The Boston Herald recently took a brief look at seven iPhone racers in the App Store.

• Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D [$5.99 App Store] [review]
• Cro-Mag Rally [$1.99 App Store] [review]
• Asphalt 4 [$9.99 App Store] [review]
• Raging Thunder [$7.99 App Store] [review]
• GTS World Racing [$7.99 App Store] [review]
• Moto Chaser [$4.99 App Store] [review]
• Audi A4 [Free App Store]

The review includes a mix of cart racers, more traditional racing titles, and even the dubious, overhead perspective Audi A4.

The reviewer grades each title and boils the list down to three winners: Asphalt 4 and Moto Chaser for adults and Crash Bandikoot Nitro Kart 3D for younger players.

FOX’s recent launch of the web and iPhone-based Ambush, a location-based, simplistic massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) demonstrates the iPhone’s ability to bring a new generation of rich, location-based gameplay to mobile gamers.  But it only really scratches the surface of the platform’s capabilities in this area.  Ambush is a very basic game which uses the iPhone for position tracking but relies upon a desktop game client for the complete game experience.

We’re much more excited about PerBlue’s upcoming Parallel Kingdom, a MMORPG in development for the iPhone and Google Android handsets.  (Actually, the developer refers to it as a mobile multiplayer trans-reality game (MMTRG).)  We took a look at this upcoming location-based MMORPG back in March and, however you label it, Parallel Kingdom holds the promise of being one of the most innovative role-playing titles for the iPhone or any mobile platform.  The game is played entirely on the mobile device in question, requiring no desktop component of any sort.

Since our initial look, the developer has posted screenshots of the game as played through the Android development environment.  Have a look at a few.

Parallel Kingdom is sure to see widespread downloads when it debuts through the iTunes App Store and Android Marketplace.  And of course, with a location-based game like this, it’s a clear case of “the more the merrier.”   

Per Blue CEO Justin Beck discusses the game in a short video from the Parallel Kingdom video page.

We will bring further information on this title as it becomes available and an in-depth review once it arrives in the App Store.

Simon Oliver, author of the upcoming Rolando, has posted a brief update on Hand Circus’ blog.

Well the cold weather thats starting to creep in is a definite indicator that Summer is fading fast, but as some of you are aware, there is no Rolando in the AppStore just yet. Its been an amazing adventure so far but it is taking us a little while longer to finish, so for those of you waiting please accept this latest screenshot with our apologies Rest assured we are working long days, full-time, to get Rolando finished and looking as good as possible, and really appreciate all of the kind words.

The post provides a new screenshot from World 3, “Rolando Central”

Oliver indicates he will soon be releasing a video trailer of Rolando showing many new features.  The author was recently interviewed by Design Week magazine.

Design Week recently ran an article in its Interaction Design supplement that examines the golden opportunity for indie developers that is the iTunes App Store. With $30 million in sales for its first month alone, Apple’s access-anywhere mobile application delivery vehicle is quite a success.  Design Week sits down with three indie iPhone developers and shares their experiences and thoughts on the platform.

Nathan Hunley of Igloo Games, author of Dizzy Bee

‘BUDGET? What’s that?’ laughs Nathan Hunley, Dizzy Bee’s designer, when asked how much the development of his first iPhone game cost. ‘I made Dizzy Bee by begging. Every few months I had to borrow cash from my dad to pay for rent and macaroni cheese. Friends helped translate some text, and did the play-testing, and I was even borrowing the iPod Touch I did my development on.’

Simon Oliver of Hand Circus, author of the upcoming Rolando

Despite being one of the iPhone’s more ambitious first-wave games, the oddball Rolando is largely the work of one person – Simon Oliver, a Flash developer who contracts for design consultancies such as Ideo and All of Us. With a day job creating experience prototypes and game-based museum exhibits, Oliver had been circling the indie development scene for some time, searching for a way in. ‘I’d been looking for the right platform to focus on, but the opportunities for innovation and huge potential user-base of the iPhone stood out,’ he explains. Oliver set up Hand Circus, his own micro-studio, in June 2008. ‘It’s just me at the moment,’ he says, ‘but the plan is to bring other people on board on a project-by-project basis, to get the best and most suitable people working on each title, according to genre and style.’

