Opposite Lock speeds onto phones

Sometimes you have to wonder what all these big mobile games creators spend their money on. Go to any industry conference, and you'll hear developers and publishers complaining about the technical challenges of creating mobile games, particularly multiplayer ones.

And then along come two blokes from Liverpool with a racing game that supports up to eight-player Bluetooth action!

Numfum is that developer, and Opposite Lock is the game, which is being released by publisher eFusion.

It's a knockabout arcade racer with ten tracks and three game modes to play: practice, tournament or time trial. The multiplayer works by one player hosting a game and the others joining it – much like you'd do on a Nintendo DS, albeit using Bluetooth in this case.

The game's just gone live on Samsung's Fun Club portal, and will be available from other portals soon too.

From the screenshots and the preview version we've seen, it looks like it has the potential to be a big word-of-mouth hit, particularly as different phones can play each other in the multiplayer mode (for example, a Nokia versus a Motorola versus a Samsung). Let's hope other mobile games studios have a go…