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.
Do you suffer from the dreaded and painful Floating Steering Wheel Grip, bane of the hardcore Wii gamer? Do you weep when you must power off Mario Kart and head out the door for school or work? Well, if you’re an iPhone or iPod touch user, Polarbit is here with the answer: Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D.
The nefarious Nitrous Oxide has joined forces with evil genius Dr. Cortex and his demented side-kick Ripper Roo, in a plot to beat the Bandicoots into submission once and for all, and at long last clear the way for world domination. In order to lure Crash and his gang out in the open, they stage a Kart tournament. The winners will be crowned “Kings Of Kart Racing For All Eternity”, the losers will be banished from N. Sanity Island.
Join the zany inhabitants of N-Sanity Island as they slip, slide and skid their way around wild tracks set in environments ranging from the Egyptian desert to Outer Space! Dodge rockets, falling meteorites and boulders as you fight for your place at the top of the podium.
Polarbit, the development house responsible for the popular iPhone jailbreak title Raging Thunder, is developing a high-end, 3D version of Vivendi’s Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 2 for the iPhone, to be published by Vivendi. Pocket Gamer had this to say about an earlier smartphone version of the title,
…Nitro Kart is a massive game with plenty to unlock, which gives you enough of an incentive to want to keep playing. Not only are there four cups to play through - each of which has four tracks - there’s also a Challenge mode where you complete specific tasks, many of them unrelated to racing, in order to collect Wumpas to buy new karts.
These challenges provide loads of variety, and while we struggled with some due to their demanding criteria, they’re a welcome diversion from a straightforward bout of karting.
Given the degree to which the iPhone is the superior gaming platform relative to any other smartphone, it seems this will be a rather solid addition to the iTunes App Store’s games lineup from a developer that’s clearly excited about the platform.
Gameplay is simple and straightforward: tap the screen to start, tilt left and right to steer, tilt forward and back to control speed. As can be seen from the demonstration video, the graphics are rich, the framerate is fluid, and the music and sound effects aren’t lacking.
Gameloft, one of the few development houses creating games for the classic iPod, stated earlier this year that they have 15 iPhone games in development for sale through the iTunes App Store.
Update: It appears the information was released prematurely, and Gameloft has asked us to take down the information, but needless to say, we can expect some Gameloft games through the App Store in the near future.
David Frampton of Majic Jungle Software, who we interviewed earlier this month, has posted actual screenshots of his upcoming iPhone title Chopper running on the iPhone. Chopper is a side-scrolling helicpoter game, reminiscent of the classic Choplifter, in which the player must complete various missions while avoiding enemy fire and return safely to the base.
David is putting the finishing touches on the iPhone version of Chopper which is no mere port of the Macintosh version, but a complete rewrite that takes full advantage of the iPhone’s accelerometer controls and 3D graphics hardware.
Have a look:
These screenshots are taken from the current, in-development version of Chopper and don’t necessarily reflect the exact look of the final product. Chopper will be avialable at the launch of the iTunes App Store on July 11.
Fans of the classic Amiga artillery game Worms will be happy to hear that ZodTTD (whose TurboGrafx-16 emulator we covered in a previous post) is working to get Hedgewars ported to the iPhone. Hedgewars is a free, turn-based strategy game modeled after the aforementioned Worms that features network play and is currently available for Windows, Linux and FreeBSD.
Each player controls a team of several hedgehogs. During the course of the game, players take turns with one of their hedgehogs. They then use whatever tools and weapons are available to attack and kill the opponents’ hedgehogs, thereby winning the game. Hedgehogs may move around the terrain in a variety of ways, normally by walking and jumping but also by using particular tools such as the “Rope” or “Parachute”, to move to otherwise inaccessible areas. Each turn is time-limited to ensure that players do not hold up the game with excessive thinking or moving.
A large variety of tools and weapons are available for players during the game: Grenade, Cluster Bomb, Bazooka, UFO, Shotgun, Desert Eagle, Fire Punch, Baseball Bat, Dynamite, Mine, Rope, Pneumatic pick, Parachute. Most weapons, when used, cause explosions that deform the terrain, removing circular chunks. The landscape is an island floating on a body of water, or a restricted cave with water at the bottom. A hedgehog dies when it enters the water (either by falling off the island, or through a hole in the bottom of it), it is thrown off either side of the arena or when its health is reduced, typically from contact with explosions, to zero (the damage dealt to the attacked hedgehog or hedgehogs after a player’s or CPU turn is shown only when all movement on the battlefield has ceased).
Worms was amazing. Hedgewars with its online gameplay takes the fun to the next level. This is a most welcome addition to the iPhone game library that you won’t want to miss.
It’s not a particularly new jailbreak iPhone game, but it’s the one that’s been driving me crazy (in the good way) on my daily commute of late. The title I speak of is Block Puzzle from Soneso.
Block Puzzle is, as one might expect, a puzzle game in which the player must slide a large red block through the exit by sliding it and other blocks of various colors and sizes around the playfield. There are 10 levels, each with a different combination of block sizes. A gameplay timer effects the score, and as incentive to get times as low as possible, the game is tied to an online, web-based hi-score page allowing players around the world to see how they rank. A nice touch.
