Helix springs onto WiiWare

by Candace Savino { May 27th 2008 at 5:00PM }

Ghostfire Games will be releasing a rhythm title for WiiWare this summer, called Helix. You can get a taste of the game from the video above -- there's something mesmerizing about watching the skeleton-like figure dance against the pulsing backdrops. Even so, that's not the main appeal of Helix.

The game, which will offer twenty-six different songs and three different difficulties, uses two Wiimotes to track your hand and arm motions. In that sense, not only is the game meant to be fun, but it also gives the player a nice workout.

Helix will have over thirty moves that you can perform with the Wiimotes, but we're not sure whether the songs will be choreographed or if you can make your own combinations (probably the former). We also appreciate that the music in this WiiWare title comes from independent musicians.

Check out another video of the game in action after the break!

Tags: ghostfire-games, helix, rhythm

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Timdogg @ May 27th 2008 5:22PM

two words...just wierd!

Macroy @ May 27th 2008 5:28PM

I wonder how many blocks this will take up. Answer: ALL OF THEM.

velocitySTRIKE @ May 27th 2008 5:41PM

In a way I wish they'd expand the features a bit and shove it on a disc. I can't see how they'd stick to 43mb with all of those tracks and that crazily complicated character model. Okay, the last part was sarcasm. But seriously, are the songs mono or something?

krunkster @ May 27th 2008 5:58PM

Played a beta today at their offices and it was pretty fun. Got the same feeling playing this that I did when playing DDR for the first time. Only this game is easy to get into.
I think it's a bargain for a WiiWare casual title.

shawn @ May 27th 2008 6:03PM

isnt there a game for 360 called helix? that will confuse people for sure

LeChuck @ May 27th 2008 6:14PM

I think you're thinking of Hexic.

shawn @ May 27th 2008 6:43PM

yesss thats the name of it,my bad

Deozaan @ May 27th 2008 6:07PM

Looks choreographed to me. The skeleton guy is showing the moves to make about a second before they meet up with the indicator.

Which to me seems like it would throw me off, but how else would you know what to do and be able to react to it fast enough to do it in time?

Ghostfire_DRock @ May 27th 2008 10:24PM

Hi all,

I'm one of the game designers from Ghostfire. Glad to see some discussion regarding the game. :)

Now time to answer some questions...

We're not at a final size, but we're hovering right around 40megs for the size of the game. The reason we're able to fit so many songs into the game is because we've encoded them into the .ogg format. When it comes time to make another Helix game, we'll be looking at our original sales and how well we think the market would handle a disc-based version of Helix.

The name Helix was chosen before I came on board, but I believe we'll be able to carry the brand into the future in spite of the 360 title.

Lastly, the moves are choreographed. For future versions of Helix, we're thinking about having a preview move box for easy mode. Think something like the preview box in Tetris.

Thank you all for your comments. Tell your friends about the game!

Sisyphus @ May 27th 2008 11:44PM

Thanks for coming and answering some questions. Any rough estimate on the price of this Wiiware game? Or a release date? Using two Wiimotes is a great idea. I'd love to see a game that made use of two pointers. Having the preview box for Easy mode would be a great way to ease people into the flow of the game.

Ghostfire_DRock @ May 27th 2008 11:56PM

I can't give a 100% answer on the price as Nintendo has the final say on pricing, but we are expecting the price point to be at $10 USD. Our release date also depends on Nintendo. We're wrapping up development over the weekend and we'll be shipping a final build off to the big N for approval. Hopefully their QA department doesn't find any bugs we could have missed. Once we're through that, then Nintendo will give us a WiiWare slot. Given all this information and assuming all goes well, Helix should be available for download before the end of June.

Once we're given the green light and a date by Nintendo, we'll let EVERYONE know. :)