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The Kindle e-book reader is no longer an e-books only device as developers released 2 Kindle-ready games with the help of the Kindle Development Kit (KDK), which was launched earlier this year. The KDK is currently not open to all developers as Amazon prefers to work with selected developers on a limited basis at this present time. This development could be the beginning of hundreds of non-book apps such as productivity tools and games for Kindle users.
The recently developed games are word puzzles, which are very simple and match its paper-like interface. The first game, Every Word, is a word scramble game where the user is shown 6 or 7 scrambled letters and asked to create as many words as possible from the presented letters. The user is then scored according to how many words are formed. The second game, Shuffled Row, is also a word scramble game that gives the user 60 lettered tiles (similar to Scrabble), which are added to the user’s row one at a time. A new row replaces the old one with a new set of letters whenever the user submits a word.
Mashable is already predicting more games in the form of “clever crossword puzzles, 2 player games, less literary offerings such as puzzle or math games” will be available soon. Although, both games are currently free, it is expected that game developers will receive 70% of revenues when paid games are introduced.
Talking Point
Does having games on e-book readers take something away from the user-experience?