Developers have been pushing graphics on mobile devices to the point where they look almost as good as their console and PC counterparts. The first game ever to release on mobile attracted the attention of many individuals. Snakes, which was released in 1997 is considered the first major mobile release and it was a huge hit back in the day. It soon became available on many mobile devices that were released the following years and the game was present on over 350 million mobile devices.
The graphics were simplistic with visible pixels and the game had no sounds or missions. It was a simple 2D game with the main objective being to collect as many blocks as possible without hitting anything. The gameplay was fairly simple and became more challenging as you progress. After Snakes, the next big game-changer was Tetris. Tetris is a game that never ages and over time the original game has been adopted by many platforms, with mobile being one of them. Tetris had improved graphics and it was amongst the first games on mobile to have colored graphics. The gameplay of Tetris is satisfying. Players must stack up different shaped pieces to fill up the gaps between them.
Because of the limited hardware capabilities, the main focus of these games was gameplay rather than looks. New consoles and PC hardware had raised the bar of how gaming graphics should look like. Mobile hardware has also received great improvements over time and the demand for better graphics on mobile grew. Many genres managed to find their way to mobile such as racing games, RPG, sport and also strategy games.
When Apple launched the first iPhone, how games were designed has changed drastically. Developers needed to design their games around the touchscreen and the better hardware than the iPhone brought allowed developers to implement better graphics in their games. Tap Tap Revenge was the first game to fully make use of the entire touch screen area of the phone. The sensation came in 2009 when Rovio released Angry Birds. The animated graphics were gorgeous and the gameplay was enjoyed by everybody. Angry Birds simulated real-life physics to be incorporated in the gameplay and the result was wonderful object animations.
Lately, online casino games have become very popular in the mainstream. Most of them could be played on their respective websites but since the Apple Store and Google Play Store made app distribution seamless, most casino games now have their respective app. Social games are in demand since social media platforms like Facebook made it available for people to play with each other. An example would be Farmville. The casino industry has managed to adopt this trend and since then, the number of people playing social casino games has surpassed the number of people that play in regular online casinos.
Novomatic is well known for developing high-quality casino games. An example would be Book of Ra, a slot game that has been very well received by the public and continues to remain one of the best online slot games. Since then, the game has been featured on many social casino websites like Gaminator and Slotpark Online.
The future looks promising for mobile graphics. Recently, there was a collaboration between Samsung and AMD to bring the next step in mobile gaming technology. These past few years AMD have risen to the top with their Ryzen CPUs and their graphics cards are also offering great performances but just a slight step behind NVIDIA’s graphics cards. Nevertheless, Radeon is a great choice for gaming and the technology has been licensed by Samsung to integrate it into their upcoming gaming smartphones with the promise to deliver low power consumption and high performance.