EA announces MySims Kingdom for DS

The Sims in its original guise of home building and regular toilet visits has been a worldwide phenomenon. Frankly, EA should be treating the series' creator Will Wright like a king, possibly giving him his own servants and Sims-style money tree for his office.

Its realism and adult appeal, though, was never going to be as well suited to DS as it is to PC, which is why EA last year came up with MySims to go alongside the Sims Stories games released for the console. Instead of just streamlining the Sims experience, MySims reinvented it in a cutesy, Animal Crossing style guise, presumably in an attempt to appeal to new audiences - both younger ones and ones who prefer the open-ended, design side of The Sims as opposed to its unrelenting realism and those aforementioned trips to the toilet.

And it looks like the approach has been a success, because EA has just announced the next MySims game in the series, MySims Kingdom.

This time around, instead of attracting new characters to your Sim town, you're plonked in a whole kingdom with the goal of improving and beautifying it to please King Roland. Make his subjects happy by giving them houses, bridges and electricity and you'll persuade his highness that your island is the ultimate royal destination, free from pesky evil-doers.

As well as building and designing items for your kingdom, new mini-games and activities include kayaking, ski jumping and even populating the town zoo. EA describes the whole thing as a story-telling journey of discovery and exploration and the screenshots (above) show it looking as cute and colourful as before, and populated by a suitably bonkers assortment of characters with whom to converse.

More details will no doubt be springing up over the next few months, so click 'Track It!' to be kept up to date with the latest Sims outing. The game is due for release exclusively on DS and Wii in autumn.