November 22nd, 2006 by Pascal Besteboer Posted in Games | 2 Comments »

If you are a fan of their cute and cuddly games or not, nobody can deny that Nintendo is currently at the front of gameing entertainment inovation. With the Nintendo DS they already showed that there is great interest amongst "non-gamers" of all ages and genders. Now they have released their Wii system and it should have every game-designer clapping his hands and stamping his feet like a little kid.

What this has to do with mobile games? well guess what, we already had all those non-gamers, we already had a device screaming for new creative game concepts and controls, and we blew it!

Luckily it is not to late, so read on

Creativity. Isn’t that the main reason most of us start to create games? Being able to come up with interesting and fun entertainment. The mobile-phone platform is really one of the few platforms left that allows developer to quickly implement and tryout new concepts.

For the past 15 years orso we have seen only a few original ideas in game designing and with all the power of the current consoles and pc’s, a game now requires months of planning and bundles of cash to be created. This leaves little room for creativity and originality as it is now comparable to Hollywood, proven-concepts are required to make sure the cash flow is there.

Besides the obvious reason of less development time and resources required to make games, the mobile platform also presents us with a new target audience aswell as the change in control methods required. Not going into a casual versus hard-core gamer talk here, no matter how you look at it or what you might like to call it, the mobile gamer is simply unique. A mobile game should not be developed for long gaming sessions cause we have consoles that do a much better job. As many others have mentioned before, mobile games are a snack or a piece of candy, where console and pc games are a four meal dinner. And to add some of my own intelligent quotable remarks, the mobile game could evolve into the dessert after the dinner, having the option of mini games on your phone to upgrade your RPG character on the console, it has to happen some day!

Now back to the main point of this article, most of the stuff I mentioned above is a known fact and you can probably find hundreds of articles that tell you the same thing, so the mind starts to wonder : why are there so few original ideas ? I honestly have no clue why most companies are still going the same route trying to recreate the console-experience on the mobile phone. It’s not like I play the latest Splinter Cell on my console and then replay the game on my mobile with a smaller and less advanced display, terrible sound (if any), and alot less content.

However there are some bright lights now and then, and although not all the games might be appealing to everyone, atleast the developers have tried to come up with something original.

Here is a little top 3 of some of the titles that I think show that creative game design is not completely gone and some developers are indeed trying to get the most out of a mobile gaming snack:

Tower Bloxx
from Digital Chocolate

A very original addition to the single-button games. Most of the single-button games are all about timing, but this game shows you can do some nice variation in that department. The game is certainly worth a few go’s and you will be wanting to increase your own city to the maximum size it can be. The game gets repetitive very quickly, but I think that’s something that should not be concidered a problem for mobile games. For the price you pay you get enough enjoyment out of this.

3D Beach Ping pong
from Digital Chocolate

Another inspiring game from Digital Chocolate. It’s interesting to see how they managed to use the single-button control but include a few extra layers for experienced players. Being able to slice the ball with a second press of the button sounds very simple but it is very well implemented. This game also does get repetitive very quickly as with Tower Bloxx, but with an increasing difficulty you will be trying to complete atleast all tournaments and beat all the opponents.

LiftBoy
from HandyGames

HandyGames is no stranger to the mobile arena, and when I recently got to see some footage of the game I was emediatly interested. It is a unique game concept and one that really takes into account the fact that a mobile phone is different then a gamepad or keyboard/mouse combination.

There are a few more games and some interesting concepts from various smaller developers are coming aswell, but it just amazes me that some of the bigger companies (not naming them!) are fighting over who gets the title of "biggest brand buyer" instead of designing good games that work on their own without a brand to sell it.

The smaller guys seem to be having a much better understanding of what mobile gaming is, and let’s hope they don’t get snowed under by marketing decisions.

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