It is, after all, often fiddly and uncomfortable to play games that require two hands - or even two fingers. One-thumb games make important concessions to mobile handset design. A more advanced sequel, Johnny Crash Does Texas, is out soon. Its brilliant and highly amusing human cannonball sim, Johnny Crash, requires gamers to tap a single button to retain Johnny's altitude as he flies through the air avoiding obstacles. The company's chief operating officer, David Gosen, sees one-thumb titles as a core element of its business.Įlsewhere, Finnish studio Sumea, now owned by American publisher Digital Chocolate, has had great successes with one-thumb play. Having picked up Skipping Stone for European distribution, I-play has now commissioned another one-thumb game - an addictive puzzle title named Jewel Quest, developed by Ontario-based studio Big Blue Bubble. Western developers are catching on, however. The harder you press, the higher you jump. It has been a huge success, utilising a unique feature of the latest Korean handsets: pressure-sensitive buttons.

Last year, Korean developer Com2Us launched Skippedy Seed, a one-thumb rope skipping game featuring an array of cute unlockable characters. Its 2003 title Nom ('running man') required you to control a tiny figure as he ran around the outside of the mobile screen - fighting, jumping and even kissing girls - all with just one button.

The company responsible, Gamevil, is an originator in the realm of one-thumb gaming. It is from Korea, where mobile handset and application design is years ahead thanks to a mass market with a voracious appetite for advanced technology. Predictably, Skipping Stone was not developed in the West.

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