Indie developers HermitWorks surprised the world last month when they managed to get a multiplayer match of Quake III running on two iPhones. The coders are now hard at work on a port of their original Mac game Space Trader to the iPhone. Reportedly, the Quake III stunt was just a test to find out how first-person movement and controls might work on the handheld, motion-sensing platform.

Space Trader was reasonably successful when it released on Mac and Linux platforms in the Summer of 2007. An intriguing cross between a strategy board game, space opera and frantic first-person shooter, it is no exaggeration to say that Space Trader broke new ground with its innovative gameplay. The objective of the game is to make money by buying and selling commodities at various locations around the solar system. Things get physical when players take on bounty-hunting missions, or become the bounty themselves for refusing to pay their taxes. The bargain-priced game did not attract a huge mainstream following, but the smattering of reviews around the net were mostly positive, praising the resemblence to early strategy games like Elite.

If HermitWorks can update the graphics and iron out some small issues with the play mechanics, this could be a promising title to watch out for when the iPhone Store opens its virtual doors in June.

Sorry male gamers, but we don’t mean “hot” in the Jade Raymond sense. The programmers we pay homage to below come from companies large and small (some are completely independent), but they all have one thing in common. Each of the teams featured here have taken on the challenge of bringing exciting entertainment content to the iPhone/iPod Touch. Given the amount of buzz that was created by the public release of the Apple SDK last month, we decided to showcase some of the lesser-known developers who have shown their commitment to the iPhone by announcing games using these new software development tools. Anyone with an Apple PC, and iPhone (or iPod Touch) and $100 can sign up to develop and release applications and games on the iPhone Application Store, which will open its virtual doors in June. Some of these projects are still in the early beta or prototype phase, but what we have seen so far leaves us impatient for more. Make no mistake, these indie programmers are hot!

What? Off-road Velociraptor Safari / Unity Engine
Who? Flashbang Studios / Unity Technologies

In what might possibly be the most fun to be had online, the designers of Off-road Velociraptor Safari brag that their game gives players the chance to “Hit Raptors” and pull off “Sick Stunts” while driving around in a presumably dystopian dino-ridden landscape of death. Perhaps the nicest thing about the game is its vivid 3D graphical polish, provided by the use of the Unity 3D engine. The developers of this middleware have promised that they are bringing their powerful 3D authoring tools over to the iPhone, and there is no reason why Flashbang Studios won’t follow there with Raptor Safari and their upcoming game, Jetpack Brontosaurus, as well

What? Multi-player Quake 3
Who? A collaboration of awesome hackers

We have already reported on this working demo of Quake 3 multiplayer that HermitWorks bodged together using code from an earlier project by icculus, and you can follow this link to our earlier story to view a video of the ensuing one-handed deathmatch in action. Of course, there is little chance that Apple or whoever currently owns the rights to the Quake franchise will allow an official release, but the fact that these guys got multiplayer FPS working so flawlessly opens the door to all kinds of amazing possibilities in the FPS genre.

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Yes, that’s right. Canadian developers HermitWorks have come out of their log cabin and impressively figured out networked play in Quake III for at least two players on the iPhone. The built-in accelerometer seems to work adequately well for controlling movement (as seen in the demo vid below), suggesting that the future looks bright for FPS gaming on the newest contender in the portable gaming space.

Even though we did kinda see it coming, Apple still managed to surprise just about everyone last week with the announcement that they are serious about bringing commercial games to the iPhone/Touch platform. They even had third party companies on hand to show off working demos for Spore and Super Monkey Ball on-stage at their iPhone Software Development Kit event. Despite the impressive showing, a number of questions remain unanswered — how well will iPhone games stack up against offerings for dedicated systems like th eDS and PSP? How will they control? No ‘A’ or ‘B’ buttons? Come on, you can’t be serious? While those questions will likely remain unanswered until we get some actual play time under our belts, here is everything we do know so far about Apple’s ambitious plans to bring gaming to the iPhone:

Graphics / Hardware:

Controls:

Connectivity:

Third Party Support:

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We’re only a few months shy of the iPhone’s one year anniversary, just in time for some new changes to be added to Apple’s precious handheld. What kinds of changes, you ask? How about extending the functionality of the iPhone as a gaming device? Yeah, I thought that might catch your attention.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced at a conference today that Apple would begin offering free SDK’s (software development kits) and API’s (application programming interface) to all game developers… a move meant to broaden the gaming support on the handheld. As far as we currently know, these new gaming features are going to be implemented only on the iPhone, plans to do such a thing for the iPod Touch were not mentioned.

Not long after announcing his big news, he introduced three new titles; two from Electronic Arts and Sega, and one from Apple. Interestingly enough, the two titles from Electronic Arts are two you should be familiar with by now. Heard of a little game called Spore? How about Super Monkey Ball? Graphically, the demos shown off were breathtaking, and looked quite impressive. Whether they were mere demonstrations or actual games, however, has yet to be seen. One game that will be released as one of the early iPhone games is Touch Fighter. Touch Fighter will play as a 3D space shooter, and will be controlled Wii-style, with the accelerometer built into the iPhone.

With this new development from Apple comes the continued interest of how in-depth Apple will go with their gaming plans. Will it stop with the iPod and iPhone games? Or will we see an Apple gaming device in the near future? It has yet to be seen, but if this is any indication, Apple fans have something to be looking forward to.

