Nintendo
- A new smartphone game from Nintendo is in the works, and it stars everyone's favorite Mario.
- "Dr. Mario World" is a free-to-play puzzle game for both Apple and Android devices.
- The game is expected to arrive in "early summer," and is being made in partnership with Line and NHN Entertainment.
Nintendo's second-ever smartphone game starring Super Mario is in the works, and planned for an "early summer" launch.
The game is "Dr. Mario World," and it's a free-to-play puzzle game based on the long line of "Dr. Mario" puzzle games from Nintendo. Like previous Nintendo games on smartphones, "Dr. Mario World" is being developed in collaboration with third-party partners - in this case, it's the Japanese social media company Line and the Korean game development studio NHN Entertainment.
"Dr. Mario" was on the original Nintendo Entertainment System. It's available on the Nintendo Switch through the Nintendo Switch Online service.
We've yet to see "Dr. Mario World" in action, but it's described by Nintendo as a puzzle game that's "free to download with optional in-app purchases."
That could mean a few things.
In the case of Nintendo's previous smartphone game with Mario, "Super Mario Run," people could download the game and play the first few levels for free - anything beyond that cost a flat fee. Rather than buying sets of levels, you paid to unlock the rest of the game. The first few levels served as a demo of sorts.
But the free-to-play puzzle game market on smartphones is dominated by the "Candy Crush" model: Play as long as you want...until you hit a paywall that you can either wait to lower or pay to go through.
It remains to be seen how "Dr. Mario World" will handle this, but we'll find out soon enough - the game is expected to arrive in "early summer," presumably before the "summer" release window of Nintendo's other big smartphone game, "Mario Kart Tour."
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