If 2020 wasn't surprising enough, Nintendo just came with a surprise announcement: a free Nintendo Switch game. Titled Jump Rope Challenge, Nintendo describes it as a "simple game" that helps you "take an active break in your day by jumping rope". The company explains that it was made by "a few Nintendo developers while working from home in Japan to add quick and fun physical movement into their daily life." It seems that they want to share their creation to the world as many are working remotely and could do with some new take on physical activity.

By using the Joy-Cons as a jumping rope handle, players can keep active with successive jumps and keep the on-screen counter climbing up. It allows you to keep track of your daily progress, as well as set a daily goal to reach. As the game has "challenge" in its title, a friends can also join in the activity with another pair of Joy-Cons and compete for the highest score.

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Will you try Jump Rope Challenge? What's your daily goal?

UPDATE:

According to a Nintendo press release, the company notes that the game is a "limited-time release until the end of September 2020".

SOURCE
Jump Rope Challenge eShop link

 

[Prans]

post updated with Nintendo's press release statement that the game "is now available for free on Nintendo eShop as a limited-time release until the end of September 2020."

 

[jt_1258]

not everyone has a credit card, specially kids, i'm sure some parents only buy their kids physical games and dont add any balance to the eshop

wiiware had a 40 MB limit and nintendo released a few games off their own there, although if you consider nes games, super mario brothers fit on a 32k rom edit: i read my replies and noticed i come off as a bit rude, this was never my intention

As long as you have gotten a fair amount of games general you would likely be up to something like 99 cents in gold points assuming you don't spend them often. So the digital store front isn't completely useless to them.

 

[notimp]

The only reason why a corporation will ever produce anything thats free, is that this produces "reciprocal goodwill".

They are manipulating you psychologically and you find it "exciting" to get something without any artistic merit, the complexity of an effing clicker - and thats designed so you are far more likely to buy the next Nintendo thing, which probably is delayed at this point (Corona).

So the PR department thought very hard for about a minute.

And you all are lapping it up.

Give yourselves a round of applause.

 

[Deleted User]

I don't know. I don't have a hacked switch to test it with. I have it even smaller as nsz:

View attachment 213542

it's probably an installer of some kind. I can't imagine a switch game being that small.

doom on switch is roughly 20 gb and 80 on pc, last time i had fortnite on pc it was like 12 gb (probably bigger now), so if scalling were to be perfect, full game must be like 3 gb on switch (probably isn't)

As long as you have gotten a fair amount of games general you would likely be up to something like 99 cents in gold points assuming you don't spend them often. So the digital store front isn't completely useless to them.

i had forgoten about gold points lol, but weren't they only for discounts? correct me if im wrong

 

[godreborn]

the nsz size might be what it looks like on the system. I didn't have a problem checking the nsp for errors.

 

[Axido]

I don't know. I don't have a hacked switch to test it with. I have it even smaller as nsz:

View attachment 213542

it's probably an installer of some kind. I can't imagine a switch game being that small.

Exactly. Common sense would suggest that a 3D game packed with customization options, a fairly large overworld and whatnot is is not that small. Despite Fortnite not being the most visually stunning game I'd estimate it to take up multiple GB. The PC version (including the campaign) takes up more than 20GB, so on the Switch it might be well below that, but not by such a large factor.

 

[godreborn]

I checked mine, and it's 8.9GBs. there's an installer for the last of us on the ps3, since it's 30-50GBs (can't remember exactly), but I do have that backed up. the pkg installer is only 150MBs or so:

I found two games smaller (ring fit doesn't count since it's just an update as I own the cartridge on my other system):

 

[SANIC]

The only reason why a corporation will ever produce anything thats free, is that this produces "reciprocal goodwill".

They are manipulating you psychologically and you find it "exciting" to get something without any artistic merit, the complexity of an effing clicker - and thats designed so you are far more likely to buy the next Nintendo thing, which probably is delayed at this point (Corona).

So the PR department thought very hard for about a minute.

And you all are lapping it up.

Give yourselves a round of applause.

So a small minigame is part of a socioeconomic ploy to control the masses? Next you'll say Pac-Man is corrupting the minds of arcade goer's

 

[XDel]

I somehow doubt it's as fun or as good for you as a real jump rope

 

[HaloEffect17]

I've downloaded every game I own for when the eshop goes down since I'm digital only.

Random, but how do you get the day of the week to show on the bottom of your taskbar? I've been looking for a way to do that for awhile in Win10...

 

[godreborn]

I backed up every app installed on my system. what you want is t-clock:

it's not something you install. I put those in a separate folder to differentiate. I can reinstall everything in an hour and a half due to having it all backed up.

