Morpheme takes phone games across to PC

As the maker of mobile games like the BAFTA award-winning Bluetooth Biplanes, you might think Morpheme would be happy enough with its pocket-sized lot. But as managing director Matt Spall explains, the company has even bigger ambitions – it's looking to take some of its phone titles onto the PC.

Why? Well, why not? We've already seen games like Zuma and Luxor coming over to mobile from the so-called 'casual' PC games scene, where ease-of-controls and pick-up-and-playability are prized by a breed of gamers who are more likely to be gamer's mums than the hardcore males you'd normally expect.

"I've been playing video games pretty much since I was 10 years old, and I remember seeing an original Pong machine," says Matt Spall, when quizzed by Pocket Gamer on the new direction. "I've seen a lot of things change since that time, with huge, complicated and enormous games costing tens of millions of pounds to develop – but this world of casual games is a welcome throwback to those simple days."

Morpheme has already released its first crossover game, Balloon-Headed Boy, which was a hit on mobile (especially in the Far East). It's available via Morpheme's new casual games website, www.OffTheWrist.com, which also has some free games for you to try out on PC.

In the future, key Morpheme games will be created for mobile and PC at the same time. For instance, it is just finishing off Prismatics, a light-based puzzle game for both platforms that will be released by UK publisher Eidos.

"At its core Prismatics a level based game where you direct coloured lights to similarly coloured targets around the playfield", says Spall. "At a higher level, both versions have most of the same game modes, but we've varied the modes on the versions in order to tune for format."

Nearly 100 pre-designed levels in Prismatics are exactly the same on both PC and mobile, and Morpheme has created special tools that save it time when making its creations for both mobile and PC at once. That said, there are some differences.

"The PC version has a mode that's only really playable with the mouse, and so on mobile we've substituted this for a level entry system enabling the release of codes to give the player more levels they can enter and store on the phone after purchase," Spall explains.

Indeed, some games will never make the transition. Two upcoming Morpheme games – Croc Mobile: Volcanic Panic and Blazing Fists – have been deemed unsuitable for the casual PC market.

It's an acceptance of the fact that there are huge differences between the casual PC and mobile audiences, as well as the actual technology.

"They're chalk and cheese at the most obvious level," agrees Spall. "Huge versus tiny screen, mouse and big keys versus crappy joypad and mostly crappy keys, multichannel stereo sound versus a 1980's doorbell… Yes they are radically different, but my personal opinion about games systems is that it's pretty irrelevant."

"As long as a game is fun to play, captures my attention, challenges me and gives me positive or negative feedback dependant on my actions then it's a good game," he continues. "I've played equal numbers of great and crap games on all gaming systems, big and small."

Currently Spall is losing time to LocoRoco on PSP, "the kind of game that you think 'I'll have a quick five minute game before bed' and the next thing you know it's just gone 3am!" he admits.

And we can all relate to that, whatever games we play.

To try some of Morpheme's PC wares, head to www.OffTheWrist.com.