Cellphones in SA: Remember THESE old games?
Cellphones in SA used to contain games, and you couldn’t download your own. Remember THESE cellphone games on yours?
If you had a cellphone in the 90s, then you might have been one of the coolest kids in the street – and someone in your family likely passed the phone down to you when it was time for them to “upgrade”.
These days you can play anything from Doom 3 to Grand Theft Auto from your smartphone, but some South Africans will remember a time when things were much simpler for mobile gaming.
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Remember when the first question you asked was which games the phone had?
That’s right: older phones didn’t have an app store. The games were just there, and those were the games you had!
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Here’s a trip down memory lane with some great cellphone games you might remember.
Snake
Snake is an easy cellphone game to explain, but a little bit harder to play. Imagine that you’re a snake chasing around pellets (well, pixels). With every pellet, your character gets longer – until it becomes harder to move around the map.
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Eventually, you can’t help but bash into yourself, and game over.
The oldest version of Snake was just a few pixels on a cellphone, but later versions had levels and different speeds, too.
Modern versions of Snake (like this one) can be played for that great, nostalgic feel.
Bounce
If you had one of the later Nokia phones with a colour screen, then you might also remember a little game called Bounce. The player takes control of a bouncing red ball, which has to make its way through several different levels.
The game included powerups that could change your size, making some areas of the screen easier to get to.
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Yes, it was a lot more fun than it sounds!
Once all your lives ran out, it was game over.
Tower Bloxx
Tower Bloxx was one of the later cellphone games that you’ll remember if you also had Bounce. For this game, the goal is to build a massive tower – with blocks that keep coming down from the top of the screen.
Cellphones everywhere made us feel like we were fancy building inspectors and architects.
If your tower fell over, well, you lose – but at least you get that high score.
