Killer 7 producer making Nintendo DS game

Gouichi Suda, best known as the director of Capcom's Killer 7, is making a new role-playing game for the Nintendo DS. Titled Contact, the game is slated for release in Japan in February 2006. Contact will be produced by Suda and directed by Akira Ueda, best known for Sega's Shining Soul series. The game will be developed by his studio, Grasshopper, and published by Marvelous Interactive.

While games by Suda usually have a dark, underground atmosphere to them, Contact has a lighter vibe, somewhat resembling Nintendo's Earthbound. The top screen features a professor who has crash-landed on a planet that resembles Earth. In order to resume his voyage, he needs to recover the pieces of his spaceship's power source, which scattered across the planet as it entered the atmosphere.

The professor enlists a local boy named Cherry to help, but the boy promptly disappears. As a last resort, the professor asks the player of the game to act as a go-between for Cherry and himself. Players will receive instructions from the professor on the DS's top screen, and move Cherry around the bottom screen using the stylus. Standing in the professor's way is a terrorist named Mint, who wants the power source for himself.

When Cherry gets to know the professor in the beginning of the game, he also picks up stickers. These can be used for different kinds of effects in the game, including powering up Cherry or attacking opponents. Another feature in Contact is costume collecting. By wearing various outfits, Cherry can use skills corresponding to them, including chef, pilot, fisherman, and firefighter.