Prize-21 for Prizes Preview

Adrian Sack, CEO of Ideaworks3D, gave a talk in September about the difference between porting a game to mobile and recreating a game for mobile. He said that the mobile game developer has a responsibility to go beyond downsizing the title to fit in a phone--they have to make the game uniquely suited to the mobile platform. Ideaworks3D showed us what they meant when it launched the Arena-enabled N-Gage titles Tomb Raider, Tony Hawk, and Pandemonium.

Atlas Mobile has launched their company with the same dedication to mobile innovation, but on the other end of the core vs. casual spectrum. This is extremely good news. There are currently 13 Blackjack titles available to US mobile gamers, and while some are worse than others, none of them play any differently than the Blackjack your PC came with in 1994. Atlas Mobile has taken Blackjack and made it uniquely mobile.

Atlas Mobile's version is called Atlas Prize-21. In the Practice mode, you play four hands of cards simultaneously with the goal of scoring as many hands of 21 as possible before the end of the deck (or the two-minute timer). As in Blackjack, face cards are 10 points, aces are 1 or 11, and so on. There are bonuses for gathering 5 cards in a hand without going over 21.

The Prize-21 interface is perfect for mobile. The deck with the open card shows up at the top of the screen. You press 2, 5, 8 or 0 to send that card to the corresponding hand. Simple. The gameplay is speedy, the graphics are sharp, and if you're bright you can actually count cards coming off the deck to improve your score. Fine.

The real mobile innovations, though, start with the two Tournament modes. The Head-to-Head Tournament matches you with another player on the Atlas server, not in real time but with the same deck. Since your opponent gets the same deck, the competition is considered a "Game of Skill" and Atlas can give prizes to tournament winners. Head-to-Head tournaments take place over 24 hours. You have to play three games to qualify, and then the person with the best won/loss record for that day gets a prize. Currently, Atlas is offering gift certificates and the like, but sponsored prizes are a possibility in the future. And yes, disconnects count as a loss, so no shutting down if things aren't going well. Full Tournament rules are available here.

The other tournament mode is Progressive. These take place over a week and offer bigger prizes. The winner is determined solely on high score, so there's no need for matching with an opponent.

So let's count the innovations: Take a standard Blackjack game and 1) remove the dealer so I can play four hands instead of one; 2) let me count cards; 3) make the interface really nice; 4) make head-to-head work smoothly without having to match opponents in real time; 5) remove luck from the competition; and 6) give prizes to tournament winners. Not bad.

Atlas is also rolling out similar skills-based games like "Solitaire" and "Golf Solitaire" (where the decks are all solvable), Switchix (a fast-playing Bejewelled clone), and the most-famous-casual-computer-game-ever--to be announced tomorrow.

These titles should all go live on or around December 16, 2003, and only on Verizon for now. How much? $2.99 per download, per month. If you are a competitive sort, get ready to put your money on the table.