Mobile memory boost from HandyGames

You know that game you play at Christmas with your younger relations, where you have to match Mr Dog with Mr Dog, and remember where Mr Snail secreted himself? That one you only play grudgingly to do your 'family bit', but then you end up performing victory dances when you beat a six-year old into submission?

Well, it turns out that's an official game called 'memory', of which 55 million copies have been sold since 1959. Yes, we're surprised too – our makeshift version has clearly been ripping off the concept for years, and we await a call from the games piracy police with resignation.

But you don't have to sink so low. German developer HandyGames has teamed up with fellow German boardgame manufacturer Ravensburger, the owner of the game, to get a slice of the lucrative World Cup pie – erm, we mean, to bring memory to mobile phones with "an interactive football edition, just in time for the World Cup."

The slow kids at the back might need the gameplay explained to them – you match pairs of cards. That's it. They're probably too busy playing Sexy Soccer to listen anyway.

Look, we can see this is the kind of simple game that might just fill some time in the back of the beer garden. We're just not so sure it can live up to its billing as an: "Educational game that helps to train concentration and memorization skills as well as the capacity for remembering."

Arriving on the operator's portals on June 7th, memory is what it is. At least until new versions letting you remember other stuff arrive later this year.