Auditorium is an abstract Flash puzzle game which shares a lot of gameplay elements with the various games on the App Store that utilize the gravity of objects to change the path of other objects on screen. Instead of guiding rockets or spacemen around the screen as in G [$1.99] or Gravity Sling [Free], in Auditorium you have to guide a flow of light particles in to the audio containers on the game board.

Each level has a different set of movable pieces that all have different effects on the flow of these particles, from simply controlling its direction, speed, or even attracting or repelling the flow. The early levels start in grayscale, but quickly make way to vibrant colors and different audio containers that can hold each the various particle colors.

The game itself is so unique that it's extremely difficult to describe. Thankfully, there is a free demo that only requires Flash to play available at PlayAuditorium.com along with a whole slew of videos on YouTube showing how to solve the various levels in game such as this one below:

According to EA Mobile's Facebook page, Auditorium is coming "Fall/Winter 2009" and will have 25 levels played through 5 acts.

As is the case with most Gameloft games, very little is known about these two games short of the contents of their trailers. Thankfully, there is quite a bit of gameplay shown in both of them so it's not very hard to get a feel for each game.

The Settlers – The last in a long line of Settlers games starting with the original that was released on the Amiga all the way back in 1993. The Settlers is a real time strategy simulation game that historically has had a fairly relaxed gameplay pace which should translate well to the iPhone. The amount of units moving on screen at once is fairly impressive, and with how few of the games there are of this genre on the App Store, The Settlers should easily stand out from the pack.

Castle Frenzy – Castle defense games have seen a remarkable amount of success on the App Store, from the numerous games with simple stick figures to highly detailed games like Knights Onrush that all share the same basic gameplay elements. Castle Frenzy seems to have the same array of defense upgrades and abilities seen in most similar games, with the most notable difference being its colorful 3D graphics. It's hard to say what if any effect this will have on gameplay, but from the trailer alone Castle Frenzy seems to be one of the coolest looking castle defense games if nothing else.

The much publicized Commodore C64 emulator from Manomio is finally coming back to the App Store. The app has had a rocky history with an initial rejection, public out cry, App Store approval and was then pulled from the App Store by Apple due to inadvertent violations of the SDK terms.

Well, C64 is "almost back" with details posted in FAQ forum by Manomio. According to the developers, the 1.1 version will include the following:

• Compliance with the Apple SDK agreement
• Up to 30% improvement in performance – better battery life and smoother game play
• 3 additional games, International Soccer, International Basketball and International Tennis
• Minor UI improvements

Manomio also reveals that they will be supporting in-app purchases in the 1.2 version which is expected in December. This will allow you to buy additional games in-app rather than the rather cumbersome installation process they had previously used. Existing customers of C64 will get the 1.1 update for free as if nothing had happened.

Looking towards the future, Manomio is considering support for external controls, network play, social gaming and more. Read our hands on with C64 for more details on the App.

We once again had the opportunity to speak with id Software's John Carmack today. This time about Doom Classic [App Store], the iPhone, and his plans for the future among other things. We've included the audio of our complete interview in podcast format in our TouchArcade podcast [App Store], but have summarized several of the highlights here.

When we asked Carmack about the lack of 3G multiplayer in Doom Classic, it turns out he left it out because he doesn't feel the ping times over the cellular network are conducive to a good multiplayer experience, and unfortunately doesn't have plans to implement 3G multiplayer in any of id's action-twitch-FPS games– which pretty much covers most of their catalog.

Carmack isn't quite yet sure how exactly they will deploy Doom's vast array of extra content. In our previous interview he mentioned the likelihood of bringing Doom 2 levels along with several other level packs to Doom Classic. The two examples he gave for how they might roll out this extra content were either in discretely buyable level packs, or a completely different "premium" version of the game with every level that exists for Doom.

Most interesting is that he does have plans to eventually implement the ability for Doom Classic gamers to enjoy all kinds of player-created customized maps and other content, and cites Wolfenstein 3D Classic's [App Store] latest update which utilizes a specially formatted link inside of mobile Safari to import this data in to the game as an example of what they would like to do with Doom Classic. Carmack seemed very excited about the potential this system has.

