

Not only did the controls work well, but the game also used your own collection of songs to create new stages. It was essentially a simplified version of Guitar Hero without the need for an extra peripheral, letting you use the click wheel to hit notes in time to the music.
Download ipod click wheel games series#
In late 2007 Harmonix, best known for music-focused series like Rock Band and Dance Central, launched a game that played precisely to the iPod's strengths with Phase. Unsurprisingly, it was a music game that proved to be the first great release on the platform. "Of course the iPod will be successful game hardware," Masaya Matsuura, creator of influential music games like PaRappa the Rapper and UmJammer Lammy, told Wired in 2007. In spite of the obvious difficulties in developing for the platform, though, some notable creators saw the iPod as a great new opportunity. Getting Pac-Man to turn corners was a pain, as was getting your Tetris blocks to fall exactly where you wanted them. If you thought a touchscreen offered poor controls, just try using a click wheel. Classics like Pac-Man and Tetris managed to spread to yet another platform, but it was immediately clear that the iPod's interface wasn't suited to many (if not most) traditional games.

The first batch of releases wasn't exactly exciting. The first batch of releases wasn't exactly exciting But in September of that year the iTunes store was updated with a new feature, letting you actually purchase new games specifically designed with an iPod in mind. They were games you might play because they were there but not the kind you'd actively seek out. You know, the one with the click wheel and no touchscreen.Ĭlassic iPods had games prior to 2006, but they were the kind that came built into the device - a Breakout clone imaginatively called Brick, for instance - and of course there was solitaire. But before Angry Birds and Temple Run became household names, developers attempted to exploit the gaming potential of another ubiquitous Apple device - the iPod. So even though the iPhone may not have been designed with gaming in mind, its sheer ubiquity has turned it into a disruptive force in mobile gaming and a legitimate contender to more traditional game companies like Nintendo.

If a device has a screen, sooner or later someone will try to put a game on it.
