It's been available in Japan for ages, but soon UK gamers are going to get their creative fingers on Flipnote Studio, a cool little animation application for the Nintendi DSi. On August 14, it'll be downloadable from the DSiWare for nothing!
Flipnote Studio allows you to draw a series of up to 140 pictures, which can then be animated like a simple flipbook. You can even import photos as black and white images from the DSi Camera Album as well as sound effects via the microphone. A pen, eraser and paint brush provide the basic tools with layering, shrinking and enlarging available for more advanced users. Your creations can then be shared with friends either by saving to SD card or swapping via the Wireless Communication feature.
There's also a dedicated Flipnote Hatena website where users can post and rate animations. Over in Japan, the site is mediated by users who can report (the utterly inevitable) inappropriate content. Apparently, over 100,000 animations have been uploaded so far, and any of these can be downloaded and edited by other users.
This will be fun!
