“My name’s not Caroline. It’s Cor ... a ... line!” *stomp* Coraline for the Nintendo DS is a delight in storytelling on the handheld DS format. Lovely graphics that work well on the small low-resolution screens, simple music and gorgeous cutscenes move the story along. We play the protagonist in this story — a smart, quirky, adventurous girl who has just moved with her parents Charlie and Mel into a new house. Although her parents obviously love her, they have little time for her. The house has boxes everywhere, and her parents are busy on their computers and tell Coraline to explore the house or go find something to do. Just don’t go too far afield. There’s a deep well somewhere. Please do avoid it.

Oh. well. We explore. Coraline is a classic search-and-find game, and we find rooms and doorways, as well as a sparkle on the ground that’s something to be picked up. Urgh! The bathroom wall is covered with bugs! It’s smash-a-bug time! We meet an annoying boy Wybie who gives us a doll with button eyes that look remarkably like we do, his cat, strange Mr. Bobinsky who lives in the attic apartment, and Miss Spink and Miss Forcible who live in the basement apartment with their three Scottish terriers.

We find a wrapped present in a closet that’s a new T-shirt, a rock to be turned over and the well, into which we drop a rock and wait for the splash. My ... it’s deep indeed. We also find buttons. Everywhere.

“What are the buttons for?” My 5-year-old nephew wanted to know as I busily picked up every single one I found. “Well, we’ll find out, won’t we?”

In classic fairytale adventure, we find a little door. Mom knows where the key is, interestingly enough, but there’s nothing there besides a brick wall. But one day, when we open it, we find a tunnel. Entering it, we find ourselves in a different reality. It’s the same house but more beautiful and exciting — with an Other Mother and Other Father, an Other Wybie that doesn’t talk, and his cat that does. Surreally more exciting and fun, it’s a world where Coraline’s Other parents give her more of their time and attention and cook delicious meals. She wishes she could stay, and that’s when the world goes awry. I’ll not tell you anymore as that would give away the plot.

Gamewise, the graphics are beautiful for the relatively low-resolution small screens of the DS. The contrast between the real world and the Other world is pretty fantastic with use of a much more intense and saturated palette for the fantastical Other world. It’s rated E for everyone with mild cartoon violence, such as bug-smashing, and mild suggestive themes as seen in the theater performance in Miss Spink and Miss Forcible’s basement. There is no voice acting, but there is simple although repetitive music. The one niggle was the speed at which the text explaining the show in the basement flashed. It flashed much too quickly for me to read out aloud and possibly too fast for a child of 9 or 10 to read and comprehend before moving on to the next scene. You can’t repeat that performance either, as you had to have a ticket for the show, unless you saved the game prior to entering the basement.

Coraline for the Nintendo DS is based on Coraline the movie, which is based on Neil Gaiman’s book of the same name. Gaiman’s book is a horror story that won the 2002 Bram Stoker Award for Best Work for Young Readers, and the movie, directed by Henry Selick of A Nightmare Before Christmas, is not quite as fun and musical but is rather dark, with hints of psychological terror rather than jump out and scare. The game has graphics reminiscent of the movie, but in contrast, it is hardly as nightmarish as either book or movie; but the tension and expectancy carries through very nicely.

I played this with my 5-year-old nephew and 7-year-old niece perched on the arms of the easy chair. They recognized the storytelling elements easily.

“A door in the wall!”

“Nooo ... don’t go through!”

“There will be evil ones there!”

Apart from the Coraline storyline, we also found minigames in various areas, some which could be repeated in-game while others had to be played in the “Collection Room” at the start of the game. Another part of the game is collecting stuff — a cave cricket we found under a rock, the skin of a snake and also buttons, which we could trade for articles of clothing. Scoring highly in the minigames also provided rewards of buttons as well as clothing. We spent two delightful afternoons playing through this game, and I let them play all the minigames we found. My nephew squished enough bugs to get a present: a pair of black sneakers! Hooray!

The storyline incorporates some excellent use of the touchscreen capabilities of the DS and required us to blow into the microphone at one point. There also were some scenes that had us make intuitive (and rather frantic) use of the touchscreen rather than pausing and going through the tutorial of a minigame.

Coraline for the DS is a true delight. Even if you haven’t seen the movie — and we had not — if you pay attention to the storyline and the elements on the touchscreen, you will know what to do. The story was not at an end yet. There was one last adventure to be had, which led to more frantic touchscreen usage before the storyline came to a close.

“How do we get rid of the key?” I read from the screen after we had escaped from the horror of the Other land.

“Drop it in the well!” my nephew exclaimed.

So we went off to accomplish that, but did you notice? At that last frantic moment when we slammed the little door on the witch, we cut off her skeleton hand. Where did that hand go? We were soon to find out.