The last 4 games, all small ones, that I have completed for mobile devices are all stand-alone single-player. Block Rockin’ was mostly an exercise in getting to know the Shiva game engine, but also a fun little physics-based block breaker. Mars Defender was really an outgrowth of some experimentation with spaceship models and testing out of some roleplaying ideas in Shiva. Afterburn 2150, perhaps the graphically most impressive of the games (but also perhaps the one worst received by players), was the result of some playing around with rail-shooter concepts and tilt-based game controls. And Let’s Break Stuff! was really an attempt at making a more broadly appealing casual game using Shiva’s excellent physics engine as well as some nice 3D models from Dexsoft that were really begging to be used. I would classify Mars Defender as a minor success, probably for its unique and quirky little story coupled with retro gameplay, while early indications are that Let’s Break Stuff! will be the most successful of the lot, judging from its reception on the BlackBerry PlayBook and Android.

Sales of single-player mobile-device games really tails off fast though, from what I can see. Mars Defender has already slumped to a trickle, only 6 months after release. The development effort involved makes a poor trade-off versus what I have seen with Darkwind, which is still going strong after 5 years. Admittedly, Darkwind is a very different beast, but I’m increasingly convinced that online games are the thing to do. Mobile online games are also relatively under-represented on the app stores, and at the same time mobile broadband is ubiquitous. Sure, there are some successful town/farm/empire-building games, and a few ‘lite’ MMOs. My son is still convinced that my High School RPG concept, which mixes Roguelike play with resource-based strategy, is a good one. I have also bought a really nice pack of zombies from 3drt.com, and I’m playing around with these and some ideas about multiplayer co-operative turn-based survival games.

One of the more interesting new angles that I have seen from the clamor of ‘social discovery’ and ‘rewards’ APIs whose developers have contacted me is that of giving real-world rewards: physical goods.

So when I was checking out ‘Pet’ games on Google Play (for research purposes!) I came across a cute-looking one called ‘My Pet Coby’. It’s a nice little (very simple) tamagotchi thing where you tickle your pet, play a bubble popping game with him, feed him ice-creams etc., while the game tries to insidiously lure you into buying virtual food for your pet using your mom’s credit card (which is, hopefully, not password protected). The usual stuff. But it also made a very strong point of reminding me, whenever I started up or closed down the app., that if I came back every day I’d get a free lollipop. This message was so important that it warranted a special full-screen pop-up lasting for several seconds.

It’s probably just me being sentimental but I found this concept really striking, and I could vividly imagine a 3 or 4 year old going around for several days obsessing about getting a lollipop from their pet. It said something to me about lost innocence and of the utterly different goals of a small kid compared to a grown-up. Having a simplistic life where you have very little control of your own destiny, you get transported around to different places and activities according to other people’s schedules, but all the while you have a little private relationship with what you imagine to be a real pet, and you have a little private goal of earning something real (a lollipop) yourself. OK, you get the picture.

So this morning, I started up the Coby app., all excited about my lollipop. Wondering how they would get the lollipop to my house (I imagined a downloadable voucher which I would present to my local shop just out of a pure perverse sense of humour). My sons reckoned the president of the lollipop company would personally fly over in a private jet to deliver it to me. We were all wrong. The game gave me a f***ing virtual lollipop to give to Coby. Something that they value at about 5 cents, if you look at the in-game shop. Gah!