ScottishGames.biz

Cobra's Numba Launches On iPhone App Store

Our apologies for the delay in this going up, but as your editorial HQ is about 3/4 mile from T in the Park (maaaan!) there has been some minor disruption over the last 78 hours or so.

Cobra have been in touch to let us know that their NUMBA game is live on the brand new Apple App Store, for iPhone and iPod touch.

Numba, as we've mentioned before uses the iThing's touchscreen as the main interface, challenging players to create chains of numbers.  However it's not all 1,2,3,4... oh no.  You can find chains of the same number, or mathematical progressions, such as sums and Fibonacci sequences.

It's rather nice and if you're an iPhone (or touch) owner we'd recommend it over, say, iBeer, which after only a single demonstration would result in your shiny new toy having to be removed surgically.  So don't take the risk, try Numba instead.

Extreme Mobile - PocketGamer Quizzes Cobra

PocketGamer has just posted the next in its thoughtful series on the mobile games companies in Dundee.  This time around it's Cobra Mobile under the spotlight, with MD Mark Ettle answering Jon Jordan's probing questions.

Here's the first question, just to whet your appetite:

Pocket Gamer: Earlier this year, you announced your PC casual website CobiMobi. What was the thinking behind it?

Mark Ettle: We were looking at diversifying. We knew we could create absorbing and engaging casual mobile games with the skillsets and tools we've built up, so we thought it would work well if we extended onto PC.

We took some resources from our mobile side and developed our first casual PC game, Cobi Treasure Deluxe, which was based on a mobile game. We played around with the game mechanic and introduced new features and then polished it up.

But our second game, Numba, was originally done for PC and only afterwards did we prototype it for mobile. It played really well and now we're in the process of getting it finished. It should be coming out early next year.

However you'll have to read the rest of the interview here.

Announcing CobiMobi.com - Not Just For Mobile Any More

The game industry is changing.  Very fast.  Of course, it's done this for a while now, but over the last twelve months it seems to have accelerated again.  One of the key drivers of this rapid evolution is the creation of new channels through to consumers.  Developers are no longer constrained to making games for the PC or consoles.  There are now a staggering variety of technologies and platforms which support gaming.  From the virtual consoles on the Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii, to mobile phones, handheld devices like the DS and PSP and even the new generation of electronic gadgets like the iPhone and iPod can all now be used to play games of some sort.

However there's some reluctance from various areas of the games industry to recognise many of these channels as platforms capable of playing 'real' games.  The whole notion of 'real' games - as in those which appear on consoles and PC is one which drives us crazy and we spent many hours in Edinburgh at various festivals last month banging on about the opportunities and advantages of working on these new platforms which do NOT require huge up front budgets, enormous teams or publisher approval.

That whole topic is something for another moment, when we've not had quite so much coffee, but it was HUGELY encouraging to see a press release from Cobra Mobile this morning talking about the launch of their new casual games portal.

Cobimobi.com will offer all of Cobra's new games for PC and the company is making a great deal of the fact that they're planning to design all of their new titles for as many platforms as possible - including all of those listed above.

They've launched two titles initially - starting with two original games - Cobi Treasure Deluxe and Numba(TM).

You can see this idea at work in both games.  Numba uses a rather nifty control system which works rather nicely with mouse, touchscreen and joypad.  We've not tried it on any other systems (yet), but we'd imagine it would also be rather nice to use with the Wii controller and as a one-thumb mobile game.

Both games are available as free downloads and can be played for 45 minutes totally free of charge before you have to buy them (at which point they cost £11.95 / $19.05 / €17.50).

We'll be keeping an eye on CobiMobi and Cobra's 'omni-gaming' approach as new games appear.

You can read the full press release after the link...

Cobra Mobile & Codemasters Announce Sensible Soccer Skillz

Codemasters and Cobra Mobile are delighted to announce the joint development of Sensible Soccer Skillz for mobile phones. Sensible Soccer Skillz is a mobile phone based version of the computer gaming football version of Sensible Soccer, scheduled for a re-launch in June 2006.

"Cobra Mobile is delighted to be working with Codemasters Mobile in bringing the pinnacle of football gaming, Sensible Soccer to the mobile platform," said Cobra Mobile, Managing Director Mark Ettle.

"The sheer all round playability and addictiveness of Sensible Soccer Skillz on mobile makes it a very exciting and special game for Cobra Mobile to have developed - this really is football for the next generation!"