During quarantine, I’ve spent a lot more time video chatting with my friends playing a lot of different games. We’ve played Mansions of Madness (which was hard to set up, but fun to play), Psych and, of course, Animal Crossing.

Of course, during a Nintendo Direct mini, Nintendo announced 51 Worldwide Games. Except in the US, where it’s called Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics. From what I know, there have been previous versions of these games on the DS. I’ve never played them, or even seen them anywhere.

I was toying with the idea of pre-ordering, mainly because it still asks for £34.99 from the Nintendo Online Store. You know, £15 less than Animal Crossing, or up to £15 more than a lot of other indie games. I think it should be good, but here’s a list of what I hope goes well with it.

Private online lobbies/rooms

A lot of the earlier first-party Nintendo games did poorly when it came to letting you play with friends you invite. At best, Mario Kart 8 added this in an update. From launch, however, it was semi-random if you’d get only friends or friends with random people.

Being able to set up a room with a code would be great. Think of a system like Dodo Codes in Animal Crossing, except…easier. Playing with random people would be nice, but 4 in a row with my friends would be great. Especially because they’re halfway across the city.

Single Joy-Con support

There are many games that support single Joy-Con that aren’t as good when you play them. Yes, I mean Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. I also mean the SNES games on Switch. This game should work pretty well with them.

Will the game work with a single Joy-Con? Probably, yeah. If it doesn’t, it would make a game that can work with 4 players essentially cost you £100+ to set up. You know, for Pro Controllers.

Tutorial Mode

There are lots of games on here that look pretty interesting that I’ve never played. Like Minishogi, sevens and Chinese checkers. I’m not expecting to find manuals on my digital version, or even the physical one. I think having tutorials in game to learn these games and get more fun out of them would definitely be a boost. Else, this is very quickly going to become 43 Worldwide Games. For real.

This might be a bad idea based off of how long some of these games might be. Having the rules available in menus to read through might be better. At least, compared to a fully playable tutorial game.

Expansion for online play

What do I mean? In the trailer, they say that “some” of the games support online play, not most or all. I guess the card games and some popular games will see online play. At least, I would like online checkers. And maybe online billiards.

With the rest of the games, it would be nice to have the option of playing more of them online through updates. They managed to add better online to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. And…there was already an update to the game before release. I got it on my Switch a couple of days ago.

Pause and save

Pause? Of course! Games that don’t have pause are only online, right? What I mean by this is the ability to suspend games. Let’s say you’re in a long chess match with the computer at a high level, and you want to have a break and play something else.

It would be great to have a quick save function that lets you continue from that specific point. I would use that so much to go between this and Animal Crossing. Mainly to see if I get a recipe for an ironwood dresser. Why is it so rare?!

Pre-release thoughts

From the screenshots and the trailer, this should be a charming game. The toy games in particular have a nostalgic feel. Billiards is what I think I’m excited for – it’ll take me back to the early days of online gaming. (Who remembers Shockwave.com?) For a family, I could see this being a great game to pass the time.

I’m not sure on the price though. £34.99 can get you quite a few other games. It also gets you almost to a main title on the Switch. Once it’s released, we’ll have an idea of what it offers in terms of value for money. Until then, we have three weeks to wait.

Have you pre-ordered? If you have, what made you go for it? Let us know in the comments or through our socials! (@afroandtheeye)