 

[RedBlueGreen]

I'm actually kinda excited to try this. My uncoordinated ass is probably gonna fall down a couple times.

I like the idea of things like this. Free simple exercise games. Stuff like Ringfit have big accessories that aren't very fun to use (plus I don't want to pay for an excercise game).

I'd actually support a story driven RPG that has you do simple excercise to do battle if it didn't have unnecessary accessories. Just an arm or leg strap for joycons would be fine, no big wheels or anything. A terrible idea probably, but that's something I would love to see.

 

[notimp]

So a small minigame is part of a socioeconomic ploy to control the masses? Next you'll say Pac-Man is corrupting the minds of arcade goer's

If you dont know what you are talking about, I suggest you shut your trap.

Behavioral economics is "IN" in both customer relationship building and societal design ('nudging'), and what Nintendo did here is a textbook example for how you manipulate customers, by giving out entirely worthless gifts. That cost you next to nothing to produce, banking on a psychologic flaw in the human mind, that demands every gesture of hospitality to be paid back, in some way in the future.

Hare Krishnas came up with it (no joking), they gifted flowers or little prayer books, which were the first equivalent of todays tao bao/aliexpress grabbag 'swag'.

Even porto would be too much cost for this crap marketing exercise, so a "free downloadable" piece of junk software (clicker) it is.

Perfectly fits the marketing budget for the month of june, and keeps everyones mind off the fact, that development on the real products very likely is delayed.

And you all lap it up.

Give yourselves a round of applause.

For every 'I like the idea of free' comment in here, a marketing rep finishes to completion.

F*cking with childrens behavioral patterns? Ninten-do!

edit: Here, those are the kinds of books those people read: https://books.google.com/books?id=D...v=onepage&q=hare krishnas free flower&f=false

 

[Silent_Gunner]

The new WarioWare is looking interesting.

Now if only it was the GC iteration, allowed everyone to play on one screen, and had everything from there plus everything from the subsequent games...

 

[Bladexdsl]

the gimmicks just keep on coming...

 

[Silent_Gunner]

I'm actually kinda excited to try this. My uncoordinated ass is probably gonna fall down a couple times.

I like the idea of things like this. Free simple exercise games. Stuff like Ringfit have big accessories that aren't very fun to use (plus I don't want to pay for an excercise game).

I'd actually support a story driven RPG that has you do simple excercise to do battle if it didn't have unnecessary accessories. Just an arm or leg strap for joycons would be fine, no big wheels or anything. A terrible idea probably, but that's something I would love to see.

Aww, don't you want to be like the one dude who looked like he was having a fucking orgasm from using Ring Fit Adventure in that one shot of the promo trailer!?

 

[notimp]

Jim Sterling offers a philosophical exploration of the concept of - if what you are giving away for free, is so minuscule in worth, compared to your capabilities, that you might as well have given away nothing to begin with -- why are we still impressed by what you have done?



Also - while you are expecting good will in return. Good will that is actually expected to drive your bottom line.

Then read the wikipedia article about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/adbusting

Think of me, when you jump your hundredths jumprope in the challenge!

Oh what an achievement it will have been! And you got that - for free! And then put in some entirely useless effort, and then you got an emotional payback. Oh THANK YOU Nintendo! THANK YOU for having me click on A for you until the NUMBER 100 shows and my pleasure center fires! What a challenge! Could I get some sound effects with that? Oh, yes - I can? How marvelous, just wonderful.

What a wonderful gift you have endowed to the world, just now. For free, no less!

 

[velgis]

It's a jump rope game.

 

[MetoMeto]

OFC they are gonna release some stupid game for free!

Why they don't release Metroid prime trilogy for free, for example,
IF they are that generous (as if),
it's sold 3 times already on 3 different systems!!!! Key word being "SOLD"!

I seriously NEWER saw any point to these free "games".

 

[Silent_Gunner]

OFC they are gonna release some stupid game for free!

Why they don't release Metroid prime trilogy for free, for example,
IF they are that generous (as if),
it's sold 3 times already on 3 different systems!!!! Key word being "SOLD"!

I seriously NEWER saw any point to these free "games".

The point is to keep people distracted while this pandemic pushes every plan Nintendo had in 2020 to 2021.

Also, you're naive if you think Nintendo's gonna give away Metroid Prime Trilogy for free. At this point, I'd just be grateful for Metroid Prime 4 to play like Metroid Prime 1 and not be something else no one asked for, if it hasn't been cancelled outright already.