ROME, Italy – Undoubtedly thumbs will be worn down to the bone at the Nokia Games Summit which kicks off next week on Wednesday 29 October in Rome. It’s here that this year’s winners of the Mobile Games Innovation Challenge will be announced – Nokia’s open games development competition that’s in search of innovative concepts for new mobile games. The shortlist of finalists has been revealed, with some interesting concepts bubbling to the surface, featuring ideas such as games that use Nokia Maps, and even a title that sees your mobile phone’s camera connected to your TV for fun-loving purposes.
Of the top ten finalists, the concept judged to be most creative will see one person bag the first place purse of 40,000 Euros, with the second place winner netting 20,000 Euros, and third place pocketing 10,000 Euros.
Nokia Maps has been included as a key gameplay element in Watchers, a conspiracy adventure from UK developer Eclipse Interactive. Fun Cam by Spain-based developer TechnoBubble is the game that sees your mobile camera hooked up to your television. These concepts align with innovative ideas that Will Shen, Head of Production for N-Gage in North America, talked about way back in March when speaking to NokNok.
Other interesting finalists include, Comet Hunter from Turkish developer Onur Yazilim, which sees the player able to create natural sound effects in the game, and Ghost Wire, a title that enables you to use your mobile to communicate with ghosts (who would have though spirits had handsets?).
This week Dr Mark Ollila, Director of Games Publishing at Nokia, briefly highlighted the importance of competitions such as this for the future of mobile gaming:
“The Mobile Games Innovation Challenge has demonstrated the huge potential of this industry on a global level, and the innovation that can be applied to mobile games. We’ve seen some groundbreaking ideas and some really unique concepts. It just goes to show how many creative minds there are out there and it really looks like we’re going to set out what we wanted to achieve with this Challenge — to rock the industry. Everyone’s now talking about the awards ceremony and we’re looking forward to an exciting outcome.”
Click here for a full list of the finalists.
Do any of these mobile gaming concepts light your fire? Got a better idea you’d like to share? Scribble it down below.