Earlier this week it was revealed that Apple has filed to extend their trademark protection to include “toys, games and playthings, namely, hand-held units for playing electronic games; hand-held units for playing video games [and] stand alone video game machines”. While this does seem like a clear sign that Apple is planning to develop and release some form of video game console, a trademark filing does not positively ensure that such a device will become a reality. Companies do this sort of thing all the time, extending their reach to include products and services that they may never actually produce, but want to stake a claim to, just in case. Here, however, there is some strong evidence to suggest that Apple might be planning to develop a stand-alone handheld gaming device. In previous What If columns, we examined what some other companies’ offerings might look like, if they were actually built. Today, we speculate on the features that would likely be included in an Apple handheld, in light of this intriguing news.

Overall Look and Feel

Given Apple’s emphasis on design, any handheld system they released would have to look beautiful as well as play games. The company has followed a broad, mass-market stretegy with their previous devices, and they would probably want to go with a design that was simple, appealing to a large amount of consumers (not just gamers) and useful. The device would likely be small and sleek, probably no bigger than the current-gen iPhone, which would make it the smallest new handheld on the market. They might go with a white, plastic exterior — a color scheme which seems to be popular for gaming systems these days — or they might go with something completely iconoclastic to set themselves apart from competitors. Whichever strategy they chose, you can bet that it would be the most beautiful handheld gaming system the world has ever seen.

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A clever hacker by the name of zodttd has released his SNES emulator for the iPhone/iPod touch to public beta. His code joins many other great emulators for the sleek Apple device which include the GBA, NES, and PS1 systems. What separates zodttd’s emulator from the pack is the fact that his runs at a full 30 frames per second for most titles, and features an impressive list of compatible games for such an early release. While the use of a touch screen for action titles like F-zero quite frankly depresses us, the presence of some great turn-based RPGs from the 16-bit era like Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI on the list of supported games fills us with glee. Action games will likely remain a challenge on the system, even once the developer gets multi-touch support working. It seems as if slower, more methodical games are where it’s at as far as the iPhone is concerned.

Head on over to the official forums if you want to grab a download and try it out for yourself.

Following hot on the heels of the NES emulator for the iPhone, a working Ps1 emulator has recently been released in beta form. The ¨private beta¨of the aptly-named psx4iphone emulator supports about 75% of the Ps1 library, a fairly impressive feat for a hand-held port. Readers that have (or have played with) an iPhone will of course want to know how the programmers have handled the input of controls on the device. Well, the control problem has been ¨solved¨ by assigning buttons to transparent overlays that make use of the built-in touch functionality of the device. While this looks pretty cool, it is easy to see how this solution might fail in games that require any sort of coordinated control input (like say, Metal Gear Solid). Wait, Metal Gear Solid playable on an iPhone! *faints*

After having picked myself up off the floor from amazement, I must say that both the NES and Ps1 emulators are kind of a cruel joke. It is clear from the work of these skilled coders that the iPhone has loads of latent videogaming potential, but where both of these efforts fall short is in the control scheme. The touchscreen, while awesome, isn´t quite up to scratch when it comes to traditional button-mashing. Apple could easily remedy the situation by releasing a peripheral that would attach to the bottom of the device and provide basic gaming input, the same way that a third-party company is planning to do with their upcoming GPS device. That would definitely propel the iPhone into gaming readiness and offer a reasonable amount of competition for Sony and Nintendo. Sorry, Husdson, but point-and-click memory ¨games¨ simply aren´t going to cut it.

Thanks: [Apple Weblog]

You betcha. The news that gadget freaks like us were all waiting to hear ever since Apple’s sleek new fetish object was unveiled was, of course: will it play games? Well, thanks to the tireless efforts of a team of coders, we can now report that, indeed, it is possible to play games on a hacked iPhone, and that performance has improved immensely since the first beta was released in August. These aren’t just quick and-dirty mobile games, either; this is full speed emulation of classic NES titles with sound. That’s right, nervegas and the other kids behind the NES.app project have built a fully-featured NES emulator based on the multiplatform InfoNES core.

“Yes,” you might ask, “but how are we supposed to control it?”

Well, therein lies the genius of this emulator. Faced with the larger-than-average screen real estate of the iPhone, the designers realized they could sacrifice some of the play area to include touch-screen controls in either landscape or portrait orientation. As you can see from the actual screenshots below, this layout is graphically appealing and maintains the retro look of the old NES controller, to boot! However, without the familiar ‘click’ from buttons on the original controller, input does admittedly feel a bit wonky on the iPhone. Precise control is a little bit iffy and will occasionally glitch when too many commands are entered at once. However, overall we found the experience highly playable, particularly for less input-sensitive games like RPGs.

The catch (and there is always a catch) is that you must have a jailbreak-enabled phone which allows applications to be copied over and run on the iPhone. This hack is the only way to get unauthorized software such as the NES emulator to work, and unfortunately this can result in voiding your warranty with Apple. Still, if you are comfortable with the homebrew scene and want to enjoy the benefits of the open-source modding community, you can find out how to hack your phone using this excellent guide.

If you already have the necessary equipment (a hacked iPhone) and a yearning to play some old-school classics on that shiny beast, why not head over to the NES.app developers’ official site and grab the 188kb download.