In its long history, Nintendo's experimental moods have been frequent - and frequently healthy and fruitful. Would this one be prototyping a free-to-play business model, or playing with the possibilities of Amiibo, or pushing the boundaries of franchising, or experimenting with cross-platform play, or dipping yet another tentative toe in the frothing waters of online gaming? The more modest the release, the more likely it seemed that it was smuggling some shareholder-friendly initiative by you - the recent Pokémon Shuffle being a case in point. There are wheels within wheels at Nintendo these days, and even before the company announced last week that it was moving into mobile games (as well as prepping a new console, codenamed NX), it was hard not to approach many of its releases like Trojan horses. A full-featured but rote cross-platform puzzler, Tipping Stars is a minor game that may yet have major significance for Nintendo.
