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3DS

Art Academy: Lessons for Everyone and Crosswords Plus Now Available

by Zachary Miller - October 1, 2012, 4:54 am EDT
Total comments: 10

Buy either over eShop to get a special Club Nintendo game.

Budding artists can now download Art Academy: Lessons for Everyone! straight from the eShop for $29.99. The game features a wealth of art lessons and tools, and allows you to share your creations and personalized art lessons with friends. 

In addition, Crosswords Plus was posted soon after at an identical price of $29.99. You can check out a preview of the game by Neal Ronaghan right here.

Those who purchase either title over eShop before January 6, 2013 will receive a Club Nintendo code for Donkey Kong: Original Edition, a special version of Donkey Kong featuring content never seen in North America.

Get Artsy in Art Academy: Lessons for Everyone! and Solve Word Puzzles with Crosswords Plus

REDMOND, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Today’s launch of two new software titles will have people broadening their artistic horizons and deepening their love of creative wordplay. Art Academy: Lessons for Everyone! and Crosswords Plus are now available for the portable Nintendo 3DS and Nintendo 3DS XL systems, giving consumers a variety of fun ways to learn about how to draw and paint or challenge their puzzle-solving skills anytime, anywhere.

“Art Academy: Lessons for Everyone! lets everyone learn about how to draw and paint creatively, regardless of their current skill levels,” said Scott Moffitt, Nintendo of America’s executive vice president of Sales & Marketing. “And Crosswords Plus is a blast whether you’re a vocabulary enthusiast or just love solving word puzzles. Both of these new titles offer something for everyone, whether you consider yourself a traditional gamer or not.”

With Art Academy: Lessons for Everyone!, people of any artistic skill level can learn to unleash their imaginations using varying painting and drawing techniques. The skills learned can be easily transferred to real-life art projects. An in-game tutor guides users through more than 30 new lessons covering numerous concepts, including techniques for paints, pastels, sketch pencils and colored pencils. Each lesson can be completed at users’ own pace and paused for later completion. Art Academy also features Free Paint mode, which encourages users to let their creativity run wild. Players also can take photos using their system’s built-in camera and use those images as the subject of a new drawing. Users can also purchase additional lessons from within the game to further hone their artistic skills. There are two lesson packs available at launch with additional lesson packs available in the future.

Crosswords Plus lets users try to solve more than 1,000 professionally designed different crossword puzzles at a variety of different skill levels. Players use the touch screen to input their answers, and a helpful hint system will give clues or fill in letters when they get stuck. Crosswords Plus also includes word-search and anagram puzzles and a vocabulary-building Word of the Day feature. Additionally, with giant-sized puzzles, players will feel more like they are working through multiple crossword puzzles at a time. Players can also use a broadband Internet connection to access additional puzzles via SpotPass. They can even receive and share puzzles with other Nintendo 3DS owners using the built-in StreetPass feature. In the U.S. and Canada, players can also receive exclusive puzzle distributions from a Nintendo Zone location. Nintendo Zone locations offer a free and automatic connection to Wi-Fi and can be found by visiting http://www.nintendo.com/3ds/nintendozone.

Shoppers can purchase both packaged games as usual at retail locations nationwide. Or they can simply purchase and download the game on their own from the Nintendo eShop using a wireless broadband connection. Regardless of the purchasing method, both Art Academy: Lessons for Everyone! and Crosswords Plus sell at a suggested retail price of $29.99 each. Also, Club Nintendo members who purchase either of these games through the Nintendo eShop and register them before Jan. 6, 2013, will receive a download code for the Donkey Kong: Original Edition game for free. This is a special version of Donkey Kong with content never before seen in the U.S. and is not available for purchase.

Talkback

UncleBobRichard Cook, Guest ContributorOctober 01, 2012

So... is the code for a Wii VC download or a 3DS Download?

PaleMike Gamin, Contributing EditorOctober 01, 2012

Good question UB. Also, if I'm spending 30 bucks just to get DK, which game will I like better?

UncleBobRichard Cook, Guest ContributorOctober 01, 2012

I was planning on getting CrossworDS Plus myself anyway.  I have the original and spent a lot of time with it.

Of course, I wasn't *planning* on taking part in Nintendo's evil digital schemes....

I was also already planning on getting CrossworDS on the eShop, and this only solidifies my decision.

EDIT: Just bought it. It's apparently only 128 blocks in size, which for reference is one less than Shantae: Risky's Revenge on DSiWare.

AVOctober 01, 2012

I'm glad these games are cheaper in price, however I'm not that into either one. I have art academy dsiware and that's fine I don't want to upgrade to this . I'm sort of interested in donkey kong arcade but it seems so random to include this promotion with these games. I would love for dk arcade edition to have online leader boards but that won't happen :( , having updated graphics and music would be awesome sort of like Pacman championship edition or space invaders extreme but again Nintendo is not smart enough to put the extra effort

Art_de_CatOctober 01, 2012

What additional content would we get for DK? The pie factory level? Already seen that!. :P  Though a free* game is still a free game........hmm 30 bucks?? I might could pull that off before deadline.

vidsOctober 01, 2012

At the end of the day I have to ask myself what do these games offer over their predecessors that warrants a price tag of $30. I can see if there was some online multiplayer game or street pass asynchronous gaming for Crosswords Plus OR deep integration with Art Academy & SwapNote (make new stationary?) then I might be interested. As it stands I'd feel like I'm purchasing a $10 - 15 eShop game and $15 - 20 copy of Donkey Kong.

Keep in mind that while Art Academy and Crosswords on DS were $20 games, that the usual price of DS games was $30. The $30 pricing of these games is in line with that, considering the usual price of a 3DS game is $40.

That being said, I still think $20 would be way better for these two games than $30.

UncleBobRichard Cook, Guest ContributorOctober 01, 2012

Quote from: vids

As it stands I'd feel like I'm purchasing a $15 - 20 copy of Donkey Kong.

Sounds like a great deal to me. :D

ejamerOctober 02, 2012

I want the special version of Donkey Kong... but not enough to overpay for games that I only "kinda, sorta" want in a digital format where they can't be loaned/traded/sold later. Sadly, if they were  just $5 or $10 cheaper I'd probably give either game a look. (Part of the problem is that I can still easily get the DS versions for less than $10 in both cases. I know the 3DS games are improved... but exactly how much better are they?)

I know people like  convenience, but I still can't find value in the digital push Nintendo is making. Their insistence in adding bonus items to increase value instead of just lowering prices for digital releases is also  disappointing.

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