I'm not really a gamer. The last console game system I owned was the Super Nintendo. (Go, Mario Brothers!) But lately it seems like gamers and non-gamers alike are all glued to their cell phones with one game or another. My friends swear up and down about how entertaining and addicting these games can be -- or how handy they are when you need to look busy when you're waiting alone at a restaurant, or how they make that super-slow line at the grocery store seem to move a lot faster.
Our phones have been equipped with mobile gaming capabilities for over a decade now (remember Snake?), and with the number of mobile gamers around the world expected to reach 220 million this year, the mobile gaming business is booming. Games can be downloaded over the air, via a memory card, Bluetooth and sometimes come pre-loaded on to a phone. The Palm Software Store offers several games with free trials; if you decide to buy, prices start at under $10. You'll find titles ranging from Sudoku to Advanced Brain Trainer to Bejeweled 2.
Over at Handango, you'll find a list of the most popular games on the Palm OS. Here are the current favorites:
1. Bejeweled 2
2. Frogger
3. Bejeweled
4. Bookworm
5. Aces Texas Hold'em
We asked a few Palm community mavens about their favorite games as well. Bejeweled is the top pick of Andrew Carton of Treonauts and Christopher Meinck of Everything Treo, while Dieter Bohn of TreoCentral singled out Crosswords, Ryan Kairer of PalmInfoCenter picked Star Command and Sammual McLoughlin of Palm Addict opted for WordPop.
Me? I went for Bookworm. (Yes, I'm a bit of a nerd.) You? Weigh in on our Facebook discussion board.
Zeenat S.
Edelman for Palm
What about the Pre? Are you going to open up the SDK to allow for games on there? It's one of the major concerns I have about purchasing the Pre.
Posted by: Bryan | January 28, 2009 at 02:28 PM
Bryan -- webOS will be an extremely easy platform to develop for. If you want to stay current on what's happening with the SDK, sign up for the developer RSS feed at http://developer.palm.com/.
Jon Z at Palm
Posted by: Palm, Inc. | January 28, 2009 at 02:39 PM
I'm sure the SDK will be great, that's why Palm has always been the best platform with the most apps. I'm watching the developer RSS and I'm still a little worried about only being able to use HTML, Javascript and CSS. One of the best applications for games on the old Palm was LJP (FOSS) http://www.little-john.net/ which would allow you to play Mario Brothers (also my favourite game) on your Palm. Although there are some legalities concerning this, as long as you own an original copy of any of the games you use it for, you'll be fine (don't take my legal advice since laws in your country may be different!) I'm hoping the new Palm SDK would allow for people to develop apps of this caliber. No other mobile OS has an app that is even close to as good as LJP.
I also love those astraware games you've posted, on my Palm I've got text twist, bejeweled 2, insaniquarium, and mummy maze. I've also got the demos for dynamite, zuma, and bookworm!
Posted by: Anonymous | January 28, 2009 at 06:32 PM
Palm, I've been following both developer.palm.com and pdnblog.palm.com, but both have been rather slow as of late, the the effort is greatly appreciated at developer interaction and input.
I found it interesting that you do an article on gaming. Everything I've read and know tells me that Mojo SDK won't allow complex coding with direct hardware access. Javascript engines are fast, but I don't think I've seen one capable of 3D gaming or multimedia processing.
Only 2 options seem to make sense (to me anyway):
1) Work with Adobe for full-featured Flash integration that is able to take advantage of the Pre's hardware. That'd both please people to have flash in the browser and would make gaming much much easier for the Pre.
2) Or Palm could release a native C SDK, plain and simple.
I'd be happy with either, but #1 would make people especially happy; flash put the Pre browser in an area where the iPhone refused to go. ;)
Any comment from Palm on the Mojo and gaming/multimedia, or the 2 options I mentioned? :P
Posted by: JayCanuck | January 28, 2009 at 06:56 PM
One other comment related to the above blog post, here are mine, and most people I know, favourite games for the Palm:
1) Little John PalmOS - Every Palm gamer knows this freeware: a multi-emulator supporting: Nintendo, SNES, Gameboy, Gameboy Color, Genesis, Sega Master System, Wonderswan, NeoGeo Pocket, Atari 2600
http://www.little-john.net
2) The Quest - Absolutely fantastic RPG for the PalmOS with expansions and everything. All gamers I know have it on their devices.
http://www.redshift.hu/
3) EDGE - A breakthough 3D RPG that was years in the making and was all-out. I believe to this day it's still one of the most advanced RPGs for the PalmOS. Which is unfortunate as it was made way back in 2005, I believe.
http://www.zanegames.com/
If the webOS can power those kinds of games/emulators, then maybe it has a chance at reaching the gaming crowd. Best of luck to Palm :-)
Posted by: JayCanuck | January 28, 2009 at 08:18 PM
This is pretty impressive. I'm hoping we can see similar numbers from the Pre.
Posted by: Alex | January 29, 2009 at 04:23 AM
You cannot mention great Palm games without mentioning Kyle's Quest.
Posted by: KyleFan | January 29, 2009 at 06:47 AM
Games? Ever tried the good old Duke3D on your Centro?
http://www.metaviewsoft.de/en/Software/PalmOS/Freeware/Duke3D/index.html
And don't forget LJP, the latest can be found in my blog too:
http://www.metaviewsoft.de/wordpress
Posted by: Henk | January 29, 2009 at 11:45 AM
The Open Pandora project is going to attract a lot of game ports to Linux on ARM just like the Zodiac did back in the day for Palm OS. The Pre is using a very similar OMAP and you should take advantage of that! I'm aware that it's somewhat challenging to get games and connectivity working on the same device at the same time as both want top priority. However it is a problem you have to solve. And when you do, remember to make cross development for Pandora and Pre as easy as possible. The Pandora might not sell the volume of Palm devices but there are an awful lot of awesome developers on board.
Posted by: Ortwin | January 30, 2009 at 10:32 AM
Processors aren't very important when speaking about porting code. Most stuff isn't very processor dependent. A compatible API (speak a full c-lib implementation) and a working on-device/emulator debugging is much more important.
Posted by: Henk | January 31, 2009 at 03:59 AM
Please bring back Tetris, besides Bejeweled it is my ladys favorite game to play.
Posted by: Fletch | February 13, 2009 at 12:59 PM
i have a palm centro and im lovin' it i still cant belive that they are making the newer palms only for sprint i am an AT&t fellow
Posted by: Joseph Sutphin | February 26, 2009 at 12:40 PM
Nice, I will play bejeweled now. Btw, is there available collapse game and photo hunt please?
Posted by: warcraft gold | March 20, 2009 at 06:22 AM