Animal Paradise sniffing its way onto DS

Not one to have missed the popularity of pet sims on Nintendo's handheld, Empire Interactive has just announced its own.

Animal Paradise sees you attempting to becoming best friends with all the animals in the game, meaning you need to feed, brush, wash, walk and play with them. Ensuring they're well looked after and happy, results in your uncle and his assistance being able to take great photos of the creatures.

The shots they take are done in Yoneo Morita's hugely popular Hanadeka style of photography. First things first: Morita is the most famous and enthusiastic pet photographer in Japan. And second: Hanadeka is a catchy way of saying 'big nose' in Japanese, which is one way of describing the visual effect you get when using fisheye lenses, as Morita has a habit of doing for his photos.

So you befriend animals, keep them happy and healthy, take great shots to complete photo albums and engage in a variety of mini-games with names such as Musical (where you appear to have to repeat a sequence of notes), Hide and Seek (in which you must locate a hidden animal within a scene), Footmark (not entirely sure about this one but it would seem to entail following tracks left by a variety of other creatures), Leaf-Burning (which requires you to, er, burn leaves), Shampoo Scrub (wash your pet within a strict time limit), Meal Time (dish out different food depending on each animal's request).

And which animals can you expect to be looking after on the game's virtual farm? Well, there's a selection of dogs (Miniature Deutchhound, Welsh Corgi, Labrador Retriever, Golden Retriever, Shiba, Chihuahua), a couple of cats (American Shorthair, Russian Blue), rabbits (Netherland Dwarf, Lop-Ear), and hamsters (Golden, Jangalian), as well as a miniature pig, a horse, squirrel, chick, chicken and a duck.

Animal Paradise is scheduled for a November release.