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 hand, it's as quality a game as you'll find on the iPhone. We were big fans of the first one, and the second one ups the ante with a brand new 3D look (though still the same great 2D gameplay), and lots more types of Rolandos to roll and jump and fly and drive around the more than 45 new levels. It's fair to say that if you liked the first one, you'll love this one, and if you've never tried rolling a Rolando around, this is a perfect opportunity to start.

There, unfortunately, no lite version of the second game yet, but there is a version of the first one to try, and there are lots of movies to watch over on ngmoco's site, so you can probably get the idea from there. If you're interested in gaming on the iPhone at all, Rolando's on the short list no matter what your tastes are.

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 popular games: everything from Command and Conquer: Red Alert to SSX to FIFA, Madden, and NBA are all coming in some form to the iPhone. They're also working on bringing over the Wolfenstein RPG and Spore Creatures (which was the DS port of Spore), as well as a big list of casual board games (Scrabble is only the beginning), and versions of Need for Speed: Undercover, and Tiger Woods PGA Tour. And most amazing? All of these are due out before the end of the year. Someone's lighting a fire under iPhone developers at EA.
  
• id software announced that they're bringing Wolfenstein 3D Classic to the iPhone in an official form -- that one's already been submitted to the store and should be out soon.

Click the link below to read on.

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 App Store are to game developers. The platform is "better than the DS, better than the PSP," he said, referring to Nintendo and Sony's handheld gaming devices, because not only is tops in terms of usability (it's "always on, always with you"), and not only is it easier than any other platform to develop for, but the market is gigantic and growing -- unlike Sony and Nintendo's markets, there are no first party titles to compete with.

Which makes a lot of sense (and Young should know -- his company is poised to become one of the platform's early big developers). Other game developers agree, too -- according to a survey at Games Beat 2009, the iPhone has beaten out social networks, web-based content and even consoles as the area that has the most potential for gaming. There's no question at all: the future is extremely bright for gamers on the iPhone.

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 now, as he says, the head of a game studio that already has a hit under its belt. Very impressive (too bad they still call him a geek).

It's stories like this that are pushing the little App Store bubble we've got going nowadays -- every investor with money to spare (not as many as usual, given the current economy) is happy to sink it into releases for the iPhone, and while there is plenty of money being made, not every developer ends up like Oliver (let's not forget he had a quality product in the first place).

But there is some good news here: without the App Store and the iPhone platform, this never would have happened. Say what you want about Apple's release policies or their initial "no SDK" choice, but with the iPhone, they've brought development and distribution down to anyone who can dream it.

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 been lauded already. And some of the choices are a little wacky -- Cube Runner is cool, but it's not really much more than a tech demo at this point.

Still, there are a few gems you may not have discovered yet -- JellyCar looks like a lot of fun, and Topple did kind of get hidden underneath the shadow of ngmoco's other big release, Rolando. It's worth a try if you haven't played it yet.

It's notable, as well, that all but the top two choices are pretty simple. As fun as these games are, there's definitely a lot more room for some deeper gameplay on the App Store.

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 system with the sensitive touchscreen controls, it was a little too tough for me to use (you have to really be a skateboarder, since the app really is a fingerboard, basically).

But Sway looks much more casual, and still puts the touchscreen and tilt abilities to great use. Like Rolando, it's a cartoony, physics-based platformer, but unlike Rolando, the mechanic here isn't rolling, but swinging. You swing the little characters around, and then use the touchscreen to grab onto various parts of the environment while exploring it.

Very intriguing. Like Touchgrind, the controls might be a little too sophisticated to appeal to all players (it looks tough coordinating which hand is which and exactly when to grab and let go), but we'll have to see how it works out -- if it starts out in an accessible way, Sway might be really impressive. Illusion Labs didn't tell us a price yet (their two other paid games are $5 and $7), but the game is set to hit the App Store soon.

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 most of this with a grain of salt, but there's no question that there are some awesome apps in here, and probably at least one or two you'll be interested in checking out if you haven't yet.

Shazam won big in the "Best Overall", "Most Innovative," and "Best WOW" categories, and that is well worth it: Shazam is super reliable and works great as a "music recognizer." Rolando picked up "Best Game Graphics," and "Best Game Controls." Fieldrunners also picked up two awards for "Best Strategy Game" and "Best Long-play Game."

Unfortunately, the much-despised (by me) Ocarina won three total awards, including "Best 99 cent app" (I would have chosen Koi Pond over that one easily and that's one where Weightbot was made to win), but feel free to ignore me and my iPhone app crankiness. There are lots of great iPhone apps here (especially when you dive into the nominations), and overall, we're looking at the best of a terrific first year of iPhone development. Onward to 2009!

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 developers should see the iPhone as a dream platform, and creator Simon Oliver has brought that potential to bear in an amazing puzzle/platformer.