Steve Demeter of Demiforce, author of Trism

By day, Steve Demeter writes ATM software for Wells Fargo. By night, he programmes and releases casual games under his own Demiforce label. His latest, Trism, has become one of the early success stories of the iTunes Apps Store.
…
Demeter suggests the iPhone games market is likely to become crowded fairly quickly. ‘Within the next month, people will start getting their first pay-cheques from Apple. Companies like EA are probably already well on their way to getting a return,’ he predicts. ‘In one year the iPhone will have a lot of all kinds of games on it. I’m interested in seeing how long that period lasts. In the end, I think we’ll see a good variety of simple timewasters – a mix of casual games and toys, simple experiences for busy professionals.’

Hats off to these and all indie developers who are turning the iPhone into the best mobile games platform on the market.  See Design Week’s story for the full interviews with these three talented individuals.

Chillingo Ltd has dropped the price of Par 72 Golf [App Store], a 3D golf title for the iPhone and iPod touch, from $7.99 to $4.99 “for a limited time only.”

Par 72 Golf presents the player with a 3D perspective view of the fairway which is dotted with hills, water, sand traps, trees, cacti, and other environmental elements–fairly standard fare for mobile golf games of this sort. A zoomable overhead view of the course is also provided.

The game consists of three 18 hole courses: Par 72 Classic, Desert Palms, and Maritime Moors, that are rated par 3, 4, and 5 respectively. Eleven clubs are available to choose from, with a suggested club automatically selected at each stroke scenario and wind, aerodynamics, gravity, and friction are all gameplay factors. Game actions are accompanied by basic sound effects.

Read our review of Par 72 Golf, posted back in August.

Trism [App Store] has been in the news a lot lately after the developer revealed that he had made $250,000 in the first two months of the game’s launch.

The game, however, has since dropped in sales rankings and it looks like the developer is looking to capitalize on the press and boost sales once again. Trism is now on sale for $2.99 (from $4.99).

Trism presents the player with a playifeld populated by colorful, triangular tiles or “trisms.” The rows of trisms can be slid in six different directions (thanks to their triangluar shape) in order to achieve a match of three or more like-colored pieces. When a match is made, the like trisms disappear and surrounding trisms fall in to fill their place in the direction of gravity.

We previously reviewed the game and enjoyed it quite a bit.

Earlier today we pointed to a post made by X-Plane author Austin Meyer on the X-Plane forums that spoke of a rather bright future for X-Plane on the iPhone [App Store].  We’ve since learned that the future is rather close at hand.  The X-Plane 9.01 update was recently submitted to Apple and should be appearing in the App Store any time now.

According to Austin, v9.01 will bring the following improvements:

• 25% frame-rate improvement! I REALLY like the increased fluidity of the sim in 9.01 thanks to this increase.
• Calibration screen for phone tilt! One guy writing a review at the AppStore said he likes to fly on the couch, and wants VERTICAL to represent neutral-elevator: Fly on, couch-dude! Just go to the SETTINGS tab in the interface and set any phone angle as neutral! Now you can relax in bed or on the couch, with vertical being the reference-point for neutral-elevator, or sit up holding the phone in your lap with HORIZONTAL being the reference-point for neutral elevator, or anything in between! Set the center-point as you see fit!
• Higher-contrast interface! One person said his eyes are a little weaker these days, so we contrasted the interface a bit more to make it easier for all to see! I managed to do this without making the interface look too harsh, I think.
• Power and flaps set for you on the final approach selections. One guy writing a review at the AppStore was rather paniced that he had to move his thumbs 1/4″ to set the power and flaps on final.. the horror! So, X-Plane now sets 25% power and flaps automatically when you set yourself up in flight, to be more closely configured for your landing! Kind of convenient.
• The interface screens are organized a hair differently… much better I think. This lets volume-control and neutral-elevator control be in their own system-config screen, with a different screen dedicated to setting your location! Kind of nicer organization.

Austin has recently placed a dedicated X-Plane for iPhone page on the X-Plane website where he addresses various problems and wants he’s seen users express in reviews posted to the App Store.  We were particularly pleased to see an indication that two more aircraft will be added to the app in a free update coming soon.

The X-Plane for iPhone page also details “The story of X-Plane for iPhone,” an account of the 14-day development frenzy that lead to the v9.00 App Store release, all of which took place at the Apple Campus at 1 Infinite Loop “right in the middle of the ‘hive-mind’, right alongside all the engineers at Apple.”

