Luxor Mobile

Credits: Lead Game Designer, Producer

Format: Brew and J2ME +200 handsets

Games like Luxor don't come along very often. It was a huge hit on pc and actually fun. To make a case for the game with carriers and to distance it from it's nearest competitor, ZUMA, we adopted a strategy of numerical superiority. Zuma had twenty levels; we had thirty. They repeated their backgrounds; each of ours was unique. Their balls didn't roll, but ours did!

Moving Luxor to mobile required adjustments. Levels were changed from fixed illustrations to a more memory efficient tile based system. We also introduced horizontal scrolling. Together, the scrolling and tile system insured that the gameplay would remain consistent across hundreds of devices. Scrolling also added new depth to the level design.

These innovations were supported by extensive play testing. For every level shipped, at least ten were cut. Many a night I fell asleep, phone in hand, as I tried to squeeze in more play tests. Luxor reviewed well and broke into Verizon's top ten.

Reviews: Pocket Gamer UK by Chris James

Images Copyright RealNetworks 2006, Images Copyright MumboJumbo Games 2006

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