Fun Friday: Mobile Games

Comments (Archived):

1. Heyzap has the coolest 404 page anywhere:http://www.heyzap.com/404From Albert Wenger’s post yesterday.

   1. Really cool, it makes you desire even more to find a page in the site.I must have been amazing to work at Atari when you did. I started playing videogames in early 80s and I’m still surprised about how addictive your games were back then! So good memories that a wall in my kitchen is an Asteroids game made with decals 🙂

      1. Yup…amazing. My first job.And more remarkable because 6 months after I started Atari was sold and went from some 3000 people to around 50, of which I was one, and then built back up again.

         1. I’d love to hear about that sometime

            1. Absolutely.It was an opportunity totally based on serendipity. Just like most great ones.

            2. Seems to me that life is most serendipity – and as much I hate saying this, you can’t force it.

   2. Awesome link. I never thought I would admit to being addicted to a 404 page.

   3. I was going to nominate GitHub https://github.com/404 but then I clicked your link and 20 minutes later I’ve come back to say that I was wrong.

      1. I shared it really broadly yesterday when the post came out.My sense is that productivity suffered and fun increased through my networks because of this;)

   4. Now, to keep myself away from that page.  I keep thinking I’m not a gamer until I end up in front of a game and have to tear myself away.

      1. I’m not a gamer by dna but some just drag you in.Classic Atari games still so rock.

         1. One summer, I bonded with my younger brother by playing Space Invaders. I was pretty hooked. For weeks, whenever I closed my eyes I’d see be able to see the game in my mind.At the time we never would have guessed how sophisticated game graphics would become, making something as simple as Space Invaders seem arcane, but for pure fun factor, Space Invaders rocked.

   5. I’ve officially played my first online video game courtesy of that 404 page. 

      1. which one? i wanna play too. i fired up words with friends once but didn’t get it. i’m that dumb.

         1. The asteroids looking game on http://www.heyzap.com/404You move the mouse to ‘zap’ the sinister little devil-dogs. I’m a gamer now. 

            1. you can also use the controls a, w, s, d to move left, up, down, right.enjoy!

         2. got it. i always do.

   6. that is awesome!

   7. What an ideal 404 for an online game/support company.740 pts then back to work

      1. ‘740 pts then back to work’Best comment of the day!

   8. May be the only 404 page to get bookmarked.

      1. Just smart of them.People beat their heads against the wall to figure out virality and shareability. Make it interesting and fun and connected to who you are and that’s at least a step in the right direction.

   9. That’s such an awesome 404 page. Sadly I wish I could develop something like that. 

2. I’ll admit I’m a mobile/social games virgin. But what’s strikingly interesting to all these is the SOCIAL aspects,  ie how they get you to play with your friends. What can  we learn from the social and viral gaming mechanics that applies to other Apps? That’s a key question I think. 

   1. Yes…I agree.The most important lesson is of course that games are fun and immediately engaging. Rare qualities both.

      1. But the lesson is in the implementation itself. It’s going to be different for each product or company.

         1. There is no formula certainly. It’s simple but completely elusive. Put games aside for a moment. For any product, you need to figure why anyone should care enough to share it forward.

            1. The sheer volume of new releases on the App Store is breathtaking – there is so much noise there, inevitably – getting visibility (via social/viral, ideally – the specialist media is of course vitally important and generally of a great standard, but it’s surprising how little tangible impact – to sales – glowing reviews here have; the specialist media market is pretty fragmented and is itself so busy with so many new reviews, etc). The complexity and cost of development and the subsequent approach to pricing sensitivity/freemium models means there are endless perms on the timescale of payback/profitability – regarding such topics (and much more), the guy behind Whale Trail is well worth a follow on Twitter, he has some interesting experiences and thoughts re: the whole games/Apps market and measuring success/failure, etc: https://twitter.com/#!/mill…

            2. I’ll check him out Carl. Thanks.The App stores more and more feel like big box retail and just a channel blur. I never discover anything there. In fact I never go there.Almost everything I discover comes through a referred link.Community is becoming a necessity in any product success. I’m a big believer in a mixed bag of marketing approaches but I can’t imagine building a company today that doesn’t use viral proof and consequent engagement as the key market indicators of future adoption.

