Retro2Now: Mobile Gaming

This marks the ninth and final entry in our Retro2Now series.  In the previous eight posts, we went on a trip down memory lane to the retro days of mobile games. We looked at those straightforward yet clever hits like Angry Birds, Temple Run, and Subway Surfers. Those titles really shaped how people used their smartphones for gaming. They showed that a phone could handle serious playtime. We began with games that worked fine with just one finger. To wrap things up, we turn to something that calls for real skill, quick reflexes, and smart planning. It feels like a premium console game in every way, we end the series with the perfect pick for Now, which is Call of Duty Mobile. From Time-Killer to Main Event Call of Duty Mobile came out in October 2019. It did not simply bring over ideas from consoles. Instead, it packed the full energy and excitement of the whole Call of Duty series right onto phones and tablets. Best of all, it did so without charging a dime, that launch felt like a...

  Welcome back to Retro2Now: Mobile Gaming.  We dig into the roots of some iconic phone games every couple of weeks .  In this eighth part, we are looking at a title that showed zombies could turn into puzzles instead of pure chaos. Back in the early 2010s, mobile games full of physics puzzles hit their peak. Angry Birds ruled the roost, but Stupid Zombies stayed in the shadows as this overlooked hero with a shotgun. It went beyond being a typical zombie title. It felt more like a test in geometry hidden inside an end-of-the-world story with the undead. The Retro Core: Simple Premise, Devious Design GameResort put out Stupid Zombies around 2011 and it showed up in a busy App Store full of competition. The basic idea seemed really straightforward at first glance. You play as one survivor who looks a lot like Ash from Evil Dead. He carried a shotgun and the enemies were these dumb zombies that did not move at all, they just stand there waiting to get taken out again. Your j...

  Welcome back to Retro2Now: Mobile Gaming.  We dig into the roots of some iconic phone games every couple of weeks and t his marks our sixth piece.  For this seventh blog entry it is time to get behind the wheel of one of the most deceptively simple games from the 2010s. That game was wildly addictive and it was called Hill Climb Racing. If you owned a smartphone back in 2012 then chances are good you spent hours messing around with a little red jeep. There was also a driver named Bill Newton and an endless road that was impossibly bumpy and you just kept going on that thing. The "Retro": Two Pedals, Infinite Chaos Fingersoft a Finnish studio developed Hill Climb Racing. It stood as the epitome of easy to learn but impossible to master. The whole premise stayed simple enough. You drove as far as possible on a 2D stage and the controls boiled down to just two pedals. One was Gas and the other was Brake. But those pedals did more than just move the vehicle. The Gas pedal t...

Welcome back to Retro2Now: Mobile Gaming.  We dig into the roots of some iconic phone games every couple of weeks and t his marks our sixth piece. We are diving into one of the nicest and sharpest puzzle games to ever show up on touchscreens. Have your fingers set for some swiping. We are taking another look at the huge deal that Cut the Rope turned out to be. If you owned a smartphone back in the early 2010s, then you remember Om Nom pretty well, that cute green monster with the big eyes and endless hunger for candy turned into a quick favourite for everyone which ZeptoLab put together. Cut the Rope went beyond being some regular game, it turned into this worldwide craze that hooked tons of folks. The Sweet Simplicity of the Swipe You had a bit of candy dangling from a rope or maybe a few ropes and your job was to land it right in Om Noms mouth and you did that by dragging your finger across to slice those ropes. That basic move led into all sorts of tricky puzzles built around re...