Five new homebrew games for DS

We hope you enjoyed the Easter holiday as much as we did. Ours consisted of nothing more than eating chocolate eggs until we were sick and playing games. Games, games and nothing but games.

As a result there's no hardware in the DS Homebrew Review this month, and no homebrew applications – just the very best games we could find. (Scroll down after this link to see our previous columns if you're new to our Homebrew Review, or see the first Review or our relevant How To if you're brand new to homebrew fullstop).

Warcraft Tower Defense

World of Warcraft may the one of the popular video games around at the moment, but there are many gamers out there who are desperate to see the series return to its real-time strategy roots.

While the success of its massively multiplayer online incarnation may mean an official new strategy game is some way off, Warcraft fans can at least enjoy the homebrew equivalents that have surfaced in its absence.

Though it plays differently to the original PC games, Warcraft Tower Defense on DS is based on a game type that emerged from them. Players must build defensive towers around the map to kill the enemies that appear. Doing so increases gold supplies and enables more towers to be built, ready to take on the next wave of enemies. Allow too many of the latter to reach their goal and it's game over.

There's a wide variety of towers available, each with unique abilities, and each map can have its own custom rules that can drastically change how the game plays. Additional maps can be downloaded from the developer's website, and if you're feeling creative you can use the map editor to make your own on your PC and use them in the game.

This is a really solid strategy game that's worthy of anyone's time. Hopefully the multiplayer options, teasingly greyed out on the title screen, will be unlocked in a not too distant update. Find out more about Warcraft Tower Defense here.

Blubb 3D

Speaking of strategy games, it's probably fair to say that the Advance Wars series is the king of that genre in the portable realm. And while Blubb 3D appears to be more like the classic nautical strategy game battleships, it actually has a lot in common with Nintendo's classic.

The main similarities are that each of the ships have unique abilities, such as their movement distance and strength, and that both player and enemy ships are on the same grid.

Players take turns in either moving their ships or attacking an adjacent space, hoping to land a hit on the enemy. As the ships are not static, tracking down enemies can be quite tricky; their position is only revealed by observing their attacks and by using special weapons that reveal if there is an enemy adjacent to the subsequent strike. The game even has online and local multiplayer options, which only require one DS to play.

While it's a relatively simple game to explain, there's a surprising level of depth to Blubb DS. If you're looking for something a little less daunting than Advance Wars or Warcraft Tower Defence, this might just be the strategy game for you.

Blubb DS can be downloaded from Area-DS.

Word Up

We love a good falling block puzzle game, and when you've played a lot of them it's extra exciting to see a new variation on the old formula.

Coming across like a cross between ZooKeeper and Boggle, Word Up gives you a grid of lettered boxes that you must clear by connecting blocks to spell out words of three or more letters.

The rest is standard block clearing fare, with bombs and multipliers at your disposal to help rack up the points and avoid filling the screen, but the fact that it's testing your vocabulary as well as your reactions and observation skills make it a unique experience.

Word Up is lacking multiplayer at the moment, but as a single player puzzle game we think it's up there with the best. Find out more here.

Everlasting Love

Don't let the monkey in the screen fool you. The cute name and the downright adorable original Game Boy graphics are simply a front for one of the most tricky homebrew games we've played. And yet we can't stop playing.

On the surface it appears to be a simple platformer, but there's a slight twist. The height of your jump is determined by how close you match your button presses to the rhythm set by the game's music and the nodding of the monkey's head. The more accurate you are, the higher the monkey jumps.

It sounds simple, but avoiding the various dangers throughout the level can be very difficult. Luckily the game puts you back to where you were just before you died, so it's not too frustrating when you do go to monkey heaven.

We don't know if it's the catchy music (this version uses a song from the recently-released Wii outing of Wario Ware) or the simple yet appealing graphics, but there's something about Everlasting Love that really captured our attention. It's probably the monkey.

The latest version can be downloaded here.

War of the Weeds

Nobody likes weeds. They look horrible, pop up everywhere and are a pain to get rid of. It seems odd then that someone would chose to use them as the star of a game, but that's exactly what the creator of War of the Weeds has done.

It's actually far more sedate than the title would suggest, since the weeds merely take the place of pieces in a number of popular puzzle and board games. These include versions of classics such as attax, reversi and picross, the latter of which happens to be our all-time favourite logic puzzle game.

With nine games, three of which can be played in multiplayer, this is quite a package. It's a bit rough around the edges, with things like being able to save your score seemingly absent and minor control issues apparent in some of the games, but it's otherwise one of the most comprehensive homebrew puzzle game compilations we've seen.

You can download the latest version of War of the Weeds at DC-Emu.

Phew, now that's a lot of games – certainly enough to keep you going for another month. Click the 'Track It!' button for an email reminder when we next stop playing and start typing. Until then, happy DS homebrewing!

Don't forget to check out our other DS homebrew articles!