            3. because they can

   2. i talked about this at harvard last weekthe key to virality is whether your users have an incentive to invite their friendssocial games are inherently viral

      1. And that virality must be totally organic. It is baked into the product.

         1. There are two additional trends that I’m noticing among viral mobile games. In order to go truly viral, a mobile game must be a familiar game from the past (Tetris, Words w/ Friends, Hanging w/ Friends) and/or it must be wildly simple (Angry Birds, Temple Run). Everything else gets lost in the noise.

            1. I agree. Did draw something borrow from a popular offline game?

            2. Pictionary. And they’re also leveraging a similar UI to that of the more familiar Words w/ Friends.

            3. Good points. No totally new games are popping-up? If from anyone, it will probably come from Zynga.

            4. Or me.

            5. I am a tad biased (see my other comments) but I feel Crazy Hedgy is close to the tipping-point. It’s that one final tiny push that’s tricky, though! 😉

      2. It’s going to be fascinating to see if the specialist media/whoever can harness the new (casual) gamer audience – the legacy (but still huge) MMOG community is so vibrant – and a bit intimidating to casual gamers(!) – that sense of community has not as yet transitioned to the more contemporary games. For many games/players maybe it never will, not of interest.Agree totally, the social aspect is key – which requires a lot more than just posting scores to Twitter, etc.Also a physical manifestation – eg, Angry Birds toys/etc – is often overlooked – OK, not a viable investment for many start-ups but very much a chicken and egg scenario for accelerating visibility and getting some empathy with the market.It’s been an eye-opener, for sure, doing some work ‘on the inside’. Love it.

   3. one thing to point out: mobile and social games are two very very very very very different things 🙂

      1. I’d like to learn more about these differences. Can you please elaborate?

         1. Certainly! (After thinking for a second I might have misunderstood your initial post but I’ll elaborate anyway)The way I understood your post was that you were using the phrase “mobile/social games” in a way that recognizes no difference between the two genres. I guess I interpreted it as you saying that green is green without recognizing that it is in fact the product of mixing blue and yellow. I apologize if this was a misinterpretation.But just to give a quick little explanation of my reply, the idea of mobile games and social games have been around for quite a while and have, up until recently, existed mostly separate from each other.Mobile gaming devices have been around for a little over a decade (nintento gameboy is the big one) and have never had a big focus on the social aspect of gaming. Many of the games made for these devices were single player games. Certain old school gameboy games had social capabilities (there were linking cords that could connect 2 devices however the experience was usually very narrow and unexciting) but the main selling point of these gaming devices was that you could take them anywhere.As for social video games, their kind has been around since Atari. Although here there might be some divergence between opinion and fact. Whenever you are talking about something “social”, a lot depends on your definition of “social.” In my opinion, any game that has a multiplayer option is social because at the core, social interaction is the interaction of one person with one or more people. Therefore, a two player game is social in my books. Super Mario Bros, Pong, Street Fighter, etc. are all examples of social games.  So for the first time in history, with the aid of modern technology, these two elements are being combined to create a whole new genre of games. This crazy successful genre (mobile/social) contains games that are entertaining, simple, satisfying, innately multiplayer, noncommittal (you are able to start/stop when you want), and ultra-accessible. And because these games are on a platform (phones) that are already in the hands of every citizen of the US, it’s audience is one that is partially made up of people who’ve had no previous exposure to gaming whatsoever which explains why mobile/social is seen by some as one inseparable thing (or this is not the case at all and it’s all in my head :P)

      2. just one

3. Just last week my 4 year old son came home, saw me with my phone and said Daddy you have got an iPhone (it’s not, it’s an S2), we can play Angry Birds on that.  Up until that point I only had chess on my phone, I had resisted downloading Angry Birds or anything else.  So I downloaded it and let him show me what it was all about.  It’s now also on my tablet (so that I can have my mobile back from my son) and I’m pretty addicted to Angry Birds myself.

