Nintendo DS News | Slidatron from Australian Developer

Since the Nintendo DS has two major advantages (being cheaper to develop for, plus having a massive userbase) in comparison to the competition, it is no wonder smaller developers are jumping onto to portable as quickly as possible. And it now appears that independent Australian developer Endgame Studios also wants a piece of the dual screen action.

The team is jetting off to San Francisco to attend next week's Game Developers' Conference with the intention of grabbing the attention of publishers with its game 'Slidatron: Dual Space' for the Nintendo DS.

Grant Davies, Director and co-founder studio (that has been in existence for just three years), stated the game's concept came about from "trying to make best use of the dual screens, and finding a way to get the player playing on both screens at the same time. It's a standard platformer, but the unique twist is that you do play on both screens at the same time. At any time you can move into the alternate reality, the alternate world, which is the other screen on the DS. You need to do that throughout the game in order to complete puzzles and to complete the level."

Slidatron has been made possible thanks to funding from Film Victoria and its Digital Media Fund, but now the main challenge is in "actually finding talented staff to work in the studio. It's a problem that a lot of local developers are facing; at the moment it's really tough to find people. There are a lot of workers now coming to Australia but it's still a big struggle finding people to fill the roles."

You can see two small shots of Slidatron below:

Starting on 5th March and running until 9th March, the Game Developers' Conference will certainly be a key event this year as Shigeru Miyamoto and Eiji Aonuma will be speakers there, plus there are rumours of Yoshi's Island and Animal Crossing being unveiled for the Wii.

Stick with Cubed3 for further updates...