Following the release of Monster Rancher and Kyotaro Nishimura Suspense Series: Deadly Intent on the Nintendo DS in Japan, with Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword just around the corner, it has today been revealed that the Japanese developer is hard at work on another new DS title, this time one that is aimed primarily at the children’s market.

UK website Cubed³ was contacted by the Japanese firm and has revealed that ‘Penelope’ will be coming to DS in Japan sometime in 2008. The game is set to be Masahiro Shidara-san’s second DS game after the already successful mystery thriller, penned by prolific Japanese author Kyotaro Nishimura (which has sold well over 130,000 units in Japan so far) and will this time be based on the cute little three-year-old blue Koala, Penelope. The storybooks for children have been a massive success around the world since launching back in 2003 and the team of Anne Gutman (author) and Georg Hallensleben (illustrator) have seen their published works, such as ‘Penelope in the Winter’, ‘Penelope Says Good Night’ and ‘Penelope at the Farm’, sell over 140 million copies in total!

The charming stories that use a special pull-out tab system so that children can expand the worlds they are reading about, are particularly popular in Japan, with a TV series, DVDs and other paraphernalia selling in vast quantities. Obviously a game seems a logical expansion and Tecmo is ready to take advantage of the wider market demographic of the DS. In the books, Penelope loves to play and learn, with her adventures taking her all over the place, and they teach children lots of interesting things. The DS game is set to follow the series as closely as possible, to ensure that the readership will enjoy this new style of adventure just as much as the books.

At the moment the game is simply scheduled for release in Japan sometime later this year, but no doubt it will head over to Europe at some point due to its origins.

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