Windows Phone Thoughts - Daily News, Views, Rants and Raves

"Playmatter and Dreamfever have partnered to create a cute sliding puzzle game. Help Bob the Burglar by sliding rooms around a mansion to create a path from the bumbling burglar to the hidden safe behind the suspicious portrait. Create a path and tab Bob to move across, up, down and diagonally around the house in your search for ill gotten gains. You'll also have to contend with obstacles such as smoke filled corridors and long drops, not to mention the casual pondering of a hapless sleepwalker! Bob the Burglar restricts which tiles can be moved and which direction they can slide in - giving you free control just wouldn't be enough of a challenge ;). The walls hold clues to let you know how each piece will move, whether it's fixed, rotates in place or even which ones need to work together. Once you know what you can work with, its time to get Bobs hand on those family jewels! Robbing the rich has never been so puzzling!"

One thing's for sure: it will be really interesting to see how many Windows Phone 7 games are in the Marketplace by the end of the year. Microsoft has put a lot of effort into wooing developers, especially iPhone developers, so I'm interested to see what their efforts produced.

We're just days a way from launch, and apps are starting to sprout. Indie developer PlayMatter are previewing their first game for WP7, which should be in the app store on the word go. Bob the Burglar is a sliding puzzle game, which should be good for a few minutes (or more!) of casual gaming on the go. No word on pricing as yet, but we'll probably find out next week.