For those concerned about missing specific Wolf 3D control options (such as strafe) in Doom Classic, Carmack told us he regretted not simply including all of the Wolf 3D control methods and that he will likely add these missing control layouts in a future update.

The next game we will see on the App Store from id Software will likely be Quake Classic, which will eventually be followed by Quake 2 and then Quake 3. The release date for Quake Classic, however, is likely several months off, and he's still shooting for one iPhone game per quarter. Carmack also reports that another "from scratch" iPhone-specific game is still in the plans at some point next year. This game hasn't even gone into the design phase, but he expects it to be based on Rage and be a combat/action/racing game.

Carmack also reveals he does follow the TouchArcade forums/comments to see how people are reacting to his games and was complimentary of the iPhone gaming community.

These are just a few of the points of our discussion with John Carmack, but the entire 20 minute interview is worth a listen. If you'd like to hear more about id Software, their games, and Carmack's feelings on the iPhone and the App Store, you can either subscribe to our podcast in iTunes, or download the file directly.

App Store Link: Doom Classic, $6.99
TouchArcade Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes or Direct Download (M4A, 10MB)

id Software's John Carmack posted new notes about the development of Doom Classic for the iPhone as well as providing some control tips and notes about future products.

First, he provides a few tips for Doom Classic:

• Multiplayer requires a WiFi connection that doesn't have UDP port 14666 blocked
• For those who care about tilt-to-turn, it can still be enabled by four-finger-tapping to bring up the keyboard and typing "tiltturn 4000" or some number like that. Make sure you have tiltmove pulled down to 0.
• "Center sticks: ON" that can be toggled off to keep the sticks fixed in place like in Wolf 3D.
• Turning sensitivity is now graded, and can be disabled by toggling "Ramp turn: ON"

Carmack reports that they do plan on supporting Doom Classic with further updates, but don't plan on making a Lite version. While he will be stepping back from direct iPhone development in the near future, he will put some time into working out a good touch interface for the upcoming Quake Classic for the iPhone. Meanwhile, work on an iPhone specific version of Doom 2 RPG is already underway, and if its well received, they will probably bring over Orcs & Elves as well.

Carmack also reveals that he was initially excited about the possibility of Doom multiplayer over 3G, but after some testing of ping times, he decided on "local link networking only."

TouchArcade will be speaking to Carmack later this afternoon in a very brief interview about Doom Classic, if you have any pressing questions, please leave them in the comments, and we'll see if we can fit them in.

App Store Link: Doom Classic, $6.99

Agharta Studios' Rogue Planet was the surprise of WWDC this year for me. I had a last minute meeting with CEO Aurelien Kerbeci where he pulled his iPhone out of his pocket and proceeded to blow me away with a game that was so far above and beyond my expectations that I was nearly speechless.

During this meeting, Kebeci mentioned that the game was still in development, but at the time only had two weeks to go before submitting their game to Apple for approval. We posted this in our exclusive preview, the forums caught wind, and then Rogue Planet vanished without a trace. Emails to Agharta Studios were met with cryptic responses about a mysterious "big name" publisher and a September release date.

Needless to say, we were left scratching out heads, and nothing came of Rogue Planet aside from forum members randomly bumping the thread asking if anyone had any new information every once in a while. That is, until today, when the following video appeared on Gameloft's YouTube channel:

As you can see from the trailer, Rogue Planet is a turn based strategy game with the same amazing art style seen in Agharta's other game,1112 [$4.99 / Free]. We posted other details in our preview along with a gameplay video, but it has been so long since we last saw the game that it's hard to say how much of it is still the same from what was shown at WWDC.

Per the video, Rogue Planet is going to be released on the 24th, and assuming they can stick with that date I have a pretty good idea of what I will be spending my Thanksgiving holiday weekend playing. Needless to say, as soon as we get more information about this game we will post it, and hopefully will have a better preview very soon.

Agharta Studios' partnership with Gameloft as a publisher is a very interesting one. While Gameloft seems to have dabbled in publishing other titles in the past, for the most part has done much of their iPhone game development in house.

