Art Style: Rotozoa: Like flOw, but with a point

At Nintendo’s media summit in San Francisco this week, I spent some time with WiiWare title Art Style: Rotozoa. I thought, ‘Hey, this looks like flOw.’ Unlike the PS3 game, this one actually has some challenge involved. You can actually lose this game.

You’re a little protozoa with colored sides, floating in a sort of microscope view of some kind of ooze. You start out with two colored sides, but there will be more as the game progresses. I had a red and yellow side starting out, each with a short tentacle. The point is to float around and pick up more tentacle segments to meet the level’s required length. You pick these segments up by touching that colored side to like colored floating pieces in the ooze. Touch the wrong color with the side and lose a tentacle segment. It’s a very simple concept, but it’s designed in a way that it works out to be pretty challenging as the game progresses.

You play by holding the Wii Remote sideways, using the d-pad to move and the 1 and 2 buttons to spin left or right, respectively. You’re free to move wherever you wish, but you have to be careful not to touch a side to the wrong color. The longer your tentacles get, the easier it is to pick up floating segments that are farther away. Mind you that this also makes it easy to spin or move into a wrong color.

Occasionally, a power up will float by. Pick that up and hold either spin button to spin continuously. Spin uninterrupted for long enough and you’ll become invincible for a bit, leaving you free to spin as much as you want, picking up any floaters you come across. 

Expect to see Rotoza on WiiWare before summer.