DS comes up Top Trumps
Time to get stat happy
It's almost obligatory for stories about Top Trumps to start off with rose-tinted reminiscences of spotty schoolboy days, but that's not the approach you'd expect from its licence holder Winning Moves.
The company sees Top Trumps as a contemporary brand with plenty of potential for further exploitation. Recent Top Trumps packs have been based on characters from Marvel comics, Star Wars, Harry Potter, the Da Vinci Code and Doctor Who, for example.
No wonder Winning Moves is also developing Top Trumps games for DS, as well as the PlayStation 2 and PC. Working with Ironstone Partners, which owns mobile developer Rockpool, it reckons it can also develop new Top Trumps characters that will be used both in future video games and card packs.
The activity builds on last year's release of four Top Trumps mobile games (Star Wars, Gumball 3000, MotoGP, and Football Legends) by THQ.
With other traditional game publishers such as Konami also getting involved in card-based games on DS – witness its ambitious Marvel Trading Card Game – as well as SNK's SNK vs. Capcom Card Fighters on its way, the trick for Winning Moves and Ironstone will be balancing strong licences and the simple premise of Top Trumps with the more meaty demands of console gamers.