There's almost nothing to not like here -- the graphics are colorful and run perfectly, the writing is simple and witty, and the gameplay is not only fun from the beginning, but creatively builds itself over time. Just like any great platformer should, every single level delivers a new way of thinking about the tools you're given, and even when you've conquered the whole game, there are multiple reasons to go back and play again.

TUAW got a copy of the game a few days ago (it's out on the App Store today for the first time since its announcement back in July), and since then we've saved Rolandos aplenty, worked our way through most of Rolandoland, and been charmed endlessly by the App Store's first real, original classic.

Rolando has been a long time coming -- we first heard about the game on a tip directly from Simon Oliver, the game's creator himself, while he was working with an unofficial iPhone development kit part time on a little physics-based puzzle game. And now, six months later, he's working full-time as an iPhone dev, his little game has expanded into a full-fledged story-driven platforming game with more hype and expectation behind it than perhaps any other App Store release, published by one of the biggest companies to come out of the iPhone gaming scene so far. Not to mention that the App Store itself has grown from a crazy experiment Apple thought up to distribute iPhone software, to a multimillion-dollar enterprise.

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 few months, and how far both he and his game about little rolling "Rolandos" has come. He talked with us about the Ngmoco partnership and how it helped him as a developer, the viability of Rolando as a $9.99 game, and the future of both what he's working on and what the App Store needs as a gaming platform.

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 video for the game, and they're now saying there will be a "December" release (strangely enough, Touch Arcade's URL for the story says "December 12th" at the time I write this, but that could have been just an error on their side).

Oh well. At least we've got the new trailer, which shows off some more of the way gameplay works, including the 2D physics, the great colors and art, and the use of the touchscreen to not only control characters, but sometimes rearrange and manipulate the game world.

Rolando continues to look impressive (rumor has it that it'll come with a $9.99 price tag, but hopefully we'll get a demo to try out first). We've waited months for the game already, so a few weeks probably won't be so bad, right?

[via Touch Arcade]

Touch Arcade has an interview up with Neil Young. Just like you, I was only slightly disappointed to learn that it was the Neil Young formerly of EA who recently formed ng:moco, quickly becoming one of the most high-profile iPhone game houses, not that other one. But only slightly, because also like many of you, I'm looking forward to Rolando and the "over a dozen" other games ng:moco is releasing on the App Store, and I'm interested to see what ng:moco has to say for themselves about the little iPhone game empire they're building.

Unfortunately, TA didn't get a price or a strict release date out of Young for Rolando, but he does say that the game's shaping up well -- he even says creator Simon Oliver "could be the first Miyamoto of the iPhone," which, even if an exaggeration, is an interesting idea. They also discuss the plan behind ng:moco, a company which, like EA in the earlier days of PC gaming, aims to bring together publishers, designers, and promotion and sales all under one big roof. And the volatile issue of iPhone App pricing comes up, but I agree that the big balance on price always seems to be quality -- looking at a system like the Xbox 360's marketplace, you can justify almost any price for a game, as long as the user has an experience that feels worth what they paid.

And finally, they hit on the iPhone's competitors, and it sounds like Young thinks Android phones have a ways to go -- the difference is not in the hardware (touchscreen, size, and so on), but it's in the usability and interface, and in those arenas, Young says, Apple still has the edge. Very nice interview with a company that seems destined to play a big part in the iPhone gaming market.

Ngmoco, the strangely-named iPhone gaming startup that's one of the recipients of the iFund, has announced their first three planned games for the iPhone.

First of all, they're planning to act as publishers for the Rolando game we've been so excited about, a puzzle platformer with touch and physics elements. That could be one reason for Rolando's delay, actually -- hopefully the new partnership will end up being worth the wait. And they have two other "fast apps" in progress -- one is called MazeFinger (and it does what it sounds like, lets you run your finger around a maze), and the other is Topple, a block-building game that looks like it has some physics in there as well. Both of the smaller games were apparently conceived by Ngmoco, and then passed off to iPhone developers, while Rolando, of course, was created by handcircus.

MazeFinger and Topple are scheduled for this month, and they should be priced to go at 99 cents. Rolando now has a date of "Holiday 2008," and there's no price quoted yet. But Ngmoco is definitely making a strong play for getting some premier games in the App Store -- we'll be watching to see how these do and what else they've got planned.

Well color me surprised -- after almost a month with no activity, the handcircus blog has sprung back into action. I was getting worried that the great-looking iPhone game Rolando was on the brink of becoming vaporware, since we were expecting it back in August, and we hadn't heard a peep since then. But no, apparently the game (which looks like an intriguing mix of Loco Roco and Kirby's Canvas) is still being developed, and is still heading for the App Store. Which is great -- we'd rather have it "when it's ready" rather than not at all.

In the meantime, the developer's been getting some attention already, nabbing some facetime in Design Week and speaking at a conference, too. We'll stick with what we said before -- that we're ready to wait -- and refrain from telling you guys to get a move on, but trust us, those conference visitors and magazine editors don't want the game nearly as much as we do. Time to finish it!

[via Touch Arcade]