Dr. Mario World Coming To Phones
Bad phone games making you sick? Call the Doc….Dr. Mario!
The immortal virus-vanisher, first introduced in 1990 for NES and Game Boy, has appeared on many systems, from the N64 to the Wii to, most recently, Dr. Mario: Miracle Cure for 3DS. Now for the first time, Dr. Mario will be made available on a non-Nintendo system….your cell phone.
The game is officially called Dr. Mario World and is being co-developed by Nintendo, Line, and NHN Entertainment (the latter being a seasoned mobile game developer).
Nintendo and LINE will co-develop and jointly operate a new action puzzle game featuring Dr. Mario titled Dr. Mario World to be released by Nintendo. Dr. Mario World is targeting an early summer 2019 global release, including in Japan and the United States. Together with Nintendo and LINE, NHN Entertainment, which has released and operated various online and mobile games, will take part in the development and operation of Dr. Mario World.
Dr. Mario World will be “free with in-app purchases,” but it’s not immediately clear what kind of purchases those could be. The game itself is pretty simple, and adding a time limit or “power-ups” that cost money would break it. Nintendo would never allow the basic flow of the game to be corrupted….we hope, anyway.
Look for Dr. Mario World to appear on iOS and Android devices this summer. Nintendo originally promised a different kind of Nintendo franchise would be appearing on phones before this….Mario Kart. However, the company now says that title will be delayed. It could premiere alongside Dr. Mario World this summer, but a specific release date has not been revealed.