Challenge Yourself With A New Puzzle Every Day Of The Year

07 March 2006 - If you like puzzle games you are in for a real treat this year, with the launch of the highly addictive Polarium Advance on the Game Boy Advance. What's more, this game has 365 different puzzles meaning you can challenge your brain with a new one every single day of the year. Polarium Advance launches across Europe on 7th April 2006 exclusively on the Game Boy Advance.

Polarium Advance is a tile based puzzle game, where you must turn reversible black and white tiles to complete identical coloured horizontal rows. However, the twist with Polarium lies in the fact that the player only gets a single stroke. Therefore they must map out an intricate route which flips all the tiles into mono-coloured horizontal lines.

The game's main Stage Mode pits players against a total of 365 puzzles at their own leisure. All of the puzzles are individually dated by the game meaning that players can set themselves the challenge of solving a new one each day of the calendar year. The Daily Polarium setting however, is only a guide - players can complete as many or as few puzzles as they like, unlocking new ones by completing the ones before. Each completed puzzle is automatically added to Polarium Reference Mode, where they are available for selection any time.

Fans of this game's predecessor, Polarium DS, will notice that Polarium Advance features three totally new types of tiles which affect the gameplay. Solid Tiles are chain fixed tiles, which when erased by combining colours, makes the tiles above them fall down. Hurdle Tiles are blue boxes which act as obstacles to the player and Joker Tiles can become either black or white tiles to work in lines of either colour.

As well as the main single player mode, Polarium Advance features a Time Attack Mode, which challenges players to complete a set number of puzzles within the shortest time possible. There are two difficulty settings to try out; Easy 10 mode, which features ten simple puzzles and Hard 5 mode, which pits players against five much harder tile puzzles. All of the top scores from these modes are displayed in the Rankings menu.

Polarium Advance also features a unique Edit Mode allowing gamers to set themselves the ultimate challenge and create up to 100 of their own devilishly tricky puzzles. These can then be selected at any time with the Custom Mode option. Each puzzle created and successfully tested unlocks a password code, allowing the puzzle to be traded.

The fun doesn't stop there either! Owners of the original Nintendo DS Polarium game can share all of their custom puzzles with Polarium Advance using the Password input menu. This game really does have enough tricks up its sleeve to keep even the most avid puzzle fan busy all year!

Polarium Advance launches on 7th April 2006 for the Game Boy Advance at the estimated retail price of around £29.99.

Click onto www.nintendo-europe-media.com for all of the most up to date official information on Nintendo.

For further information please contact the Nintendo Press Office on 020 7307 3103

-ENDS-

About Nintendo

Nintendo Co., Ltd of Kyoto, Japan, is the acknowledged worldwide leader in the creation of interactive entertainment. To date, Nintendo has sold more than 2 billion video games worldwide and more than 350 million hardware units globally, creating such industry icons as Mario^® and Donkey Kong and launched franchises like The Legend of Zelda^® and Pokémon. Nintendo manufactures and markets hardware and software for its popular home video game systems, including the Nintendo 64, NINTENDO GAMECUBE, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, and Game Boy - the world's best-selling video game system which has sold over 180 million units. As a wholly owned subsidiary, Nintendo of Europe, based in Grossostheim, Germany, was established in 1990 and serves as headquarters for Nintendo's operations in Europe.