Rolando Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Rolando and Rolando 2 updated with Retina Display, on sale now

by Mike Schramm (Apr 1st, 2011)

Ngmoco has surprised us with some updates. Rolando and its sequel Rolando 2 have both been updated for the iPhone 4's Retina Display and have had a few bug issues fixed. To celebrate the update, they're both on sale for just US$0.99. Either one of these is a bargain at that price. They're both ...

Unity CEO disses Jobs on gaming

by Mike Schramm (Jul 13th, 2010)

Unity CEO David Helgason gave a talk at the Develop conference, going on this week in Brighton, England, and had some harsh words for Steve Jobs on supporting iPhone gaming. Jobs previously said that using "middleware" like Unity to develop iPhone games "produces sub-standard apps," but Helgason ...

GDC 2010: Ngmoco's Neil Young on how freemium will change the App Store world

by Mike Schramm (Mar 15th, 2010)

On the third day of GDC 2010, Ngmoco's Neil Young took the stage in one of the largest rooms at the conference to talk about what his company had "unlearned" in its time in the App Store. Ngmoco has become a large and polarizing figure in the world of App Store development -- after starting out ...

Ngmoco cancels Rolando 3, says it can't fit into a free-to-play model

by Mike Schramm (Feb 18th, 2010)

Here's some unfortunate news out of Ngmoco: The company tells IGN that while there was a Rolando 3 (the second sequel to the very popular and excellent rolling iPhone platformer) in progress, the game has been essentially canceled, and will never see release in its current form. Why? The second ...

Rolando 2 out now on the App Store

by Mike Schramm (Jul 3rd, 2009)

Just in case you haven't yet heard, ngmoco has released Rolando 2 out into the App Store for the premium price of $9.99. The game's subtitled Quest for the Golden Orchid (in this one, you're rescuing a relic rather than a prince), and though it's not cheap by App Store standards, but on the other ...

GDC09: iPhone gaming roundup

by Mike Schramm (Mar 25th, 2009)

The Game Developers Conference is on in San Francisco, and game companies are starting to pull out the major announcements on what's coming to the iPhone in the next year. Here's a roundup of all the titles we've heard mentioned already. EA announced a huge lineup of ports from their already ...

ngmoco's Neil Young speaks at GDC keynote

by Mike Schramm (Mar 24th, 2009)

Neil Young (not that Neil Young, the other one), former EA exec and head of ngmoco, fresh from his appearance at the Apple iPhone 3.0 event the other day, showed up on a keynote stage at the Game Developers' Conference in San Francisco to talk about the big, wrapped present that the iPhone and the ...

Rolando's Simon Oliver in the Daily Mail

by Mike Schramm (Mar 14th, 2009)

The Daily Mail has reported the story of our friend Simon Oliver, creator of Rolando (whom we interviewed quite a while ago when the game originally came out). Apparently things have worked out very well for him -- the game has sold 700,000 copies so far, Oliver's set to be a millionaire, and he's ...

Wired's top 10 reader-approved iPhone games

by Mike Schramm (Feb 17th, 2009)

Our friends at Wired recently asked their readers what their favorite iPhone games were, and their list is a pretty darn good overview of some of the best choices for gamers on the App Store. Some of the picks are already well known -- we posted about Trism way, way back, and of course Galcon has ...

Illusion Labs wants you to Sway with them

by Mike Schramm (Jan 19th, 2009)

Illusion Labs is probably best known for their first app, iPint, but have been making splashes since then with interesting apps that make great use of the iPhone's features and touchscreen. I tried out their Touchgrind app, and while it was a fascinating demo of how to combine an in-game physics ...

2008 Best iPhone App Ever winners announced

by Mike Schramm (Jan 9th, 2009)

The voting only went underway a while ago, but they've just announced the winners for the 2008 Best App Ever awards, celebrating (according to 148apps.com and the people they got to nominate and vote in their contest) the best iPhone apps of last year. As I said for the voting, you can probably take ...

iControlPad goes into production

by Mike Schramm (Dec 24th, 2008)

I'm not so convinced any more that the iPhone really needs buttons or a d-pad (Rolando makes do with just touchscreen controls, and even a game like Tatomic uses "buttons" well on the touchscreen), but especially for retro gaming, they'll really help. So it's probably good news that the ...

TUAW goes hands-on with Rolando

by Mike Schramm (Dec 18th, 2008)

It's no secret that we've been looking forward to Rolando probably more than any other game on the App Store, and now that it's here, we can safely say it doesn't disappoint. From the beginning, Rolando has shown tons of potential as a completely original game that shows off just why mobile game ...

TUAW Interview: Rolando's Simon Oliver is ready for release

by Mike Schramm (Dec 18th, 2008)

So today, on the release of one of the first games that really got us excited about the potential of the iPhone as a gaming device (yes, you can buy it right now if you want), we sit down again with Simon Oliver for an exclusive interview, this time to talk about the road he's traveled over the past ...

New Rolando trailer says release in December

by Mike Schramm (Nov 25th, 2008)

Last we heard from Rolando, perhaps the iPhone game we're most excited to play, ng:moco had announced that they were still aiming for a release date of "Holiday 2008." And now it's looking like that holiday is Christmas rather than Thanksgiving, because over on their site, they've put up a new ...