WarioWare D.I.Y. - Design Challenge #11 (America) - Cute

That's right, only one part this time. The Design Challenge is less than 18 microgames in size for this one, so I could fit it all into one shelf. Now, concepts of "cute" between America and Japan are quite different, and definitely less widespread here as we don't have a "kawaii culture." On top of that, you usually need some artistic ability to make something look genuinely cute without going over the top, so quite often, we're going to end up in uncanny valley. Let's begin, shall we?

1. "Feed meDemon" from dragon* - While the microgame itself plays solidly, the rest of it is all over the place. Here, you can see the obvious speech balloon placed over the last one, lots of spelling mistakes, and a strange logical oversight in what he says. (Either that or he's fickle.) By the way, that's a bowl of noodles up there, not a salad.

2. "Baby Bumble" from 123James - He makes his way into a lot of these contests. You can tell by his very distinctive art style. And they're just as good as ever.

3. "Bunny" from Jamie CO. - Here's an example of the heavy-handedness when someone is not an experienced artist: Big roundeyes full of white spotlight reflections, a small blank smile, and a strange jitteriness to the movement. I don't blame Jamie for this, because making genuine "cute" is hard.

4. "KittenQuest" from AW13P - You can see the same circular eyes on the cat in this one too. Strangely, you need to get rid of all of the pieces of the wall before thecat can get to land.

5. "Frog Hop" from Holden - Probably not Holden Caulfield from Catcher in the Rye, as this is way too cheerful. But...why is the frog's face full of flies?

6. "Ballon (sic) pop'n" from Rory - It's a pair of Kirbies! Nah, it's just two more Kirby knockoffs. They're quite easy to draw, which I guess is a large part of the appeal of drawing Kirby.

7. "Cute clothes" from Blue rock - This is genuine cute--large forehead, innocent charm (though she does have a bit of that "bad girl" in her in those eyes), large irises while still showing the whites, a reasonable amount of eye shine, large head, and the potential to convey a wide number of expressions. Clearly, Blue rock has drawn a lot in the past. The microgame itself is not that hard to clear, as you only need to pick one clothing item from each set, but interestingly, everything matches up with each other. Those petals falling at the end likely took more time to make than the rest of the microgame.

8. "Eye Am Cute!" from Richard - And if one is not sure how to do cute properly, or like a typical American boy, if one doesn't want to do cute, the alternative is to parody it. That works.

9. "Protection" from Genius - Not protecting someone from a genius or protecting someone from becoming a genius, but it's what the author calls him or herself. I don't know what those are you're defending, but they seem kind of oblivious that they're being attacked.

10. "PuckerPedals" from Ames - You have it wrong, Ames--you're plucking "petals." Pedals are those things you push with your feet to make a bicycle or a car go. (Among other vehicles.)

11. "Yoshi's Path" from CF - Nice job making it look authentically Yoshi. The sprites were copied over, but the background is entirely original. I'm impressed. There is too much clutter, however. It's hard to understand what you're supposed to do.

12. "Fish Tales" from Erin - For some reason, I thought of the new cartoon "Fish Hooks." Nah, you're supposed to figure out which is different. It would've been better if you could click the cards instead of the tiny check box though.

13. "Nom Twins" from Red - This is a direct copy of the Kat & Ana microgame, the only things different being a color switch and the addition of clothes to these two. Skip to the end of this video to see that microgame itself.

14. "Cute contest" from Corn cake - The controls here are somewhat misleading. I thought you were supposed to click on the silhouette, but you're supposed to click when the announcer passes in front of it. That's how it's done, if it looks confusing to you.

15. "Autumn Wind" from Will - I think this microgame is one contest late. I do like the ragtime playing though. Goes well with the turn-of-the-century fedora.