MOBILE NEWS
I-play announces 11 new titles for mobile
Deal with Oberon Media reaps licence-shaped rewards |
I-play certainly doesn't do things by halves, and its just-announced release schedule of 11 new mobile titles already has our thumbs itching with anticipation.
Having been acquired by the multi-platform casual games monolith, Oberon Media, I-play finds itself with more than a few tricks up its sleeve, freshly gleaned from the new licences that have been added to its ranks via the deal.
The first and perhaps the most familiar of the titles is Hexic. Famous for sharing its creator – Alexei Pajitnov – with Tetris, Hexic (from Microsoft's in-house casual game development studio) was one of Xbox Live Arcade's launch titles on Xbox 360. Challenging players to form clusters of same coloured tiles to clear a board, it's a simple and addictive game but with enough variation to make it a perfect mobile fit.
Also from Alexei Pajitnov is the puzzler Mozaki Blocks (web version pictured), where you use coloured pieces to create paths from the centre to the edges of the board in time to advance to the next level.
And sticking with the genre, Flowerz is another puzzler where you have to match three or more identically-coloured blooms across a grid. It's been created exclusively for mobile devices by Carbonated Games.
Moving into platformer territory, the official mobile game based on the famous toy, Slinky, has you defying the laws of physics as you guide your Slinky through 50 levels. There are five different environments to work through, including Ancient Egypt, The Far East and Urban Jungle, which should hopefully present the necessary scope for lots of fun without any bothersome untangling.
Next up is a mobile version of the PC hit, Fish Tycoon. The mobile game involves the same create-and-care mechanic where you raise different species of exotic fish, which you can then sell to make money for improving your aquarium with ornaments and materials.
Spin & Win appears to be a casino bumper pack of different games such as Slots, Dice, Wheel of Fortune, Scratch Lottery, Memory Game, Spades and Pick-a-Number. The aim is to collect prizes which you can then store in your 'Trophy Room'.
There are few details on Bricks of Egypt and Bricks of Atlantis, meanwhile, though it is safe to assume they're both themed variants of the same game which involves breaking blocks. They were apparently two of the most popular casual web games of 2006, generating over 3.5 million downloads, so I-play will no doubt be looking to replicate that success on mobile.
Moving on, the Europe-only Magic Match is a hocus-pocus journey where you get the chance to explore six realms in the Lands of the Arcane, while accompanied by an imp helper called Giggles. No, really. It is unclear exactly how the game plays but we do know that you can earn magical bonus spells and that there are 42 story levels in which you can use them.
We know even less about Bubble Town, other than the fact it is already a successful cute arcade puzzler on PCs, which is probably grounding enough to secure a decent mobile game. Again, this is a Europe-only title
Saints & Sinners Bingo includes eccentric characters, lucky charms, dirty tricks and gameplay that is paced by the player. Sounds like it could be a fun mobile title, although, this one is unfortunately coming out in the US only.
Naturally, don't expect all of these at once – the releases are to be staggered over the rest of the year and the beginning of 2008. Which is something our thumbs are thankful for.
Look out for our future reviews of most of these titles, starting with Hexic next week.
Joined:
Oct 2006
Post count:
683
splat | 13 September 2007
strange how 3 seems to be the magic number when it comes to puzzle colour matching games, especially as we can remember 6 digit phone numbers.
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