Mobile Games

Mobile games have been around for as long as we’ve had phones powerful to run them – and before that, too. Here, we keep a range of those classic games, each built from the ground up to run on cellphone hardware, as well as on the handheld systems that came before the smartphone was invented. The first truly mobile gaming system to become a big hit was the Microvision in 1979. Like many of its successors, it used games cartridges to store the actual software, and had players control their on-screen avatars using a four-direction D-pad – the first of its kind on a handheld device. Another breakthrough came shortly after that with the release of Nintendo’s Game & Watch series, which came about after legendary Nintendo programmer Gunpei Yokoi spotted a bored businessman passing the time by jamming the buttons of his pocket calculator at random. The most significant leap forward in the world of mobile gaming game with the Nintendo Game Boy in 1989. The system’s biggest success story, to everyone’s surprise, was not a Mario or Zelda game (though those franchises made considerable waves on the system). It was a puzzle game – Tetris – devised by a little-known Soviet mathematician. Given that mobile gaming sessions are often short and sweet, and need to take place in places where lighting conditions might be less than perfect, it makes sense for simple puzzle and arcade games to dominate things. And this remains the case even decades later, now we’re all playing on high-resolution, vibrantly-colorful mobile devices. There’s an offering here to match every taste in mobile gaming. All of the entries in the Gamepix library will run comfortably on a mobile device, or a desktop one, provided that it’s equipped with a HTML5-capable web browser. So, when you’re looking to enjoy a slice of mobile gaming action while you’re on the move, here’s the place to do it!