4. I played mostly RockBand with some friends.. until i smashed my iPhone4. it’s amazing and a friend challenger. plus it has the wow factor x 10000. love it but its not super social. HeyZap looks amazing, will check.

5. I’ve been doing some work for the people (cybertime_games) behind ‘Crazy Hedgy’ – incredible/beautiful graphics and wonderfully simple, intuitive controls – it’s been a fascinating insight into this market – and a great fun game to relax with!http://www.crazyhedgy.comI also greatly admire the design and execution of ‘Whale Trail’.

6. Not social, but I’ve played a lot to Robo Defense on my Android. If you like tower defense games this one is pretty amazing.

7. Yes I play them often. Plants vs Zombies is probably my favorite. And our HTML5 game 🙂 http://www.warsocial.com (in alpha) – similar to Risk.

   1. An HTML5 game. Cool. Will check out

      1. HTML5 games are coming along nicely. I mingled with some GDC attendees this week in SF.

         1. The browsers are holding HTML5 games back.

8. Admire Heyzap’s resilience. They have iterated & pivoted many many times looking for product/market fit. I hope they do achieve escape velocity.—I don’t have time/patience to really get into playing games. There are a few mobile ones I use occasionally to fill those bite-size time voids, current favourite – Move The Box.

   1. i agree. they have stuck it out and i think they have finally found product market fit. it’s great to see.

9. I am only playing “toddler games” together with my daughter. The best by far is http://www.fungooms.comOn mobile it works on Android mobile phones since it needs flash support.Also, I am waiting for a mobile version of http://www.alice.org that is incredible for educating children to use the computer in a smarter way. Think like the logo programming language but in 3D.BTW the opportunities in this niche market are huge. There are very few games for babies and toddlers below 3 years old, 90% of the games have serious usability issues. 

   1. agree – my 2.5 year old uses the ipad for some learning tools and youtbube! weare yet to find a game that she can play and learn at the same time.

      1. I can suggest these guys for toddler games http://tocaboca.com/games/My 3 year old loves them.

10. if i never play another game in my life i would still have covered my quota, plus that of the rest of my family. used to play strategy games all the time. battle strategy and resource allocation games in particular.i did find the MIT course on game design interesting. there’s a lot to be learned for any product IMO. http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/…

11. my gaming life:poker: once every couple of months with friendsGolden tee: this can be addictingMedal of honor / call of duty on XBOX: maybe once a fortnight (these are time suckers)Bagh Chal: a nepalese take on checkers that we have in the office – once a week or so.and then any manner of childrens games from 5-8 in the morning depending on what stella wants to do!oh and tiger woods ofcourse, who doesnt play that.

    1. Can’t help remembering this classic (NSFW!) when someone mentions Golden Tee: “Look at my stripped shirt!”.

12. Anyone remember playing age of empires online? this was over a decade ago. Its was glaringly obvious how viral and addicting the gaming world was going to become.

    1. Games were a cross generational addiction even at a coin-op stage. Game fans enthusiasm and pure energy and joy was always beyond any platform that contained them.

    2. Yeah. And counter strike!

    3. age of empires 2 = favorite game of all time

       1. by a country mile. the british archers…….turkish massacre every time.

          1. haha nice, i was a fan of the huns. tarkans burn those buildings down to the ground!

13. Temple RunAngry BirdsGrand Theft Auto!RacePenguinThe Amazing RaceLumosity’s Brain TrainerVirtual Table Tennisand I’m stuck on the 21st level of Move the Box–I play 10 mins before I head to bed so most of these are games of the past. A nice fun way to end the day though..

    1. No Words with Friends?I think you should come-up with a new game – Quotes with Friends 🙂

       1. Love Quotes with Friends

       2. You’re on form today.. haha

          1. Bring it on. I owe you a re-interview. This time you’ll need to keep your finger on the Record button 🙂 It’s that my Saturdays haven’t worked out yet.

