If you still have a Symbian S60 (not S60v3 or newer) smartphone, like the Nokia 3230, 3600, 3620, 3650, 3660, 6260, 6600, 6620, 6630, 6670, 6680, 6681, 6682, 7610, 7650, N-Gage, N-Gage QD, N70 or N90: download Geominder and generate an unlock code:
Device ID:
Unlock Code
Ludimate was a mobile games developer that existed from 2005 till 2013. The Ludimate name appeared as a tribute to the 1980's English games company Ultimate Play the Game which would later become Rare. We loved their ZX Spectrum games.
Ludimate produced mostly games for all popular smartphones and PDAs of the period, from Symbian (S60, UIQ) and Pocket PC/Windows Smartphone/Windows Mobile to later iPhone and Android devices.
When the iPhone and Android swept all other platforms into irrelevance, we tried but could not find a sustainable model in the app stores environment. For all the fond memories of those times, we prepared this Ludimate story/redux with the good parts and all original game installation files for people who still have their old smartphone stored somewhere...
It all started in 2005 with Geominder for Symbian S60 smartphones. The idea for this app (it's not a game) is very simple: you create reminders associated to physical locations that will alert you upon arriving there. Location-based reminders! No need for GPS (nor the phones had it) as Geominder uses network cell id information to know where you are and alert you if needed. Since a mobile phone knows its cell id information at all times, there's no extra battery use involved.
37signals.com wrote about Geominder:
... but what about location-based reminders? What about getting a reminder on your cell phone to 'Buy orange juice' when you pass the market or 'Call Bill' right when you get to your office? An interesting new app for Symbian Series 60 phones called Geominder does just that. Very clever and very useful. Great idea and well executed.
The problem with Geominder was that, if in a city environment cell towers can be a reasonably accurate way of knowing one's location, unfortunately in places like the country with more distant mobile cell towers it doesn't work very well, no matter how hard we tried to be as accurate and predictive as possible in the software.
Screenshots
After Geominder we thought it better to try developing games. Why? Because we loved games and most mobile games at the time were quite crappy and we thought we could do better. At the time most games were developed in Java which meant aiming at the lowest common denominator and the results were usually quite bad. The then-recent smartphones and PDAs had better hardware and ways to use it directly, so off we went to develop games for these new devices!
Armed with great intentions but not much mobile game code yet, we thought: why not start with something simple like a puzzle? Being such an interesting game, we picked Sudoku and thought about designing a really good Sudoku user interface. But how wrong we were about it being a simple project! Sensible Sudoku took a lot of effort to develop and we only managed to ship it in 2006 and version 2 in 2007.
Many people downloaded and purchased the game over the years and we got a fair share of good reviews.
"You have never seen a prettier game with nothing but numbers in it! The whole game just oozes inner peace and serenity (...) turning a brain teasing puzzler into an aesthetically enjoyable experience." - Attila Katona, All About Symbian
"Flawless gameplay, great graphics and sound, interesting options. The developers have taken great care in every aspect of the game. Highly recommended." - Handango Reviewer
Compared with other Sudokus and even other apps, our game had a really polished and classy user interface with transparency, shadows and smooth transitions - you can see some of that in the video. Although polished user interfaces later became the norm with iPhone and Android, they were quite uncommon in 2006.
Besides the polished interface, Sensible Sudoku featured millions of puzzles, several difficulty levels, pencil marks, statistics, hints, etc. After Sensible Sudoku 2 we worked in other projects and later in 2011 returned and ported it to Apple's iPhone/iPod and iPad, but sales were disappointing there.
Screenshots
Sensible Sudoku is available for Symbian S60, Symbian UIQ, Symbian S60v3, Symbian UIQv3, Pocket PC and Windows Mobile Smartphone (you can click the previous links to download). Unfortunately iPhone/iPod/iPad versions are no longer available in Apple's store nor can they be downloaded elsewhere.