Around September 1 or so, I was sitting on a park bench in Central Park, New York, enjoying a WONDERFUL fall Saturday afternoon, typing away on my Mac laptop, when my tech support guy, Randy Witt, called me and suggested that we do X-Plane for iPhone. Of course, I thought this idea was IMPOSSIBLE, because how could a PHONE have enough POWER to run X-PLANE? And how would you CONTROL the planes? Nevertheless, I called Apple to ask them whether it would be possible to get X-Plane running on the iPhone, and whether Apple would have any interest in seeing it done. The answer was a bit surprising: Not only is the iPhone just powerful enough to RUN a specialized version of X-Plane, but Apple would LOVE to see it done NOW. Apple had a Keynote presentation coming up, and would love to have a couple of exciting new games ready to consider showing off at the presentation. My response: “Well, I live in South Carolina, I am currently in New York, it’s Saturday afternoon… I could be in Cupertino (Apple’s headquarters) maybe some time late Monday, and we could start work on, say, Tuesday or so? My contact at Apple gave me my absolute favorite reply ever: “Umm.. How about we see you Monday morning at 9 AM sharp instead?”

See the full story at the X-Plane for iPhone page at X-Plane.com.

Touch Arcade recently reviewed X-Plane 9 for the iPhone.

As eWeek reports, certain malware developers have recently taken a new approach to gaining access to unsuspecting users’ PCs.  Researchers with security firm Sophos have discovered a Trojan masquerading as an iPhone game attached to emails with subject lines like “Virtual iPhone games!” and “Apple: the most popular game!”  The Trojan has been identified by Sophos as Troj/Agent-HNY and exists as a file named Penguin.Panic.zip, after Penguin Panic, a jailbreak iPhone game.

“It’s your bog-standard malicious Trojan horse, designed to hand control of the compromised computer over to a third-party hacker,” said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos. “That hacker can then take over the compromised PC to download further malware, or launch spam campaigns, install spyware to steal your identity or launch a distributed denial-of-service attack. Because so many Trojan horses these days download additional code from the Internet, hackers can change the ultimate payload at anytime they wish–they just update the file which the Trojan tries to download.”

Troj/Agent-HNY is not iPhone-native malware. The ZIP file contains a Windows executable–it can execute and afflict only Windows PCs.  The popularity and tech news spotlight that has surrounded third-party iPhone applications since the App Store launch simply made the guise of an iPhone game attractive to the malware developers behind this Trojan.

Laminar Research’s recently released iPhone mini-version of the award winning flight simulator X-Plane 9 [App Store] has gotten a lot of attention since it’s debut in the App Store.  X-Plane 9 for the iPhone provides a flight experience that goes well beyond what most flight sim fans believed was possible on a mobile platform.

Happily, it seems that the v1.0 release is just the beginning.

As a reader pointed out in a comment to our X-Plane 9 review, author Austin Meyer gave some indication of what lies ahead in a recent post to his X-Plane forums.

DUDE.. you have only seen the START.
We are going to have airliners, helicopters, gliders… this is only the BEGINNING.

Also (and there is no way I should mention this) X-Plane AUTOMOTIVE is SCREAMING fun.. I will be ready to release it, hopefully, within 7 days.

When you see me issue a post about how I am morally opposed (or something) to an automotive version of x-plane with ferraris and corvettes and KRAZY tracks, you will know that we are within about 48 hours of release.

I hope to have it for desktop AND iphone shortly!

More aircraft for X-Plane and an entirely new title: X-Plane Automotive.  It seems Austin has big plans for the iPhone and for X-Plane in general.  Stay tuned for more details as they emerge.

Trism [App Store] developer Steve Demeter revealed at a conference that he had generated $250,000 in income from his popular iPhone game since its launch on July 11th.

Trism is a gravity based puzzler which generated some press ahead of the App Store launch.

Trism presents the player with a playifeld populated by colorful, triangular tiles or “trisms.” The rows of trisms can be slid in six different directions (thanks to their triangluar shape) in order to achieve a match of three or more like-colored pieces. When a match is made, the like trisms disappear and surrounding trisms fall in to fill their place in the direction of gravity.

Trism is available from the App Store for $4.99. At that price, Trism would have had to have sold over 71,000 copies to generate that level of income, or an average of almost 1200 copies a day.

We had previously reviewed Trism and found the original game to be quite enjoyable and well worth the $4.99.