Lumines and Meteos head to mobile phones

Two of this year's most popular puzzle games have come from a single source, Q! Entertainment. Now those games, Lumines and Meteos, published for the Sony PSP and Nintendo DS respectively, are going to share the platform of mobile phones.

Both games were designed by Q! founder and Sega scion Tetsuya Mizuguchi, whose credits include such works as Rez and Space Channel 5. In a press release, Q! CEO Shuji Utsumi said that Gameloft "...is the ideal mobile game partner for Q. We are confident of their ability to deliver our games' gameplay and style--the combination that has made them a success."

Both games are twists on the classic Tetris formula. In Lumines, players form rectangular solids to colorful backdrops and electronic dance rhythms. Meteos' goal is to arrange an ever-growing pile of meteorites by color as, once linked, they sprout rockets and are sent to whence they came.

Many industry watchers speculated that these games might make excellent mobile offerings, but few anticipated Gameloft, which isn't really known for its puzzlers, would be the publisher of both.

Lumines and Meteos should be available on mobile phones in the first quarter of 2006.