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DS rune battler Doodle Hex confirmed for June

Let's hope your stylus skills are up to it

DS rune battler Doodle Hex confirmed for June
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DS
| Doodle Hex

Last year Pinnacle Software announced it was working on a new DS game called Doodle Hex, an anime-styled game that would have you drawing runes on the DS touchscreen to summon spells on your opponent. A bit like Harry Potter, albeit with a stylus instead of a fancy Phoenix-feather wand.

Now the publisher has confirmed the game will be ready for release worldwide this June. So you only have a few months to get your wand drawing skills at the ready.

The game takes place with a special College of Runes, and pits you – the doodler, as you're known in-game – against other students. In battle, drawing the various different runes transforms, weakens or just attacks your opponent, and also grants you shields, counter moves or extra health. Your overall goal is simply to deplete your opponent's energy bar before they do it to you.

Instead of being turn-based, as you might think, you can attack as many times as you like. So the quicker you can sketch out those rune shapes, the better.

In single-player there are over 250 challenges, 14 characters to choose from (each with unique specialist rune knowledge) and a roster of increasingly tough students to face up to. There's also a multiplayer mode where two players can go head-to-head.

It's sounding pretty unique, in a sort of part puzzler, part strategic scrapper kind of way. We'll see this summer if Doodle Hex can succeed in fulfilling our wizardry needs in a manner the last Harry Potter failed to do.

Kath Brice
Kath Brice
Kath gave up a job working with animals five years ago to join the world of video game journalism, which now sees her running our DS section. With so many male work colleagues, many have asked if she notices any difference.