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Why didn't we develop SolaRola?

Finland's best mobile developers wish they had done a bit better

Why didn't we develop SolaRola?
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| SolaRola

You'd be hard pressed to find more consistent mobile developers than Digital Chocolate's Finnish studio or Mr Goodliving – Realgame's Finnish mobile division – but the top men from both developers confessed they wished they had released SolaRola, the "monstrously-enjoyable Wiz and Waz-based mobile platformer" from Danish developer Progressive Media.

We're grinning because we considered SolaRola our mobile game of 2007, too.

The 'fess sess' occurred in a panel talk entitled 'Mobile – Dead or Sleeping?' as part of the Casual Connect conference in Amsterdam.

Digital Chocolate's studio president, Ilkka Paananen (pictured on the right), highlighted SolaRola as the game he most wished his company had published, while Mr Goodliving's head of studio Sami Lahtinen (left) combined his admiration with that for DChoc's Tower Bloxx and Gameloft's insanely successful Deal or No Deal.

Both men were also positive about the opportunities for mobile gaming in 2008.

Paananen said Digital Chocolate had just experienced its best ever financial quarter and he expected this to continue thanks, in part, to DChoc's Café series of casual/connected games, of which 13 titles have been released to date.

Lahtinen said he was keen to add support for touchscreen devices as well as tilt-enabled phones in '08, while Realgames' focus on improving the integration of mobile and web games would also pay dividends. However, he said he was concerned about Nokia's seeming targeting of hardcore gamers, rather than the mass market, in terms of the first wave of games for the new N-Gage platform.

Jon Jordan
Jon Jordan
A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon can turn his hand to anything except hand turning. He is editor-at-large at PG.biz which means he can arrive anywhere in the world, acting like a slightly confused uncle looking for the way out. He likes letters, cameras, imaginary numbers and legumes.