The DS Life is a weekly feature in which we scour the known world for narrative images of Nintendo's handhelds and handheld gamers. If you have a photo and a story to match it with, send both to thedslife at dsfanboy dot com.
This week's photograph hails from La Palma, one of the seven Canary Islands off the Northwestern coast of Morocco and Western Sahara. But really, this shot of children playing outside could've been taken in almost any neighborhood in any DS-populated country.
Of all the characters in Animal Crossing Wild World, we always felt closest to guitar-wielding dog and Roost regular K. K. Slider. It could be his tuneful, oddly wistful singing voice, or even his social awareness, but we know one thing: we now look forward to each and every Saturday night, when K.K. comes to town to entertain us, his adoring fans.
Now we can pay tribute with our heads, thanks to this fine K.K. Slider hat, which has been lovingly crafted by Etsy user Penguinotic from white fleece and felt. The $20 price tag means that it will cost you about $20 more than K.K.'s music, but we think there's just enough of the northern winter left to justify this.
Every week it seems like we show you some sort of Space Invaders or Pac-Man themed memorabilia. We don't know why it's so hard to let go of these characters from the arcade days of yore, but it is -- so we won't.
Neither will crafter Pardalote, who makes adorable beaded Invaders jewelry like the earrings shown above. The best news is, the earrings and necklaces are reasonably priced, especially for handmade items. You can see for yourself at the Australian's Etsy store here.
Do any of you geekettes out there like these, too? Or is this blogger just blinded by her love for all things Space Invaders?
While this is a yellow Pikachu DS Lite, it's not theyellow Pikachu DS Lite. But unlike that other one, this custom job from viper640_0 gives you assurance that the Pokémon featured on the top is in fact Pikachu, and not some biter. Only trust verified Pokémon art on your consoles!
We must admit that the little Pikachu is cute, and that the gold-and-black DS combination is a lot better than some custom paint jobs. We just didn't necessarily need the huge caption. Oh, wait, maybe this is Pikachu's DS, lost in POWER SELLER VILLAGE! We should buy it and return it to him.
This cryptic letter landed in the inboxes of Nintendo fans up and down the land, ahead of Professor Layton and the Curious Village's release on February 10th. We're only really posting this because we appreciate when a company puts a bit of thought into promoting its game, and this isn't the first time we've been charmed by promotional material for Level 5's adventure game.
Professor, we look forward to reading your future correspondence, to helping you unravel the many riddles of St. Mystere, and to enduring your quasi-British accent!
A crafter going by the nom-de-Etsy cyberhadji has created some incredible original Mario character art, and printed it onto (scans of) thematically appropriate vintage book pages. The effect is convincing enough, but by using photo paper instead of actual book pages, he is able to create non-fading images. The print-over-book-page technique elevates what would be lovely fan art to art, we think.
In addition to the Bloober pictured above, cyberhadji has created a Frog Mario, a Baby Mario, a Lakitu, and a Cheep Cheep. There's also a wonderful series of Katamari Damacy prints that, regrettably, aren't appropriate for display on a DS blog (what with there not being a Katamari game and all.) These are perfect for the "vaguely classy but still totally nerdy" look we're all trying to pull off in our homes.
Uh-oh. You see, this is exactly why we should never be let loose on the streets of Japan with pocket money to spare -- yes, it's yetmorePokémontat that we desperately crave, but will probably never own. These 3D jigsaw puzzles of Pikachu and Piplup will set you back a modest ¥2,100 (just shy of $20), and are constructed from sixty pieces each. If anybody finds an importer who can get these to us, you know where the comments field is.
Lwelyk, the Lego mosaicist (mosaician?) behind some truly excellent Nintendo block art, has posted his latest masterpiece, a large-scale model of Metroid's final-boss-in-a-jar. This Mother Brain is "about the size of (Lwelyk's) torso" and took "four or five hours." We can only imagine that part of that time was spent shooting little flying rings so he could get back up on the tiny platform on which he was building the sculpture.
Can you imagine how upsetting it would be to walk in and see something like this, especially if you weren't familiar with Metroid? Or, even worse, to wake up in the middle of the night and see this ... mass ... in your house?
The DS Life is a weekly feature in which we scour the known world for narrative images of Nintendo's handhelds and handheld gamers. If you have a photo and a story to match it with, send both to thedslife at dsfanboy dot com.
