I'm not sure if I've ever won? I think so - I've played a fair number of games.
I had stopped for a while and then went back just for a "quick game" and whoah! There had been a major update that added an island you can travel to - and there there's a whole new economy thing to get going. It's sort of like playing the game 2/3ds and then starting over in a new place, which was strange and weird and, while I was excited and surprised, I'm not sure it contributes to the overall game experience. It felt like starting over in a precarious position and then I died and the whole thing felt like a bit of a waste of time...
It's a collection of mini-games, which is fine. And it's probably better played with more people (I guess). But...
(a) The mini-games are mostly fun and neat, and creative, and kind of wild (some of them more than others, of course).
But, it's the game's core loop that seems a bit of a mess to me. The game is basically a giant board - and you need to get to a specific spot there before the rabbid does. You get "moves" from success in the mini-game. Maximum is four. Each time you get to the specific spot you decrease a counter by 10, when it hits zero you win. (and move on to the next level, which is basically the same thing - but with a higher starting number on the counter).
So, the loop is kind of boring and predictable and while you can see yourself making progress it's exactly the same every time. AND, to make things worse there's a lot of waiting around and extra steps (clicks) before you get back into a mini-game. So, the core loop feels like it's got too many animations you can't skip (and watch over and over) extra buttons to press - when you just want to get back into the next mini-game.
I was pleasantly surprised by the audio though - there are some mini-games with DJ music that's pretty good!
The minigames? All of them are heavily touch screen based, which is fun.
Two things I was reminded of by playing this game:
(1) Nintendo was really pushing the Touch part of the 2nd screen as an important part in getting the message out about the DS. This game has an example of that in the little "Touch Generations" logo on the bottom left of the front cover. More broadly I think this might have been part of their move towards having what we would probably now call "apps" on the DS in addition to "regular games" for kids and all that. I think the most notable one would be "Brain Age" that had sequels and more...but was basically a collection of mini-games, all serious looking, designed to help you with your cognitive abililites. This game is basically "Brain Age" - with the special feature that it's not about straight up cognitive abilities, but rather visual acuity. So, most of the game have you seeing stuff quickly you then need to react to (e.g. see a number flashed briefly on screen, and then type in the number)
(2) The streak! So, the idea is that you do your activity every day, and get a stamp on the calendar as an indicator! So, it's like a completion streak - the sort of thing that went on to become a big part of the gamification movement and is now famously a part of the Duolingo language learning app. I wonder if the streak stuff started with Brain Age?
I think I might have played another game in this series - and, I think again, I struggled with the "collecting evidence" part of the first mission. Here I had to dip a swab (success), then swipe it on an area to collect evidence (success?), and then, invariably, the swab breaks - too much pressure it says, and I fail. I tried for 5 minutes or so (for an interaction that only takes a few seconds) and just gave up.
Did the game seem interesting? Yes! Collecting evidence, talking to witnesses, and so on. It looks like a full-fledged "police detective" game with all the trappings. But the interface let me down here.
