Certainly suggesting that there's at least a potential for Nintendo to embrace an all-digital future, Build-A-Lot is yet another full DS retail release that is making an encore appearance, in its entirety, here as a DSiWare download. This kind of thing is happening more and more, and right now it's giving a second chance to some older DS titles that went mostly forgotten when they first arrived.

Build-A-Lot is definitely one of these cases, as I never paid any attention to it back in December of '08 when it shipped on a budget-priced physical cartridge. I'm glad it's back now, though, because it's actually a pretty cool little sim game.

You play as a contractor in this one, hired by a series of small town mayors and tasked to complete construction projects to raise the value of each little village. Some of them ask you to build up new neighborhoods full of homes, others ask for more municipal things like new post offices, and sometimes you're just trying to repair run-down older buildings so that they can start turning a monthly rental profit again.

The gameplay is simple tap and select stuff, as you navigate easy menus to choose which kind of building you want to build, whether you need to order more materials or train new workers, whether you need to draft new blueprints to construct specialty buildings and more. It's got a casual charm to it all, and I could easily see myself sinking lots of time into a game like this.

The one big issue? Price. As has been the case with previous retail games turned into downloads, Build-A-Lot is set at DSiWare's highest price point of eight dollars. I understand that that's getting as close as possible to what the old pricetag was for the physical cartridge, but a casual game like this doesn't warrant that much cash in this format.