After installing, generate an unlock code from your Device ID:
Unlock Code
After Sensible Sudoku we were finally ready for greater things - to design a truly original mobile game! Or so we hoped... And work started on project Orlando which was later to be renamed Tilelander.
After some struggle we were able to ship Tilelander by 2007: a fine-tuned mix between a puzzle and an action game - you can play it calmly or frantically, as you choose (at least most of the time). Initially inspired by classic arcade game Qix we then added a variety of arcade action ideas while making sure it could also be played like a puzzle.
Many people really liked Tilelander and it received a few awards:
"This is the kind of game that will leap off the console and leave a lasting impression, along the lines of Pac Man, Donkey Kong, Tetris and other iconic video games that helped shape a genre." - Just Another Mobile Monday
"Sometimes you find a game with graphics and gameplay that just rocks your socks off. Tilelander is such a game." - spmwinkel_PPC
Handango Champion 2007 - Best Entertainment Application!
Tilelander wins Entertainment category of UIQ Open 2007!
Of Tilelander we wrote blurbs like:
- A fun game that can be played as puzzle, with careful thinking behind every move; Or in a furious wipe-them-all urge! It's up to you how to play.
- Addictive gameplay with progressively unlockable levels and four difficulty settings for extra longevity.
- Over 70 delicious levels combining a variety of gameplay, from peaceful tile filling and maze solving to more involved shoot'em'up. And good-humored level names too!
- Refreshing graphics, blending a retro touch with exuberant color gradients.
Mobile Screenshots
Desktop Screenshots
Tilelander is available for Symbian S60, Symbian UIQ, Symbian S60v3, Symbian UIQv3, Pocket PC, Windows Mobile Smartphone and Windows (click to download).
After installing, generate an unlock code from your Device ID:
Unlock Code
Besides these nice awards and although many people loved Tilelander, it did not attain that much success. Business and personal reasons forced us to work on other projects and everything was more or less on slow motion for a few years. Until...
Between 2011 and 2013 we worked on X-Rainbow. And it was not just a game but also kind of a world-domination plan... X-Rainbow was actually developed in JavaScript+WebGL and other standard web technologies and as part of this *great* plan we created a high performance WebGL virtual machine (kind of an undercover web browser) based on the SpiderMonkey JavaScript engine, the same used in the well-known FireFox web browser. The big idea was that if we could develop games in JavaScript, they would automatically be compatible with web browsers plus iPhone and Android - of course on these mobile platforms no one would know they were playing the game in an undercover web browser. Muahahahaha!
This is a promotional video we made for X-Rainbow:
As before with Tilelander we tried to design a kind of an action-puzzle hybrid: a game that you could play either way you like, fast-action or thinking. Besides the virtual machine/undercover browser we developed, this game contained many innovations such as an SVG-like vectorial format we created in JavaScript, which was the best way we found to cope with all the different sizes of mobile devices - this game could run in any resolution. And most importantly we were now ready to take on web browser gaming!
Screenshots
No need to download or install anything: Play it Here!
However during the time we spent developing this technology the mobile games market changed drastically. Old mobile ecosystems were by then completely destroyed by the iPhone and Android platforms with their millions of $0.99 games and apps. When we managed to launch this first (we believed) of many quality JavaScript games, the market was by then already quite full and nobody noticed X-Rainbow no matter how much we tried. And we found that web browser games were even more difficult to sell.
We quickly understood that although we had developed a great technology, we had no way to market it in a sustainable manner. Developing an interesting game requires a lot of time and effort. Our concept of what a mobile game should be was not compatible with shuffling advertising at the player or imposing the freemium model tricks. Forcing the art and science of game making into such a race was not for us. So we couldn't find a way to keep going on this $0.99 environment and that was the end for the Ludimate project around the summer of 2013.
Anyway it was such a great journey and we're very glad that many people spent pleasurable times with the games we made. Thank you Ludimate players wherever you are!
Jorge Diogo - Ludimate - FaronStudio