WarioWare D.I.Y. is a a video game in the WarioWare series developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo DS in 2009 (Japan) and 2010 (overseas). The game was simultaneously released alongside a companion game called WarioWare D.I.Y. Showcase, release exclusively for WiiWare at the same time.
The game's story begins when Dr. Crygor, upon having a dream based on playing a video game until people came out of the TV screen, decides to invent a device capable of creating microgames. The following day, Wario visits him to get his TV set repaired and then sees the invention being manufactured (under the supervision of Crygor's granddaughter Penny); Wario thinks erroneously that they're modern TV sets and thus asks Crygor to exchange one of them for his broken one. Crygor tries to explain to him that those "TV sets" are actually an invention to make microgames... which prompts Wario to buy one so he can start making microgames and become right. Shortly afterwards, key members of WarioWare Inc. defect in favor of rival company Diamond Software; as a response, Wario asks the player to accept a job in his company to make microgames.
The game's defining feature is the option to create new microgames, and editable features include graphics, music and logic routines. The user interface takes cues from Mario Paint, though with some subtle differences. It's possible to share one's created microgames with friends and also receive theirs, thus serving as one of the precursors of what would later become Super Mario Maker (alongside the Level Editor of the Mario vs. Donkey Kong games). Back when the Wi-Fi Internet servers of the DS and Wii were active, it was even possible to send microgames to Nintendo during contests; and in turn, Nintendo themselves submitted microgames for players to download them to their files.
Both versions made up for the final appearance of the WarioWare series in The Seventh Generation of Console Video Games after a robust streak of launches up until that point; the next installment wouldn't come out until four years later on the Wii U, in the form of Game & Wario.
Tropes present in both versions of WarioWare D.I.Y., or exclusively in the original:
- 15 Puzzle: Orbulon's boss stage is a 3x3 variant of this. The numbers shown by their respective tiles have to be arranged from 1 to 8 before time runs out.
- Achievement System: This became the first game in the WarioWare series to implement a recording of achievements. D.I.Y.'s achievements reward music for the player to listen to, while later games reward Coins.
- Amateur Film-Making Plot: Ashey's chapter has her and Red starring a home movie where they explore the forest next to their house. The cameramen and director are ghosts.
- Anti Poop-Socking: Per every calendar day, the player can only unlock one of the five microgame sets and one of the 18 sets of comics.
- Auto-Pilot Tutorial: The game-making tutorial is shared between Wario, Penny, and you. Oddly enough, this also qualifies as an Auto Pilot Tutorial for the in-game characters as well—Wario will try to do many counter-intuitive things (like attempting to color the entire screen with the line tool), get bored, and Penny will take over and show him a better way to get things done (like the fill tool.)
- Background Music Override: Jimmy T.'s theme overrides that of the corresponding microgame themes during his chapter.
- Bar Slide: The WarioWare: Twisted! version of the microgame (where you pass a drink to the patron by physically tilting the bar itself.) is brought back, and allows you to draw in whatever you want for the object sliding across.
- Confetti Drop: The game allows a user-made microgame to include a confetti drop as a predefined Stage Effect.
- Dreadful Musician: During the Record tutorial, you see that Penny Crygor already made a verse for the Record Class song. However, when you press the play button, it is off, meaning that if that is to go by, Penny is awful at composing.
- Easter Egg: There's an interesting one that made a lot of Mario Paint fans giddy. If you enter the Game MakerMatic and name your game "Mario Paint", you'll hear one of its BGMs as you draw. (If you change the name to something else, though, the music goes away.)
- Epic Launch Sequence: At the start of Orbulon's chapter, the liftoff of a rocket is being broadcasted by Diamond News; but just as the count for the blastoff approaches zero, Orbulon's ship is struck by a lightning and falls onto the rocket's tip, getting atuck on it. The rocket is then shown launching skyward, and the incoming microgames have to be won so the rocket's pieces remain together and the interplanetary vehicle keeps going up.
- Follow the Bouncing Ball: The music editor has a bouncing character, much like Mario Paint.
- Forced Tutorial: The game forces you to finish the first of three tutorials before you are allowed to start making games. Luckily, they are quite humorous as you get some banter between Wario and Penny.
- Fun with Acronyms: The Diamond Software collection of microgames is exclusive to the DS version of D.I.Y. The Wii counterpart game, meanwhile, has Wario-Man Software.
- Future Music: The game has a set of songs from Orbulon, which have an alien\futuristic theme. Many are like current video game music, just done in weird time signatures and\or more sparsely.
- Game Maker: The game allows players to make microgames of all different genres.
- Ghost Leg Lottery: The goal of a wire microgame is to choose one of three buttons that will lead to the dancing man.
- Guest Fighter: The game used to have microgames based on Shantae, World of Goo, Super Meat Boy, BIT.TRIP, Swim, Ikachan!, Max And The Magic Marker, Toki Tori, Jett Rocket, And Yet It Moves, and Chronos Twin that could be downloaded through Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, but they are now unobtainable due to the servers being shut down.
- He Knows About Timed Hits: Penny teaches Wario and the player how to use the game-making system. Wario isn't the best student, but he certainly has the patience to try and do things the inefficient way. Only the first of three tutorials is required, but they are worth it just for the humor.
- Level Editor: The game lets you make whole Microgames from scratch and share them. And thanks to a certain hack, you can make boss games as well.
- Kabuki Sounds: One of the drum sets in the music maker is a Japanese-themed set which includes Kabuki sounds.
