In early August, mobile gaming company IUGO released some interesting screenshots of their upcoming game called Toy Bot Diaries. Like many other companies, they claimed to understand the iPhone and promised that they had utilized its accelerometer and touch controls in a “very natural way.”

After playing Toy Bot Diaries [$3.99, App Store] tonight, I think IUGO was right about their controls and, in doing so, they have succeeded in creating one of the first true iPhone games.

iPhone gaming controls is a topic that I keep coming back to (Ms. Pac-Man, Digga) because it’s frequently a major issue when gaming on the iPhone. With many games, you find yourself acutely aware that you are playing on an iPhone. This is because the tilt control or the touch control didn’t respond in the manner you’ve come to expect. With Toy Bot Diaries, IUGO has created a natural control system that blends in and stays out of your way.

I don’t mean to single out the control system as anything extraordinary by itself. It’s not. In the end, the strength of the game is its natural control system on top of a very well executed physics platform puzzle game. In fact, I forgot I was playing “an iPhone game” and instead was simply immersed in a great game.

The premise of the game is a bit unclear, though, it appears that is by design:

Tiny Toy Bot has awakened within a strange machine and now he needs your help! Use Toy Bot’s handy grappling hook and magnet boots to navigate him through environments teeming with physics-based challenges as he plunges into an unfamiliar world. Search for Toy Bot’s lost datapads to recover his memory and guide him on his top secret mission.

The lack of instruction or background can be a bit disorienting, but the game gets you up to speed very quickly (see video).

Tilt controls move Toy Bot forward and backward, while touch controls trigger your grappling hook and magnet boots. You’ll find yourself tackling some clever obstacles as you negotiate through the stages. While you can make your way through a stage without collecting all the datapads, trying to get gather them all is also part of the challenge.

IUGO has decided to take a unique approach and release this game in a series of episodes. This is episode 1 (”Entry 1″). I suspect this will result in shorter but cheaper games. Toy Bot Diaries appears to have four stages (comprised of many sections) and is priced at $3.99.

While I haven’t completed all the stages during my brief time with the game, I already feel $3.99 is a very fair price for this polished and immersive game.

HandCircus has posted a small update with a few new screenshots for their upcoming game Rolando. The developer writes that the game now features “slime pits, cannons, piranhas, evil spiders, torches and much more”.

For those who missed it when we first covered this game back in July, Rolando is a physics puzzler that is featured in this impressive trailer:

While the game has been compared to Sony’s LocoRoco, the developer says that despite the visual similarities, the gameplay is quite different:

Rolandos mechanics (and I can understand that there isn’t enough time to pick up on these in the short trailer) allow you to pan around the entire level, selecting and controlling individual Rolando or groups, and issuing them commands (ala Lemmings, MvsDK2). You can also directly manipulate level elements by dragging, sliding, rotating, pressing buttons and much more. Some of the bonus levels do just allow you to rotate the level using the accelerometer - the closest to this is most likely Cameltry on the SNES.

The developer has promised another trailer soon. When we contacted HandCircus recently, they reported they were still working hard on the game and that it is on track for an early September release.

Mobile developer Handcircus recently gave us a heads-up on a title they have in development for the iPhone and iPod touch known as Rolando.  A physics-based platform / puzzler, Rolando was designed from the ground up as an iPhone game and makes full use of the iPhone’s multitouch interface.

As the YouTube video shows, Rolando looks to be a clever and promising title that has “iPhone” written all over it.  We can’t wait to see this one arrive at the App Store.

Learn more about Handcircus and the work that went into creating Rolando at the company’s blog.

The iControlPad developers posted a video of an early hack connecting the original SNES gamepad to control an emulated SNES game on the iPhone.

The hack was the basis for early testing for them to developer their future gaming accessory for the iPhone. The video also nicely demonstrates the SNES4iPhone emulator available to Jailbroken iPhones.