So you can apparently ride a dinosaur in LEGO City: Undercover… that’s impressive.

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Nintendo has experienced an amazing turnaround in the indie scene within the span of just a few years.

No one will forget how atrocious the Wii Shop Channel was. Developers were forced to put up with limits, the store itself was limited, and at the time, Nintendo maintained an overall poor image with smaller studios.

That has all changed with the 3DS and Wii U eShops. Even a developer like Vblank Entertainment – a studio that will release the last high-profile Wii Shop Channel game in Retro City Rampage – has a high opinion of Nintendo when it comes to indies.

In a tweet yesterday, Vlbank’s Brian Provinciano wrote:

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The Wii U eShop is gaining yet another indie title. Another Castle, a 2D platformer with randomly generated levels, is coming to Nintendo’s console.

David Byers is Another Castle’s sole developer. His past work includes Kid Vector, Love Me Not, Blast Soccer, and Haunted Hallway for iOS and Android.

Speaking about the game’s development and how Another Castle wound up on Wii U, Byers explained:

Uncade right now is basically just me. I’m based in Richmond, Virginia. Part of the reason I named my company Uncade, as in “unlike an arcade”, is that we are in a period of great disruption in the game industry right now. Everything from motion controls, digital distribution, smart phones, fantastic middleware, and the rise of indie development are shaking up what’s possible, even for just a solo developer such as myself.

I’m really excited to be working on the Wii U, and am especially looking forward to coming up with some funky uses for the tablet controller.

With the development for Another Castle I decided to switch things up. Instead of making a small mobile focused title, I decided to work on a larger game where I would release as early as I can for free, and iteratively improve the game, eventually getting to a saleable alpha and then full release.

Emily Rogers ended up playing the prototype and got in touch, asking if I would like to get the game on the eShop. I of course said yes, because I think Another Castle on the eShop should be a slam dunk, it’s something I think Nintendo fans in particular will really enjoy. I spent some time improving the prototype, and Emily then got me in touch with Dan [Adelman] at Nintendo, and I was just approved as a Wii U developer yesterday. The eShop seems pretty indie friendly from what I’ve seen so far, the most important thing for me being the ability to add post release content updates.

Byers has launched a Kickstarter for Another Castle here. He’s looking to raise $12,000 by March 29.

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The latest Japanese hardware sales from Media Create are as follows:

3DS LL – 49,317
3DS – 25,412
PS3 – 18,529
Vita – 11,456
Wii U – 9,633
PSP – 8,981
Wii – 1,317
Xbox 360 – 473

For comparison’s sake, here are the hardware numbers from last week:

3DS LL – 66,139
3DS – 31,832
PS3 – 16,934
Wii U – 10,744
PSP – 10,501
Vita – 8,044
Wii – 1,655
Xbox 360 – 506

The Wii U eShop already offers a number of strong indie games including Nano Assault Neo, Mighty Switch Force! HD, and Trine 2: Director’s Cut. This is just the start of support for the digital store. Other titles such as Toki Tori 2, Mutant Mudds Deluxe, Cloudberry Kingdom, and Pokemon Scramble U are on the way.

Well over 20 projects are in store for the Wii U eShop. A near-final listing of upcoming games is posted below.

8 Bit Boy (Awesomeblade Software)
Aban Hawkins & the 1001 Spikes (Nicalis)
Anima: Gate of Memories (Anima Project Studio)
Armillo (Fuzzy Wuzzy Games)
Biker Bash (Slightly Mad Studios)
Cloudberry Kingdom (Pwnee Studios)
Cosmic Highway (Maestro Interactive Games)
Cryamore (NostalgiCO)
Days of Dawn (Bumblebee Games)
Dusty Raging Fist (PD Design Studio)
Fade into Darkness (Maestro Interactive Games)
Mutant Mudds Deluxe (Renegade Kid)
Noctemis (Lacuna Entertainment)
Oliver and Spike: Dimension Jumpers (Rock Pocket Games)
Pier Solar and the Great Architects HD (Watermelon Co.)
Pokemon Scramble U (Nintendo)
Project Y2K (Ackkstudios)
Scram Kitty and his Buddy on Rails (Dakko Dakko)
Spin the Bottle (KnapNok Games)
Star Beast: The Stellar War (Pixel Entertainment)
Super Ubi Land (Notion Games)
The Pinball Arcade (Farsight Studios)
The 90’s Arcade Racer (Nicalis)
Toki Tori 2 (Two Tribes)
Two Brothers (Ackkstudios)
Unepic (Enjoy Up Games)
Zen Pinball 2 (Zen Studios)

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Update: These colors are for the original 3DS. Sorry for the confusion!

Two new 3DS color variations are making their way to Japan. On March 20, the country will be receiving the “Light Blue” and “Gloss Pink” hardware models. Each will be available for 15,000 yen.

Thus far, all Japanese 3DS systems have come with a 2GB SD card. Nintendo will be packing in a 4GB card for the Light Blue and Gloss Pink releases.

A couple of photos of the new colors are posted above.

LEGO City: Undercover will have a lot for players to see and do. Executive producer Loz Doyle estimates that it’ll take players 40-50 hours to complete everything.

There are so many vehicles, characters and missions. There’s so much content in the game already – you’re talking 40-50 hours to get 100%, it’s difficult to imagine what we could put in. We wouldn’t rule it out, but it’d have to be the right thing to fit with the rest of the game.

…Initially in the San Francisco area at the start of the game you’re really focused on the story, but as you get more abilities you’ll see things that had locked icons before that you couldn’t use, and now you can. That’ll encourage you to explore and use those different game mechanics and abilities.

LEGO City truly packs in a massive amount of content. Players will be able to ride many different vehicles, collect different items, take advantage of an array of costumes, and more.

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