Flipnote Studio: FREE AND AWESOME

Today, Nintendo dropped Flipnote Studio completely randomly on the general DSi public.

I immediately, immediately downloaded it. I had played with it at E3 and loved it, and the fact that it was both free and available to download made this the no-est of no brainers. Essentilly, this is a little animation program, which also allows you to upload animations on the “Hatena” website for others to rate and watch. I’ve fiddled with it for a little bit, and it is a very intuitive piece of software. You draw on the bottom screen, and pressing the D pad left or right moves you between various frames of animation. You can toggle on or off onion-skinning to see what the previous or next frame looks like, and you can also copy over entire slides. The drawing tools are stylized in a cute Japanese way, and you are able to use black, red and blue ink. You’re also able to upload music and sound effects which you can toggle to play during the animation. It’s adorable, and some of the animations people have uploaded already are impressive. My only gripe thus far has been that the system for uploading is a little bit wonky, and it’s tough to really browse for what you want, but that’s all secondary. This is such a great little program, and I am going to repeat that it is FREE. If you have a DSi, you are stupid not to get this.