Items14The creator’s order
  1. 1Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles - My Life as a King (2008)Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles - My Life as a King (2008) 7.0/10 on IGDBReleased Mar 25, 2008Square Enix used WiiWare to try a small kingdom-building game under the Final Fantasy name. You’re the young king who builds homes and sends adventurers on assignments. It’s an early example of a big role-playing series trying an idea on a different scale through a launch download.0
  2. 2Star Soldier R (2008)Star Soldier R (2008)Released Apr 25, 2008Hudson made the whole WiiWare release about chasing a score on a two- or five-minute timer. Those tight limits make each run about leaving yourself a better line through the next wave. A shop selling individual downloads had room for a shooter built around the arcade score attack alone.0
  3. 3LostWinds (2008)LostWinds (2008) 7.1/10 on IGDBReleased May 12, 2008Frontier financed and published its own WiiWare launch game. You use the Wii Remote to draw gusts that lift Toku across gaps and shape his route through the landscape. It’s a clear example of a studio bringing a focused new idea to a console under its own name.0
  4. 4Strong Bad Episode 1: Homestar Ruiner (2008)Strong Bad Episode 1: Homestar Ruiner (2008)Released Aug 11, 2008Telltale launched its five-part Strong Bad adventure on WiiWare and PC, with Homestar Ruiner as the first separate purchase. Its story begins with a prank that leaves Strong Bad stuck with an unwanted houseguest. Think of it as a console adventure that arrived like a season of the web cartoon it…0
  5. 5Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest for Booty (2008)Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest for Booty (2008) 7.0/10 on IGDBReleased Aug 21, 2008Insomniac made this short pirate adventure a separate download between larger Ratchet & Clank games. It picks up Ratchet’s search for Clank and uses the wrench for puzzles as well as combat. The original $14.99 download offered a chapter of an established console series at a different scale and…0
  6. 6CarneyVale Showtime (2010)CarneyVale Showtime (2010)Released Oct 18, 2010A Singapore-MIT game lab team won Microsoft’s Dream-Build-Play contest, then released this vertical circus platformer on Xbox Live Community Games. You launch a ragdoll acrobat from a cannon and try to meet the arena’s stunt objectives. The route from a training lab to the Xbox 360 store is as…0
  7. 7Flower (2009)Flower (2009) 7.4/10 on IGDBReleased Feb 12, 2009Sony’s PlayStation Network sold an unusual kind of game by thatgamecompany for $9.99 at launch. You tilt the PS3 controller to direct the wind, gather petals, and watch each place change as you pass. As a download it sat alongside conventional games even though movement and atmosphere were the draw.0
  8. 8Mighty Flip Champs! (2009)Mighty Flip Champs! (2009) 8.3/10 on IGDBReleased Jun 1, 2009WayForward used DSiWare to publish its own puzzle game built around two handheld screens. Each screen shows a different page of a maze. Flipping changes the map Alta occupies, so the other screen tells you where the next move can land. It’s a compact new game tied to the hardware people already…0
  9. 9Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition (2012)Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition (2012) 8.1/10 on IGDBReleased May 9, 2012Minecraft’s first console edition arrived on Xbox Live Arcade. The couch-friendly port kept building and surviving at its center, and Microsoft reported that it set the service’s opening-day sales record. It’s the other side of the download story: a game that could draw a huge console audience…0
  10. 10Tokyo Jungle (2012)Tokyo Jungle (2012) 7.3/10 on IGDBReleased Jun 7, 2012Sony brought this Japanese PS3 game to North America as a download. Picking an animal and trying to survive in an empty Tokyo was an unusual pitch for a console game. The North American release shows how a game that had already come out in one market could get a different route to players overseas.0