After an amazing amount of anticipation on our forums, Eliminate is finally playable for our Canadian friends. Like we mentioned in our previous post, ngmoco is using this initial Canadian launch as a large-scale beta test to guarantee the servers hosting the game are running as well as they should be when Eliminate is finally released in to the wild. Things are still being tuned and tweaked, so I'm reluctant to offer many gameplay specifics as ngmoco indicated to us that quite a few elements of the game are going to be in flux while they make their final adjustments.

What I am willing to say is that playing Eliminate with real people is every bit as awesome as I imagined it being. The last time I had played the game was for our hands on preview we posted earlier this month. So far I've yet to notice any major differences, so everything mentioned in our preview is still accurate short of the energy recharge period which ngmoco says still has not been finalized.

So far the Canadian beta has been lag free, and I've always been able to find a game almost instantly. One of the things I've been dying to find out is how Eliminate performs over 3G, and so far it seems to play just fine. Already the Plus+ leaderboards are filling up as more and more people download and install the game, and I can't wait to see how many people are online tomorrow.

Even in its current beta status, Eliminate is receiving rave reviews on our forums and has seemed to ether meet or exceed the expectations of nearly everyone lucky enough to have a Canadian iTunes account. We have our fingers crossed that the beta goes smoothly and quickly, and as soon as the game is officially released worldwide we will post an in-depth look at the game.

App Store Link: Eliminate, Free – Only Available in Canada

Ngmoco's widely anticipated titles Eliminate and Touch Pets have both been approved by Apple for inclusion in the App Store. Ngmoco announced tonight that both titles will be free to download, but that will see an initial launch in Canada before spreading to the rest of the world.

The reason for the beta Canadian-only launch is to make sure they have enough server capacity to handle the load for the worldwide launch.

Official threads for Eliminate and Touch Pets have been started in our forums:

- Eliminate – FREE 4 Player Online FPS: LIVE IN CANADA
- Touch Pets Dogs – FREE social puppy game: LIVE IN CANADA

The games have not quite yet propagated into the Canadian App Store but we'll post the direct links here when they do.

Canadian App Store: Eliminate Pro, Free, Touch Pets Dogs, Free

Zombie games and the App Store seem to go together like peas and carrots. I'm not sure what the allure of zombies is, but I'm not one to argue about slaying legions of undead. Developers Super Awesome Hyper Dimensional Mega Team (Yes, that's their real name) have been working on a sports zombie apocalypse hybrid for quite some time now, and finally seeing it in motion with this gameplay video is truly something to behold.

Details are vague right now, but the developers have provided us this list of things to expect in Pro Zombie Soccer:

• One of the most surreal and funny stories to ever grace a videogame.
• Lots of different zombies for your zombie killing pleasure, all of them with different hit points.
• A powerful blockbuster-type soundtrack and sound design.
• And of course: a nice combo system; different levels; Zombie Odyssey Mode for the hardcore gamers; character skill upgrading system.

If you've watched the video and think there are some strong similarities to the art and animations in Plants Vs. Zombies, it's because Super Awesome Hyper Dimensional Mega Team is comprised of an international team of seasoned game industry veterans with titles under their belt such as Worms, Vin Diesel's Wheelman, the EyeToy Play series, and Plants Vs. Zombies itself.

Pro Zombie Soccer is still in development, for the most up to date news on the game's progress, check out the official thread on our forums.

Along with tower defense and line drawing games, it seems like the twin stick shooter genre has an amazing representation on the App Store. We just got exclusive word from Angry Mob Game that they're ready to show the world what they've been working on for the last six months: Guerrilla Bob.

The game takes the standard survival shooter format we're all familiar with by now and structures the gameplay through various levels that take place in canyons, deserts, and urban environments. There also is an exploring element to the game, with new weapons and secret items to be found. While on your quest of mowing down everything that moves with your arsenal of weaponry, you will encounter bosses described as "epic" as well as "elements of depth and complexity never before met with any iPhone games of its genre" according to CEO Bogdan Iliesiu.

The recently released trailer and screenshots are required viewing for anyone interested in dual stick shooters:

Guerrilla Bob is still in development, but Angry Mob Games is hopeful to have the it submitted and ready for release in early December. In the meantime, feel free to stop by the Official Guerrilla Bob Thread in our upcoming games forum.