By Andrew Liszewski

If you’re old enough to remember the cassette drive for the Commodore 64, you might find this interesting. Bangai-O Spirits for the Nintendo DS is a mix between a Nanostray-like shooter, and a 2D platformer. The game includes a robust level editor that not only allows you to modify the included levels, but also make your own from scratch.

But what’s the fun of making your own levels if you can’t share them with other players? D3, who developed the game, obviously agrees. But instead of using the Nintendo DS’s wifi connection to share level data, the game actually saves them as sound files. So to share a level with a friend you simply need to hold the DS’s mic to the speakers on the other DS and play back the file. But what if none of your local friends have the game? Well that’s where this gets even more interesting, since players have been posting YouTube videos of their save game sound files. So to download the level to your own DS, you simply need to hold the mic near your computer’s speakers. I’ve included a video sample of someone downloading a level to their DS, and it pretty much sounds like what you’d expect.

Unfortunately the game is only available in Japan, and as far as I know there are no plans to bring it to North America. However you can import it from online stores like Play-Asia for about $50.

[ Bangai-O Spirits uses the world’s best level-sharing network ] VIA [ ALBOTAS ]

Gaming, Unusual