It sounds like a rather basic game–and it is, but somehow it seems to just “get it right.” If you’ve got a jailbroken iPhone, you won’t want to miss it.
Block Puzzle and Soneso’s other iPhone games and apps can be acquired through their Installer.app repository: http://www.soneso.com/iphone.
Darxun Games has recently released their first iPhone game, a port of their 3D mobile Mech-style shooter, Cybersaurus.
Cyber-Dinosaurs!
Our planet was their home for millions of years. Now they want it back!
The ultimate mix between a 3D shooter and an adventure game.
Explore 6 stunning planets (11 maps fully 3D) with outstanding backgrounds!
Navigate through the solar systems using the interactive 3D map and destroy the robosaurs!
Features:
11 full 3D levels, 6 different planets and environments
3D engine with “astonishing” lighting system
3D audio engine
Full 3D animations
Different characters–every enemy has different AI
Adventure gameplay style
The game features a combination of accelerometer and on-screen button controls for negotiating the landscape, selecting weapons, and firing. While movement in the 3D world is currently fluid, Darxun points out that an update due in approximately two weeks will utilize the iPhone’s 3D hardware acceleration and improve the game’s framerate and render quality. (Cybersaurus is currently using a software-based rendering engine.)
Cybersaurus can be installed on any jailbroken iPhone or iPod touch via Installer.app and can be found at Darxun’s repository: http://iphone3dgames.com. Users can try out the game in demo form with the option to unlock the full title for $9.99 USD.
We’re all anxiously awaiting the launch of the iTunes App Store in early July. That said, there’re plenty of great jailbreak iPhone games out there. The one I’ve been most enjoying of late is Passionfools‘ title CubicMan (video link). A remake of the Flash game Bloxorz, CubicMan presents the user with an isometric game grid and the challenge of manipulating a rectangular object in such a way as to stand it up on a designated grid square, thereby moving to the next level.
The game is great fun and makes good use of the iPhone’s accelerometer for screen orientation and multitouch display for pinch-and-zoom playfield manipulation.
CubicMan can be had via Installer.app from the ModMyiFone repository for users of a jailbroken iPhone or iPod touch. We hope to see this available through the iTunes App Store at launch.
One of the games we spoke of in our recent WWDC games coverage was Kroll from Barcelona, Spain-based Digital Legends. A side-scrolling, 3D fantasy adventure game, Kroll takes full advantage of the iPhone’s unique control system; players jump with a jerk of the iPhone, thanks to its accelerometer, and use touchscreen controls to activate weapons and otherwise move about the game world.
While Digital Legends is an award winning development house with PC, console, and smartphone games under its belt, the iPhone was a new platfrom for the team. Impressively, the demo shown during the WWDC keynote was put together in under two weeks.
With this first iPhone outing, the company is being particularly sensitive to its gaming audience and the context in which players will be enjoying the title. Macworld spoke with Digital Legends’ CEO Xavier Carrillo Costa, who commented,
“If you’re waiting for your latte, probably you want to play and have a rewarding two-minute experience. So iPhone games need to be compelling, easy to play, and graphically very appealing, but at the same time having enough depth to play for an hour while you’re commuting.”
Kroll is not expected to debut until September, giving the Digital Legends team time to evolve and refine the gameplay to as ideal an iPhone gaming experience as possible. The company hopes that Kroll is the first in a long line of titles it will be developing for Apple’s mobile platform.
“The Mac community is a very close community,” said Costa. “It’s very strange for me to come here [to Moscone West] and not know anyone, compared to the Game Developers Conference, where I can’t walk ten feet without seeing someone I know. But a lot of people who are outside the traditional Mac market and are watching and interested in what happens with iPhone.”
Kroll will start life as an iPhone exclusive and, depending on its success, may be ported to various other platforms. We can’t wait to get our hands on the finished product.
iPhone developer Binary Square has released gameplay videos of two native iPhone game titles currently under development: Space Out and Spinblox.
Space Out, “a tribute to old school arcade games,” is basically Space Invaders meets Arkanoid. The game presents a Space Invaders-style monochrome game screen, but rather than controlling a movable turrett, the player is in control of a sliding paddle with which he/she must destroy the advancing alien horde by deflecting a bouncing ball. Like Arkanoid, power-ups fall from certain enemies when destroyed with the ball.
Spinblox is a colorful puzzle game in which the player swipes his or her finger over two adjacent blox in order to spin them. The goal is to line up three or more of the same color blox in order to create a set. All sets are removed with each wave, every few seconds.
Binary Square CEO Dan Bliss indicates that both titles will be sold through the iTunes App Store. There are no details on pricing at this time.
Do you suffer from the dreaded and painful Floating Steering Wheel Grip, bane of the hardcore Wii gamer? Do you weep when you must power off Mario Kart and head out the door for school or work? Well, if you’re an iPhone or iPod touch user, Polarbit is here with the answer: 
Gameloft, one of the few development houses creating games for the classic iPod, stated earlier this year that they have 15 iPhone games in development for sale through the iTunes App Store. 
David Frampton of 
It’s not a particularly new jailbreak iPhone game, but it’s the one that’s been driving me crazy (in the good way) on my daily commute of late. The title I speak of is 
