Project Rub sequel for Europe

SEGA Europe today confirmed that it will publish Project Rub sequel Where Do Babies Come From? in Europe under the banner of "The Rub Rabbits!" It's due out on Nintendo DS in February 2006.

You have every right to be confused. Clarification: the original was called Feel the Magic: XY-XX in the USA, I Would Die For You in Japan and Project Rub in Europe. This one's called Where Do Babies Come From? in Japan, and The Rub Rabbits! in both the US and Europe. Oh, and it's a prequel, not a sequel.

Ok that didn't help.

But anyway - like Project Rub, it's a collection of mini-games built around stylus and occasional microphone use. SEGA's promising over 35 chapters (so, 36?), which ought to be more than double what went into Project Rub/Feel the Magic/Oh I just don't know any more. Each mini-game represents a chapter in the story of the silhouetted protagonist and the girl of his dreams, and involves beating five increasingly difficult versions of the same task.

For example, you might have to flick a heart-shaped cake, air-hockey-style, from the bottom of the touch-screen toward your ladyfriend up top, avoiding any obstacles and evil men who lurk in the way. Repeat four more times under varying conditions.

Pleasingly, it seems like a mixture of new mini-games and those that build on the first game's. For example, Project Rub's tap-the-charging-bull-on-the-head-to-make-it-disappear game is back, complete with the need to tap certain bulls 10 or even 100 times in very quick succession.

On top of the single-player game, Rub Rabbits also features four brand new modes, including Wi-Fi multiplayer options. One of the new modes Hullabaloo, where you and as many friends as you like pass the DS around effectively playing finger-Twister. Others include Baby Making, which we understand judges the compatibility of you and your potential partner. There's also a Connect Mode, featuring six mini-games playable in groups of up-to-four.

Hopefully, time and our burgeoning fictiorelationship permitting, we'll be able to bring you impressions of Rub Rabbits in the near future.