Mobile games today and tomorrow

    It was not long ago that mobile phones allowed us only to contact one another.
   The Internet has had a strong impact on mobile communications and has laid the foundation for the development of the new generation phones equipped with WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) and GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) functions. These features, believed to be the future of mobile communications one or two years ago, are now a common feature of mobile phones, allowing their owners, among other things, to enjoy new forms of entertainment. It is difficult now to surprise anyone with Tetris or Snake available on mobile phones and the popularity of the game functions may soon rival that of voice and data transfer.
   The computer games provider nGame has developed and offered a number of WAP phone games such as: Merchant Princes - trade strategy; Chop Suey Kung Fu - oriental fighting simulator (nGames report over 300,000 virtual fights during a three-month period); Carrier Force - marine strategy; and Alien Fish Exchange - a strategic game. These games can be viewed at http://www.ngame.com
   One of the popular web-games is a virtual casino. Special entertainment web-sites can be visited from a mobile handset with WAP or GPRS functions. The player (subscriber) can then make an actual bet from his credit card, with no need to leave his home, and play Black Jack, Roulette and other games of chance at a virtual casino. The win-loss likelihood is the same as in a real casino.
   A piece of information for those interested in totalizator: accessing the Internet from your mobile will allow you to bet in the world's biggest totalizators. The only prerequisite for doing so is to have a WAP or GPRS phone and a credit card.
   Quiz, an interesting web game introduced by Nokia, is located at www.mobile.club.nokia.com. It is very much like the popular game “Who wants to win 20,000?”  The only difference is that a player is allowed to give no more than five incorrect answers. This game is a good way to evaluate and deepen one's knowledge.
   While expanding relations with cellular operators, game providers can utilize alternative means to meet the growing demands of users. It is too soon to forget SMS (Short Message Service) which, though simple, is an efficient application of the concept of structured data transfer.
   The use of SMS as a mechanism of interconnection between the player and the game-server is a logical and far-sighted solution. Besides, SMS can be used for the so-called action games as well.
   The Swedish mobile games provider It's Alive rejected the Snake- and Tetris-type games and developed BotFighters, a good example of an action game. The game is very similar to the virtual PaintBall, based on the principle of transferring information via SMS. The plot of the game is as follows: the players (robots) move through the city streets and “shoot” each other with short textual messages sent from their phones. The target can be found with the help of the addresses shown on a mobile screen or the site of the game. The aim is to find the enemy physically and “shoot” a short textual message at him. The game looks set to win popularity, and the company intends to develop three similar games.
   Logic games played by means of SMS are also popular. People play Black Jack, Poker, etc. from different cities using SMS.
   Mobile games appear to have a promising future and it is quite possible that they will soon become as integral a part of our lives as television, cinema and other entrenched means of entertainment.