             1. I understand. I’m patiently waiting!! No hurry or worry. I know I will get you..(Said in a completely cool tom cruise in mission impossible sorta tone.. hahahaha)

             2. someone censor social laughing

       3. I am working on WWF with a twist – a theme for each game

          1. Welcome back Emily. I’ll look you up on WWF.

             1. Hey 🙂 sorry just tunes in here. Do ping me on WWF, k? I typically do not have the patience for it but I am working on it.

14. kirklove on Draw Something. Hit me up any and all. Would love to see the AVC drawing skills! 😉

    1. Doing that now

    2. next phone I get in, I will take you up on that offer 🙂

       1. Definitely!

    3. I signed up. Not used to drawing with my finger, so I’ll have t get used to it or get a stylus.

       1. I think that’s the fun of it. The limitation. Sometimes I get in a good one, sometimes my drawings are horrible. It’s all fun. They’ve got a good little gem going here.

15. No. It’s pseudo social.Give me a game where the participants are in the same room, or garden, or field, or landscape.

16. http://www.youtube.com/watc…even if you just watch up to the game physics part, this video will blow your mind!

17. Fun Friday’s – can I please diverge for a quick thread.I have only been an AVC community member for < 6 months – I enjoy reading and commenting.I have found that there are several words or phrases which are commonly used for example>Bring It>All In>Indeed (Rohan – or maybe @BradUSV:disqus – I wonder if they use this word at Indeed BOD meetings)>Word>Exactly>Well Played (JLM)I call these AVCisms – please feel free to add any I missed, or comment who gets credit for first use ( Assuming Fred in many cases). Maybe William & Engagio or our friends @ Disqus can sum and rank the number of times these terms/phases are used in threads.Happy Friday

    1.  ^2

    2. word

    3.  Another AVCism (really, a JLMism), unless it’s too long to count: “I agree with you more than you agree with yourself”.

       1. and “every generation thinks they invented sex”

          1. And “when you go to the pay window, take everyone to the pay window.”

             1. I like the pay window!

             2. someone open the damn pay windows please.

             3. one of my favorites!

             4. It’s got to be fun to get to do that quite a lot as your profession…

          2. not really

          3. “Every generation throws a hero up the pop charts”- Paul Simon

    4. YES, YES.

    5. ANYTHING IN UPPERCASE WHICH USUALLY PROFOUND BUT SURREAL IN WAY EXPRESSED – by none other than FAKE GRIMLOCK:-)

    6. Indeed.

    7. That’s a fun diversion. Community lingo. 

    8. ^10

18. Words with Friends and Scramble with Friends are absolutely addicting. I always loved games, but bored of most – except for really complex engaging ones like Flight Sims (I remember the original subLogic) and Zork. But Words and Scramble engage at a social, fun *and* intellectual level. Very few games do that.Especially with my travel schedule, and friends and family living thousands of miles apart, Zynga has some real hits here.

    1. Agreed – my family is all overseas, and Words With Friends is a fun way to interact with them.

19. I just play Angry Birds occasionally. After getting 3 stars on everything in the original (took a while), I recently downloaded the Seasons add-on. Since then, I’ve sort of lost steam with it. 

20. Spiderman free, angry birds free, barbie free….aka “kid muzzles” when out to dinner.

    1. lol

21. We are so all over games, my daughter (10), “Rosina” and I. We play everything, except I’m not so into chess or poker.For mobile, Words with friends for Rosina since two years. She is quite formidable. She just started Bananagrams as mobile and with many players its headspinning – faster than Zip-It. Colorku is a hit mobile vs real for the note taking ability, but we’ve only played each other. 9 Man Morris is fun too.I just designed an amazing app and am looking for a tech partner. Storyboard done. Science education. Is going to be a game changer. I design real games as well as apps, and they work together. I love my job. I have more apps to come, and if I have a developer they will be coming as faster.Downloading Draw Something now.

    1. what do you think of draw something?

