Laura Hudson writes about Lifeline, an ingenious text-based adventure game for iOS that uses a messaging-like interface and actionable notifications to build a story and a relationship with the main character.

As counterintuitive as it sounds, there’s something about interacting with Taylor through text messages that can feel very intimate, perhaps because we’ve grown so accustomed to communicating our most personal thoughts with our friends through bursts of text—and waiting for their responses with bated breath.

While some mobile games intentionally frustrate players with waiting periods to compel them into spending money, waiting isn’t a coercion tactic in Lifelife, but rather a crucial part of the experience. If you die several times—or win the game—you can unlock an optional “fast mode” that allows you to skip the waiting periods, although I wouldn’t recommend it. While it might offer instant gratification, it also shatters the sense of immersion you feel, flattening the urgency and anticipation of those intermediate moments.

I love mobile games that try to do something out of the ordinary, and I’m intrigued by this idea. Lifeline is $2.99 on the App Store and you can also play it on your Apple Watch.

Shaun Musgrave’s story at TouchArcade about Accessibility in iOS games is a great one. Thanks to VoiceOver and the work of developers who implement accessible iOS technologies, blind and visually impaired users have been able to play games and be part of an active community.

In talking to the developers who have been able to make their games accessible, their feelings about the response from players are almost universally positive, in fact. In the case of King Of Dragon Pass, David Dunham actually implemented some code so that he could track how many players make use of the VoiceOver function. It varies over time, but in the last month or so, he reported that 7% of players loading up the app are doing so in VoiceOver mode, a very significant number. From a purely financial view, Dunham informed me, the investment was worth it. He went on, “But that’s not the only viewpoint. Not long after we released with VoiceOver support, we got email from a player who said he was a blind teenager from the Netherlands. He thanked us for making a game that finally let him feel like part of the world gaming community, because he could play on an equal level with everyone else.” Amir Rajan told a similar story about A Dark Room. “It’s worth it to get a thank you email from a father with a blind daughter than can enjoy a popular game that her seeing friends play too,” said Rajan.

Related: The American Foundation for the Blind awarded Apple for their work on VoiceOver and Accessibility features.

Snake, the iconic ’90s game that came pre-loaded on Nokia phones, is coming back with a new mobile version developed by its original creator. Stuart Dredge, writing at The Guardian:

Long before Candy Crush Saga, Clash of Clans and Angry Birds, Nokia’s Snake was the king of the mobile gaming world – not least because it was installed on every single mobile phone the company sold.

Now the game is returning for modern smartphones courtesy of that mobile version’s creator Taneli Armanto and developer Rumilus Design, who will release Snake Rewind on 14 May.

As you can imagine, it sounds the new Snake Rewind will implement various In-App Purchases to buy items and continue playing even after your snake crashes. I played hundreds of hours with the original Snake 15 years ago, and I’m more concerned about the control scheme. Snake could be played well with the number pad on a Nokia phone. How will this translate to touch controls?

Snake Rewind launches next week, on May 14th. You can read the official blog post here.

Dave Tach, writing for Polygon on the story of Crossy Road:

Crossy Road is the rare story of success at the intersection of art, commerce, design and marketing. It’s about lessons learned in hard times and a games maker who thought he might never go back to GDC after one terrible year. It’s about a pair of developers who, in fact, did set out to create a video gaming phenomenon — and succeeded.

An inspiring tale of success, especially because the developers purposefully tried a different free-to-play model and didn’t simply experiment without consideration. A good lesson.