Giving the Nokia 3310 a New Lease on Life

What happened

Hoani Bryson gave the classic Nokia 3310 phone new life with a Raspberry Pi Pico-powered replacement PCB and a custom game engine. The Nokia 3310 was one of the most popular mobile phones of its time, but its gaming capabilities were quite limited.

Its monochrome display had a resolution of just 84×48 pixels, and audio came from a simple buzzer. Those limitations didn't stop developers from creating games for the phone, and they're still inspiring new projects more than two decades later.

Developer Hoani Bryson recently built a custom game engine and replacement circuit board that make it possible to run new games on old Nokia 3310 phones. Bryson designed a game called Trick Shot II using the engine for the eighth Nokia 3310 Jam, a game development competition that challenges participants to create games within the limitations of the original phone.