Game news This cult game from the Pokémon devs is coming to your iPhone!
In 2022, a very different game from the Game Freak catalog will be available to you in its mobile version.
This year, the Game Freak community, i.e. the developers of Pokémon games, will be able to take advantage of the port of a cult title from the studio on mobile devices. It is Pocket Card Jockeya game released in Japan in 2013 on 3DS who will wait three years before landing in the West. It put the players at the controls of a male or female jockey during an experience mixing horse racing and solitaire. In this cult card game, your goal is to please your sponsors and win each of the 20 races of the G1, the prestigious horse racing circuit. Your performance in solitaire games has a direct impact on horse performance. The more cards you eliminate, the better the horse’s mood, and vice versa. Added to this are a variety of subtleties explained by the developers:
Their horse’s position on the track determines the difficulty of their solitaire tricks. There are also special cards they can pick up if they run over them during the race. These cards provide a variety of benefits, including upgrading their horse, learning new skills, or improving their performance in a race.
The game is coming to Apple Arcade
On Metacritic, the game had inherited the very good score of 83 based on 16 critics. The massively appreciated title will be available on Apple Arcade from January 20th.Game Freak specifying that the port will keep the basic rules of the 3DS version, but that the racing segments have been recreated in 3D for the occasion.
For the record, Pocket Card Jockey is one of two non-Pokémon franchise titles in Game Freak’s 3DS catalog, the second being the rhythm game HarmoKnight. As reported by VGC, they are the result of the Gear Project initiative, which encouraged creators to come up with original ideas during slow times. HarmoKnight for its part inherited the Metacritic score of 73 and the note of 14/20 in our columns. We appreciated its friendly design, its catchy soundtrack and its simple controls despite a too short lifespan and the absence of tactile controls: “Easy to learn and as pleasant to watch as it is to listen to, HarmoKnight could easily have kept us glued to our 3DS for entire evenings if its lifespan hadn’t been so short.“
