Xider announces two new DS titles

German developer Xider, responsible for a modest selection of popular PC casual(-ish) games, is set to sail in the good ship DS for the first time. It's just announced two titles for the device.

The first is a DS take on what has proved to be a successful PC franchise for Xider. Ankh: Curse of the Scarab King, a cutesy ancient Egypt themed point-and-click adventure, should secure a welcome reception based on its genre alone.

The game's trade mark humour and succinctly integrated puzzles won't do it any harm either, assuming they are executed with the DS's unique strengths in mind.

The second new title is Luminator DS, a much more bog standard sounding affair, based, by Xider's own admission, on Tetris. The game promises a musical slant on the puzzle classic and we are concerned that any early references to Tetris may be part of an attempt to deflect attention from what this game appears to be so far – a carbon copy of Lumines.

Not that we don't love the PSP's beat-based block puzzling masterpiece, but with comparisons so easy to draw at such an early stage – even the name sounds the same – we are concerned that Luminator might not strive to be anything more than a thinly-veiled imitation of what's come before. (Though admittedly not on DS...)

Still, fingers crossed for both these games – they're due to come out later this year.