"And because they had once written themselves a beach, on which to dream themselves together, they decided that to celebrate they'd have another one of their rare days, and for it, they would go to a beach." - Looper, "Impossible Things"
This item up for auction on eBay is purportedly a cast of a Nintendo reference model for Mario, used to make sure that all depictions of the character are consistent. However it looks slightly off-model to us. Mario's appearance has changed many times over the years, and this piece doesn't quite seem consistent with any of them.
If this is really what the seller says it is, it's an amazing and unique collectible that represents an ideal Mario. If not, it's ... actually still a pretty neat Mario statue, though it has a busted arm. That would probably be easy enough to fix.
Also found on GameSniped today: a cotton candy machine made by a pre-video-game Nintendo.
Quick, call your mom, your sister, whomever has the baking skills in your life. Tell them that they have a difficult task ahead. You desire some cupcakes that compare to the look and, we're fairly certain, the delicious taste of these treats presented above.
Well, maybe we just desire some, but what's good for us is good for you, right?
It turns out people are big fans of Advance Wars. How do we know? Well, folks don't just hang around in the bitter cold for nothing, and from the massive line outside of the Nintendo World store in New York, we're guessing people might have been a little enthusiastic.
As a parent-to-be (in less than a month!) and a dedicated gamer, this blogger is often faced with a dark dilemma. How to subtly work in gaming influences on the spawnling without pushing a love for things like sprites, whips, and black mages too hard? Trust Square Enix to find a way to make that a little bit easier with this completely adorable rubber ducky that is not, in fact, a duck at all -- but rather, a chocobo. Not just any old chocobo, either, but a fat little baby chocobo that is just perfect for fat little baby hands.
The chocobos, which release in April, are a little costly for a bath toy at $13.50 apiece, but it may be worth the premium to snag the perfect tub companion. You can bet there's going to be one in this house.
A hat like this might give Mario nightmares, but we're certainly fans. It's one of those ideas that seems so perfect, we're surprised we didn't think of it first. Made by the Knitting Ninja, this wonderful knit hat will make you look like a badass while keeping you warm. According to the Ninja herself, the hat is "a Chomp that has happily broken free of its chain, only to latch itself onto an unsuspecting gamer's head."
If you'd like this chomp to rest on your head, fear not; the Knitting Ninja has plans to start selling them. You just have to watch her blog and hope you're able to snatch one up when they become available.
Every time we go to Craftster to look at this latest Nintendo quilt, we temporarily get distracted by the creator's choice of username: "iddosteveperry." How great is that? You'd have to make a hell of a quilt to outshine a username like that.
We don't know if this Bowser-centric quilt manages to be more awesome than a pseudonymous admission of casual attraction to the ex-Journey frontman, but it's a pretty neat quilt. It's well-done, especially for a first quilt, very colorful, and features the Super Mario Bros.-era Bowser sprite! Quilt: we kinda like you, baby.
While this is a yellow Pikachu DS Lite, it's not the yellow Pikachu DS Lite. But unlike that other one, this custom job from viper640_0 gives you assurance that the Pokémon featured on the top is in fact Pikachu, and not some biter. Only trust verified Pokémon art on your consoles!
This item up for auction on eBay is purportedly a cast of a Nintendo reference model for Mario, used to make sure that all depictions of the character are consistent. However it looks slightly off-model to us. Mario's appearance has changed many times over the years, and this piece doesn't quite seem consistent with any of them.
As a parent-to-be (in less than a month!) and a dedicated gamer, this blogger is often faced with a dark dilemma. How to subtly work in gaming influences on the spawnling without pushing a love for things like sprites, whips, and black mages too hard? Trust Square Enix to find a way to make that a little bit easier with this completely adorable rubber ducky that is not, in fact, a duck at all -- but rather, a chocobo. Not just any old chocobo, either, but a fat little baby chocobo that is just perfect for fat little baby hands.
A hat like this might give Mario nightmares, but we're certainly fans. It's one of those ideas that seems so perfect, we're surprised we didn't think of it first. Made by the Knitting Ninja, this wonderful knit hat will make you look like a badass while keeping you warm. According to the Ninja herself, the hat is "a Chomp that has happily broken free of its chain, only to latch itself onto an unsuspecting gamer's head."
