id 'bullish' on iPhone: Wolfenstein RPG, Quake 3, 'experimental' game
Speaking with id Software's John Carmack about the public beta of Quake Live earlier this week, the conversation naturally shifted towards other, totally relevant topics ... like iPhone development. At last year's QuakeCon, Carmack praised the platform's capabilities while announcing that the studio had at least two titles in the works. One a "conventional mobile game," the other a "graphical tour de force." Carmack told MTV Multiplayer that the already-released mobile game Wolfenstein RPG would be making its way to the iPhone in "a month or so" so there's our conventional mobile game.
Carmack told us about some of those iPhone plans, saying that there "a lot of people [at id] that are very bullish" on the iPhone, including himself apparently. He told us that he was working on iPhone development stuff "literally today." One game Carmack dubbed "experimental" saying, "We're not positive that it's going to turn into a fun game yet and we may kill it, rather than release something that is not good." It's worth noting that one particular Wii project being "tossed around" is an "outgrowth" of this "experimental" iPhone game.
The other piece of iPhone development that Carmack mentioned is an "internal hack-around project." Namely: Quake 3. It "needs some significant amount of [his] time" to get a framerate worthy of the game, Carmack told us. He continued, "If we do turn that into a product I'm seriously considering going and taking over all of the Quake Live gameplay modifications and the updated maps" to make a "more modernized version." The aforementioned tour de force "would not be a new IP" according to Anna Kang, president of id Mobile though we're fairly confidant it's not this Quake 3 "hack."
Check back later today for our full interview with id's John Carmack and Marty Stratton.
