Swapnote back from the dead as Swapdoodle, releasing today on Nintendo 3DS

17 November 201617 November 2016 Lite_Agent Swapdoodle, Swapnote / Nintendo Letterbox

Back in December 2011, Nintendo released Swapnote (known as Nintendo Letterbox in Europe): a pretty neat and free app that allowed users to share “letters” with each other, via SpotPass.

The service was pretty popular, but following an incident involving alleged exchanges of child pornographic imagery, the service was discontinued (officially, it’s because it was being “actively misused” to transmit “offensive material”).

But Nikki, a character introduced in Swapnote / Nintendo Letterbox, lived on, and she even got her very own series of badges in Nintendo Badge Arcade. And today, she is finally back in Swapdoodle, which is pretty much Swapnote / Nintendo Letterbox, but with a different name. The best thing? It’s now available from the Nintendo eShop… for free! (NB: North American release will be at 9AM PT / 12PM ET):

Check out the trailer:

Nintendo’s description of Swapdoodle is pretty straightforward: it’s a game that allows to “write messages, draw 3D pictures, and share them with your Nintendo 3DS friends”. But Swapdoodle is more than just Swapnote / Nintendo Letterbox with a different name, there’s also additional features. For example, you can use stamps based on the icons of played titles in your messages, as seen in the trailer above.

But more importantly, it features purchaseable in-game add-ons packs that include doodle lessons of Nintendo characters. With those, you can learn to draw characters from:

Super Mario series
The Legend of Zelda
Splatoon
and more…

But doodle lessons are not all the add-on packs are about: some of them allows you to increase your storage space (up to over 6000 notes), draw more doodles per note, get more than 45 pen colors, increase your ink capacity, download stationaries featuring Nintendo characters, and more. Check out the list of DLC below!

Along with your doodles, your notes can feature the face of your Mii (you can even chose between various emotions), screenshots from games you and your friends own, create secret pages that are hidden until your friends reply, and more. It looks like you cannot share pictures directly, so that should prevent any abuse (and termination of the service!).

To send notes, you need to register your friends / family as Doodle Pals. After that, you will be able to share notes with them via SpotPass (naturally, it works when your Nintendo 3DS is in sleep mode and connected to the internet). When they receive the note, they see it come to life exactly as you drew it… that’s right, just like in Swapnote / Nintendo Letterbox!

Using the Date Stamp, you can make sure the person you’re writing a note to can only read it on the designated day… perfect to wish someone a Happy Birthday! By the way, each note can contain up to 4 pages, including the secret pages mentioned above.

When you first download Swapdoodle, you can create notes using the following:

black pen
five units of ink
room to store up to 200 notes

Want more? Then you will have to get one of the DLC packs listed below!

Here’s the main features:

Swap messages and doodles with your Nintendo 3DS friends

Purchase add-ons packs to enhance your doodles and learn to doodle Nintendo characters

Take doodle lessons featuring characters from Splatoon, The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario, and more!

Draw 3D doodles on 2 layers

Place a sticker of your Mii character’s face with different emotions

Send in-game screenshots from select titles

Here’s some screenshots:

Here’s the list of DLC packs available for Swapdoodle (you can buy them from the Lesson Store, within the game):

Starter Pack – FREE – Includes four lessons, two types of stationery and one coloured pen. Increases maximum note storage by 100 and ink capacity by two units.
Nintendo Premium Pack – £6.29 / €6.99 / $6.99 – Includes six lessons, six stationery types, five coloured pens and four premium pens. Increases maximum note storage by 3,000 and ink capacity by four units.
Sparkling Premium Pack – £6.29 / €6.99 / $6.99 – Includes 14 lessons, eight stationery types, five coloured pens and six premium pens. Increases maximum note storage by 3,000 and ink capacity by four units.
Silver Glitter & Stationery Set – £1.79 / €1.99 / Free in North America – Includes four types of stationery and one premium pen.
Bronze Glitter & Stationery Set – £1.79 / €1.99 / $1.99 – Includes four types of stationery and one premium pen.
Super Mario Basic Lessons – £2.69 / €2.99 / $2.99 – Includes 15 lessons, two stationery types, five coloured pens and one premium pen.
Super Mario Standard Lessons – £2.69 / €2.99 / $2.99 – Includes 10 lessons, two stationery types, five coloured pens and one premium pen.
Splatoon Inklings and Things – £2.69 / €2.99 / $2.99 – Includes 10 lessons, two stationery types, five coloured pens and one premium pen.
Splatoon Inkopolis – £2.69 / €2.99 / $2.99 – Includes 12 lessons, two stationery types, five coloured pens and one premium pen.
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time – £2.69 / €2.99 / $2.99 – Includes 11 lessons, two stationery types, five coloured pens and one premium pen.
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker – £2.69 / €2.99 / $2.99 – Includes 10 lessons, two stationery types, five coloured pens and one premium pen.
Animal Crossing Standard Lesson – £2.69 / €2.99 / $2.99 – Includes 13 lessons, two stationery types, five coloured pens and one premium pen.
Mario Kart 8 – £2.69 / €2.99 / $2.99 – Includes 14 lessons, two stationery types, five coloured pens and one premium pen.
Prehistoric Life – £2.69 / €2.99 / $2.99 – Includes 15 lessons, two stationery types, five coloured pens and one premium pen.
Nikki’s Simply Adorable Animals – £2.69 / €2.99 / $2.99 – Includes 27 lessons, two stationery types, five coloured pens and two premium pens.
Nikki’s Animals – £2.69 / €2.99 / $2.99 – Includes 20 lessons, two stationery types, five coloured pens and one premium pen.
Nikki’s Simply Beautiful Flowers – £2.69 / €2.99 / $2.99 – Includes 25 lessons, two stationery types, five coloured pens and two premium pens.

Not sure which pack to pick? You can use a Trial Mode, available for free. Thanks to the Trial Mode, you can try one of the doodle lessons included, but you cannot save your progress.

Finally, here’s some “technical” details about the game: