The first mobile game
ventured on our screens with the first smartphone IBM Simon Personal
Communicator. Prototype IBM Simon device was launched on November 23, 1992, and its commercial variant entered the
market on August 1994. Packed with features like calendar and calculator, it
also had the world’s
first mobile game, Scramble - a puzzle game where the player assembled squares to form a full image.
Soon after the
distribution of IBM Simon began, a Danish company Hagenuk Corporation launched
the phone Hagenuk MT-2000 which sported the first mobile version of the game
Tetris. As you might know, the goal of the game is to arrange four-sided units to form a horizontal line
without any gaps. The name of the popular game was derived from the terms ‘Tetra’ and ‘Tennis’, the favorite game of Tetris’ inventor Alexey Pajitnov.
Three years later in
1997, came one of the most popular mobile game of the time- Snake. Preinstalled
in monochrome Nokia 6110, this game (together with Tetris) is often mistaken as the very first mobile game. It was
programmed by Taneli Armanto, a design engineer from Nokia. Snake rode the
popularity of Nokia phones and was the quintessential mobile game of its
generation. That said, the limitations of technology
of the time meant that mobile users can only enjoy the games preinstalled with
their handsets. That changed with the arrival of Wireless Application Protocol
or WAP.
WAP is a technical
standard that gave mobile handsets access to the internet. WAP browsers not only made downloading games
possible but also offered multiplayer games support. Simply put, these basic
games featured web pages that displayed text, black and white graphics and
enabled users to enter data into the forms. Some popular examples of WAP games
were Mines (variation of Mine Sweeper), Gladiator, Snake II and casino games
like Blackjack and Roulette.
The next generation of
mobile games was dominated by the likes
of SEGA and Gameloft. These game studios made use of newer handsets in the
market which supported flash and java. The growth in mobile games development was
still limited by hardware constraints. Nokia did try a way out in 2003 by
launching N-Gage, a hybrid between a phone and gaming console. The device was
packed with popular games like Sonic the Hedgehog, Fifa Football and Call of
Duty. The device, mocked as ‘Taco Phone’ was, however, a commercial failure. It seemed that mobile games
just couldn’t
compete with their console rivals from the likes of Nintendo.
This, of course,
changed with the arrival of touchscreen smartphones with app stores packed with
a plethora of gaming apps. Apple launched
the iPhone in 2007 and since then mobile games development has never been the
same. App stores such as iOS App Store and Google Play provided a large
competitive market for big game studios and independent game developers alike. Angry
Birds created by Finnish company Rovio Entertainment, Subway Surfer by Kiloo
Games, Candy Crush by King, Flappy Bird developed by Vietnamese programmer Dong
Nguyen, and the list goes on. In 2016, Niantic launched augmented reality mobilegame app Pokemon Go which took the world by storm. With the arrival of 4G
Mobile network and powerful smartphone processors, we expect more sophisticated
mobile games with 3D graphics, Augmented Reality (and Virtual Reality) and
Social games. The crux of the industry has always been innovation which makes predicting its future, a bit like shooting
arrows in the dark. From Scramble and Tetris to Pokemon Go, mobile games
development has come a long way in a relatively
short period of time. We are waiting for more surprises.
TwistFuture is a
Mobile App development company. We are experts in Mobile Games development
especially real money casino games development and multimedia games
development. Contact us to know more.
No comments:
Post a Comment