       1. I played a few rounds with kirklove and Rosina found anonymous players. She likes it a lot and does well at it. I am getting used to drawing with my finger and speed – I erase a lot when I draw, but am used to paperer and pencil. Rosina draws on the iPad on other programs so is cool with her finger.The challenge is like Words with Friends – finding engaged users who play at the level and speed you want to play at, and for the rhythm of your day. Some player only play before/after work etc, some like a long game and others short and fast.So while I like the idea, and enjoy the challenge of drawing this way, finding the right opponents, like with any game remains the mystery.Perhaps if you are on we pay a round? I have my same user name there as here.,

22. Eliss was AMAZING on the iPhone back in ye olde 2009. Are there any others like it? #design-lovers-unitehttp://stephthirion.tumblr….

23. It’s not social on the mobile platform and it started on the desktop, but the phenomenon that is Minecraft is something to behold. A completely open sandbox game where you can remove and replace any material in the world as long as you have the right tool. Gather resources and build a protective structure in the survival mode, because when night falls monsters come out. Or start a game in creative mode and build anything you want with every resource at your disposal.Some of the things built in-game are amazing: things like a working 16-bit ALU (http://www.youtube.com/watc…, a scale reconstruction of the USS Enterprise.It’s amazing what people will come up with when you just give them a tool for creation.

    1. What is this whole Minecraft game thing???

       1. My 11 y.o. son just gave me a tour of his latest world.  He is obsessed so we have to place time limits, but I actually love what he does on there.  The platform for creativity is amazing,  even some elements of exploration and also strategy, organization and planning. Mom approved.

          1. I’m still lost as to what this is…ummm…help?

24. Heyzap had a super fun party in SF for the GDC this week. I had a blast.They’ve really executed since I saw them present at YCom a couple years ago.

25. Words with friends fan -open to new games any time.Bejeweled type gamesHmm, I kind of want to learn go.

    1. By the way, I discovered something at the Montgomery Tech conference that you might enjoy — Lumosity.com. Tweeted it out and @rrohan189:disqus responded back that he is a fan.  Brilliant product now on my watch list.  I am also curious as to how their marketing will unfold.

       1. I took a look – don’t you get the same effect by learning something new, particularly in a field you don’t know much about?

26. The interesting thing about this market is learning to ‘let go’ sometimes as ‘sensible’ adults – I never really played any of the modern-era games (threw away my PS1 several years ago) but since getting more involved in the iOS market from a business perspective of late, I have learnt to say ‘what the hell’ and just spend some time most days playing a game or two and downloading a game now and then just to have a look/play (ahem, aka ‘market research’!) – in conjunction with my (usually) daily walks and thrown in with a bit of Wii fitness time it’s been a great tonic.We should all loosen-up and chill-out more often – it does us good.

    1. Play is how kids learn. Why adults forget this I’ll never understand.

       1. Play is probably a big part of how adults learn too.. 🙂

    2. Good point.

27. Does foursquare count?Otherwise, I’ll have to sit this one out.  Although, I’ve had my moments.  Could be tempted to play words with friends.  At your own risk.

    1. only sort ofbut turntable is also a game donnaand the new iPhone app is awesome

       1. I will have to borrow one of my kids’ iPhones to try mobile Turntable. Although they already give me a hard time for doing Turntable on my PC – which BTW is not why I’m normally on during the wee hours. (I like to think they are secretly impressed.) Hoping the Android version is on the way.

28. I use mobile asynchronous games to keep contact with friends and family.  I played Words with Friends with my girlfriend for awhile, but eventually we played that one out.Lately, I’ve been playing a game called Hero Academy (http://www.robotentertainme… with a handful of friends, which is effectively a board game that takes maybe 30-60 turns.For me, that asynchronous nature is really important – a few 15-30 s turns throughout the day, you get contact with people that you might not have been interacting with, and it gives you something to talk about.

    1. exactly. it gives me an opportunity to “say hi” on a regular basis

29. Here’s another diversion. Who’s going to SXSW from the AVC community? I know 2-3 at least so far. We might have a casual get together. Does anyone use EchoEcho?