- Market-Based Title: WarioWare: D.I.Y. uses the extended subtitle WarioWare: Do It Yourself in European languages, likely to accommodate for non-English speakers.
- Mini-Game Credits: The credits take the form of a Shoot 'Em Up game, with each credit represented as an enemy ship; Satoru Iwata's executive producer credit is a large boss UFO. The game keeps score, and there's even an achievement for getting a perfect score.
- No Fair Cheating: One stage and comic are unlocked each day you play until you have them all. You could set your clock forward a day at a time to unlock them. Your DS's clock can be set backward, but the game's clock will stay forward and won't move until the DS matches. Of course, setting your DS clock backward before starting your save file will let you avoid this.
- No Poker Face: The microgame "Joker Face" has you facing such a character. Their expression makes it very clear what card is the joker.
- One Game for the Price of Two: D.I.Y. Showcase was a WiiWare companion game for D.I.Y. that was required for 100% Completion of the medals in D.I.Y. and featured some extra games, comics, and records from several of the traditional characters that weren't in D.I.Y. itself. There's nothing special in Showcase that really requires D.I.Y. however, other than being able to play your own creations on the TV screen rather than just the built-in ones and other people's.
- Regional Bonus: In the Japanese version, one of 9-Volt's games is based on The Mysterious Murasame Castle. Since that game wasn't released outside of Japan until a few years later, the international versions replaced it with one based on Pikmin instead. The two games can be played on either version via Socialization Bonus.
- Right Way/Wrong Way Pair: This is the approach for the tutorial for the game, in which Wario recklessly tries out the features of the game engine forming the core of the game, upon which Penny will demonstrate how to use it correctly. Occasionally, Wario will misinterpret what Penny means and not get the results he wants, upon which Wario gets nervous and Penny has to correct him. A downplayed example, however, in that Wario genuinely wants to understand the engine and eventually picks up on everything Penny teaches him. Wario is also a better artist than Penny and is able to demonstrate a few things himself that Penny cannot, such as artistic shortcuts unrelated to using the engine.
- The Rule of First Adopters: It didn't take long for players to make sexually-suggestive microgames, which led people to joke that the game is the first from Nintendo to feature porn.
- Tech-Demo Game: Par the course for the WarioWare series. In the case of this game, it was created to show how the DS can send data between consoles and to the Wii.
- Temple of Doom: In Mona's chapter, she ventures through a tall temple in search for treasure. The microgames you play along the way represents the obstacles and dangers she overcomes while inside the temple.
- Temporary Online Content:
- A few of the medals in D.I.Y. require entering microgame design contests that were periodically held by Nintendo. Nintendo no longer holds these contests, so if you hadn't already gotten the medals for them you can now no longer obtain them. Thankfully, it's still possible to get all the records even without these medals. The same, of course, goes for the microgames that won those contests. Even while they were running, you could only access the two most recent contest sets at a time to download their microgames. Now, you can't get any of them, unless you can get them from other players.
- Because most of the online services for the Wii and DS have been shut down, the online-related medals can't be unlocked anymore, meaning that not all records can be unlocked on one save file. Fortunately, there's a way around this as well: because the records you obtain from medals are semi-randomized, you can obtain the ones you lack from a friend or relative. If all you care about are the music on the records and not having the full collection in your game under the built-in section, you could also copy the music from the records you could get into new records in the music maker, send said records to D.I.Y. Showcase, then restart your game and get new ones.
- Unwinnable by Design: There isn't really anything stopping you from creating or even uploading microgames that are unwinnable. All you have to do is set a winning condition, but the Game Maker doesn't check if it's actually achievable.
- Variable Mix: The game combines this with a Background Music Override for Jimmy's stage. The stage plays a dedicated song over all the microgames. The song has variants for failing the microgame and the vocals are pitch shifted to keep up with the tempo as the stage speeds up.
- Video Game Perversity Potential: Unlike many later Nintendo games, this game lacks any kind of censorship system, meaning it's totally possible to make suggestive or outright explicit microgames and share them with others with no consequences. Famously, one player made a subversion of these sorts of games. The microgame features a cute girl with two hotspots—her breasts, and her hand. Grope her... and she gets crazy mad at you, resulting in a failure. Touch her hand, and she gives you a cheerful high-five—success!
- Wins by Doing Absolutely Nothing: It is possible to create microgames that are won from the start if the player has the knowledge to make such a game.
- Yonkoma: The player is able to create 4-panel comics with a vertical arrangement.
Tropes exclusive to WarioWare D.I.Y. Showcase:
- Ascended Extra: 18-Volt gets to host his own microgame set completely separate from 9-Volt for the first time.
- Balloon Belly: One of the minigames has Wario's belly inflating to deflect rockets.
- Big "NO!": In one of Wario-Man's comics in WarioWare: D.I.Y. Showcase, the pudding says, "Who says pudding can't be cool?" And then, after realizing that pudding cannot be cool, the pudding lets out a Big "NO!"
- Console Cameo: Some landmasses in the background are modeled after the right-hand buttons and C-Stick on a Nintendo Gamecube Controller.
- Failure Hero: One of the sample comics features the titular "Failure Man", who attempts to stop an asteroid from crashing into Earth. It goes as well as you'd expect.
- Potty Emergency: The Framing Device for Wario-Man's stage is Wario-Man coming across a series of people trying to get into restrooms, only for the shoddy door handles to keep them from easily getting the door open. Your goal: complete a microgame to have Wario-Man successfully pull the door open for them.
- We Used to Be Friends: 18-Volt apparently did not take 9-Volt leaving for Diamond Software well if the intermission animation of the former's stage means anything.
