GLOBAL – NFC Games have touched-down at the Beta Labs. With an NFC-enabled phone you can connect to Bluetooth music devices instantly, check-in to your social networks or swap photos and contact information, using nothing but a touch. Now, Nokia Research Center has produced Nokia NFC Games, a new way to interact and learn.

Luis Sarmenta, Principal Scientist at Nokia Research Center, Palo Alto explains that these Nokia NFC Games provide a new class of games that offer a tangible user interface, limited only by the creativity of developers.

Of course, with NFC, it’s not just as easy as downloading an app and you can start playing right-away. You’ll need some NFC-enabled tags. However, you’ll be surprised how many NFC tags may be around you.

You don’t need any specific cards to play, just anything that is NFC-enabled. The Oyster card in your pocket, a credit card, ID badges, hotel keys, or anything that usually requires you to wave it over a reader of some sort.

There are currently three NFC games available to download.

Nokia World Flags is a matching game aimed at improving memory in a fun way. Lay out the tags on a table and tap your phone onto each card in turn. Your phone will then display a picture of a flag and you have to find the other flag by touching another tag. There’s the option to match 200 flags so each time you play, you’ll be given a new set of flags to play with.

Nokia Nursery Rhyme Shuffle asks you to touch a series of NFC tags and the phone will read a part of a nursery rhyme out to you with each tag, but not in the right order. The task is to retouch the tags in the correct order to hear the whole rhyme, in full.

Nokia Shakespeare Shuffle is a similar game to Nokia Nursery Rhyme, but it’s aimed for adults. Rather than piecing together old childhood rhymes, the aim is to put together quotes from the Bard to recreate his poetic masterpieces.

Nokia has the largest number of NFC-enabled phones on the market. Available at the Beta Labs, Nokia NFC Games will run on any Nokia Symbian NFC-enabled phone, such as: The Nokia C7-00; Nokia C7 Astound; Nokia 600; Nokia 603; Nokia 700; and the Nokia 701.