    1. not me. i’ve never been to sxsw

       1. Have already connected with a handful of AVC’ers. You should pop in for a couple of days. It’s an experience.

       2. JLM is picking us up tomorrow in his armored vehicle.

30. No.

31. World of Goo – fantastic for the children to learn basic physics/mechanics while not even knowing it.http://2dboy.com/games.php

32. having been a gamer my whole life i’ve got to say i love this post! it is very interesting to see the massive dispersion of mobile games and the “un-geekifying” of game playing for adults. because games are now available on your phone, and everyone has a phone, and everyone plays them, it’s ok 😛 but a couple years ago, how often did you see someone on their commute to work with a gameboy in hand? mobile games have been around forever, but they are becoming more socially accepted as a way to spend your free time. also mobile games on your phone/ipad has cut out the middle man (the separate console) and made it 10x easier for people to have access to. that probably has something to do with all this as well.as for mobile games, i spend most my time on my ipad:-kingdom rush (awesome tower defense)-veggie ninja (if i feel like getting a work-out)-chess lite (ol’ faithful)*edited the caps, might have been a little uncalled for haha

    1. great point about mobile games leading to more adults playing games

       1. Thanks Fred! As someone who’s just entering the adult working world I’m pretty excited about this observation. For a while I thought I was going to have to leave my gaming habits behind…

33. As a high school student myself it’s pretty interesting to watch the rise and fall of different games.  The “cool” game now is always replaced by a “cooler” one in a few weeks.

    1. that’s the challenge with games. you have to keep coming up with hits

       1. Agreed, being able to replicate your success is what separates the good developers from the great ones.

34. No games here.  I tried Angry Birds to see what the hubbub was about, but I have no time as I choose to spend my extra time with family, reading, working out or playing golf.  No TV except for college football and no games.  But everyone needs downtime and can choose how they recharge. Mobile games are interesting b/c people do have segments of time between meetings, travel, etc.  so they can engage and disengage quickly which bodes well for the gaming firm.

35. FIFA 12 and Real Racing 2HD for iPad. I want to have the top time trials in the world for Real Racing. I’m not far off on a few tracks. Does Twitter count as a mobile game? It really feels like it sometimes.

36. I have been playing CityVille. It is costing me a lot of money. I became a rich farmer on FarmVille without spending a dime, until recently. Discipline, comrade, discipline. 

37. I was wondering, with success of the token model in which users pay for things, do you think they could do a token model where they pay kids in education games?  What if 1% of the education budget went to a cash-based positive-feedback mechanism for students…imagine the cost savings in repeated courses.

38. Doodle Jump 🙂 http://en.wikipedia.org/wik… I’m terrible at it, but its simplicity and aesthetic make me smile.

39. Sweet game! The Zombies on the 404 Page remind me of the Censorship Zombies in Washington as they continually try to take control of the Internet. The attacks become more indirect and elusive – but they keep coming and with greater intensity. If this game could be designed around a Censorship theme and all could participate – I’d sign up as a Freedom Fighter willing to protect the Internet from the Censorship Zombies. I think a lot of people would. If this game could be turned into a world-wide game where everyone on the planet could sign up to fight on either side – Freedom vs Censorship, we would see who’s who and how many people are fighting on each side. I predict it would be game over for the Censorship Zombies.

40. My husband/partner in crime has been tearing up young millennial Chinese kids via Chess With Friends. I personally have trouble delaying gratification and find long, languid Words With Friends not so much fun for me. 

41. cut the rope is popular in third grade. i tried it and was amazed at the thinking required

42. Of course. I do chess only!

43. Since so many here seem to like word games, I’d recommend checking out Quarrel on iOS (disclosure: it’s made by my friends at Denki here in Scotland).

44. teacher is tired.

45. They can basically operate any kind of application on the mobile & make their life simple. Even teenager could knows, how to work with mobile & have get more fun & entertainment through mobile games.