's definitely a fun game with others; it just, like I said... feels like it should've been 200 points. Maybe this feeling is fallout from Apple's App Store pricing model, because I might have thought it a bargain a few years back, but regardless, there it is.

DSiWare continues to be my go-to place for fun new stuff to play on my DSi. The games aren't always winners, but it's so inexpensive that I've found myself taking as many chances on games as I feel I have time to play, and I'm often repaid. (We won't talk about how many times I've had to "empty my mini-fridge," though.) If you're in the mood for some inexpensive, fun, and oft-creative little titles, DSiWare is a great place to look.