iPhone was ringing off the hook at game conference
— -- At a conference that draws thousands of video game designers, big and small, it was the handheld iPhone that stole the spotlight at last week's Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. USA TODAY wraps up the week's revelations.
iGames. The iPhone earned the attention it garnered at GDC. iPhone owners have shown increasing interest in portable games — research firm comScore says about one-third of iPhone users download games each month — so game designers are responding.
"It's a wonderful device for games. It's got great controls. It's not just touch, it's multitouch. It's got accelerometers (and) it's got your contacts in there for personalization and messaging," says Neil Young, who started iPhone game development company ngmoco last summer after leaving Electronic Arts. The iPhone "is always with you; it's always connected to the network. The type of games you can build in that environment are just incredible, and you can get them in this frictionless way from the App store."
A cute dog simulation game, Touch Pets: Dogs, was among three games in development that Young trotted out at GDC. TP:D lets you pet and train your sim puppy, and even take it on play dates with other sim pups.
Also in the works at ngmoco: Star Defense, a sci-fi twist on the Tower Defense genre with richly colored worlds that need protection from waves of enemies; and LiveFire, a first-person multiplaying shooter boasting fluidly moving graphics filling the entire screen, without a user interface for controls. "You don't have to take up any screen real estate for the control surface," he says.
Meanwhile, longtime shooting-game fans can take a trip down memory lane with the just-out Wolfenstein 3D Classic. The 1991 Nazi-hunting PC game that launched the first-person-shooter genre can be had for $4.99 in the App store.
John Carmack, co-founder and technical director of id Software, has been reworking classic titles including Doom and Quake for the iPhone, says the company's Steve Nix. "This is just the first of a series of iPhone titles you will see from id," he says.
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