Let's Tap Updated Hands-On

Wii party games may be 10-a-penny, but when Yuji Naka gets involved, it's time to take notice. The legendary creator of Sonic, Nights, and Phantasy Star Online split off from Sega to form his own independent company called Prope in 2006, based on the Latin word for "beside" or "near." It's this meaning that Naka-san holds as the mantra for his upcoming game Let's Tap, which he claims will bring players closer to the game experience than ever before.

Let's Tap is played by placing the Wii Remote on a cardboard box--such as a box of tissues-- and then tapping the edge of the box to play. The vibrations are interpreted by the motion sensor inside the remote, letting you tap at different speeds and at different pressures for various actions in the game. It's a novel but fun way to interact with the Wii, and though our arms were slightly sore after prolonged play, we found it to be relaxing, almost like playing the bongos.

The finished game will feature five game modes, and we got to play two of them during our preview. The first is called Tap Runner, a game in which up to four people each guide a running man through an obstacle course. The idea is to alternate taps between your left and right index finger to make your guy run, with faster taps unleashing short bursts of speed. You can also jump by making a quick, sharp tap, which lets you clear obstacles such as hurdles and electric balls, as well as grab swinging ropes. The control system works well for this minigame, although the jumping can feel a bit imprecise.

The second game that we played was called Tower Blocks, and we liked it even more. It's essentially a cross between Jenga and a puzzle game such as Columns; you have to pull out red- and blue-coloured blocks without toppling the pile, and lining up three of the same colour creates special pieces. For example, you line up three standard colours for a bronze piece, then three bronze pieces for a silver, and so on, with higher difficulty levels requiring ever more combinations of precious materials. The game automatically moves a cursor up or down to select blocks, and you tap on the tissue box to stop on the block. From there, you tap again to choose the angle you want to knock it out on, and then tap again a few times to knock it out.

Tower Blocks is incredibly addictive, even if you sometimes struggle to do what you actually want. We frequently missed the block that we wanted to select, or hit it out at the wrong angle, or simply misjudged how much our tower was leaning. If anything, though, this is what makes the game so competitive, especially when you're up against someone struggling to do exactly the same thing next to you. Trying to combine the gold medals at the highest difficult level is incredibly tough, especially because toppling your tower resets you back to nothing--which we managed to do twice with only one piece to go.

In addition to the games that we played, we got to see two more in video form. Visualiser does exactly what it says on the tin, offering you the chance to play around with basic interactive screen savers such as fish tanks filled with clown fish. The other, called Bubble Voyager, looks like a side-scrolling action game, although we were unable to tell from Sega's presentation how it was controlled. The whole package is gifted with a great visual aesthetic, and Tap Runner in particular wowed us with its Tron-esque design.

Naka-san says that he's tried to make the game as accessible as possible for a younger market, but it's clear that there's a lot here for more-seasoned gamers to enjoy. We only had the chance to play the game in two-player mode during our preview, but the full game will offer four-player support as long as you have four Wii Remotes (and four tissue boxes, too). The Japanese release will come with the requisite boxes, though Naka-san believes that the US and European ones will not. We'll be readying our boxes of Kleenex in preparation for the game's release later in the year.