HermitWorks Spills The Beans, Withholds the Goods
by Eric March on April 9, 2008 at 11:14 pm
GameCyte’s Sean Hollister wanted the dish behind the tantalizing and scantily described Quake III Touch video that made its rounds last weekend and brought our site to its knees, so he took it upon himself to get it. (Cue the sound of my foot kicking my hynie for not thinking of that myself.)
On the topic of the “quick” port, HermitWorks dev Cameron Tofer said it only took “probably between eight and twelve hours.” Pretty impressive, but not surprising considering idTech 3 engine, which powers Quake III, is also the one that powers their Space Trader game, so they already knew their way around the code very well.
The networked play is entirely WYSIWYG in the video: Two iPod Touch units and nothing more — no wires, no dedicated server, no router, just two devices connecting to each other ad-hoc. Theoretically, there’s no reason why a 64-player network came couldn’t be played — though you’d need a really big living room and a skid of Bawls.
That’s the good news.
The bad news is: You can’t have it. The port was done purely as a proof of concept and acted as a kind of stress test preparatory to beginning the port of their Space Trader game to the Touch for eventual release through the App Store. They have also begun work on an enhanced 3D role-playing game currently known only as Quest, which will also use the Quake III engine.
All of that sounds excellent, of course, and I can’t wait to see these hit iTunes in a few months, but I am hoping that they are aware that there’s one game right now that we would all kiss our own grandmothers full on the lips for, and which we would love to see the light of day: Quake III Arena. Come on, Cam. Tell me we didn’t almost sacrifice our server to the Gods of Digg for naught.
In any event, head on over to GameCyte to read the full HermitWorks exposé.
(Source: GameCyte, via Engadget)
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April 10th, 2008 at 12:47 am
Speak for yourself. I really couldn’t care about Quake, Doom or any other FPS on the iPod Touch. They simply don’t work very well on a touch screen. One reason I don’t use the emulators out there is because of the lack of tactile feedback.
I just want a damn C64 and Sinclair Spectrum emulator.
Oh yeah, and most of all a port of UAE. (Ubiquitous Amiga Emulator. Not the United Arab Emirates.)
April 10th, 2008 at 10:53 am
FPS games can work if done properly on the Touch and iPhone. The accelerometer is not what I would call proper. Real (well, virtual) buttons are needed here. It’s still not quite as good as a real, physical control scheme, but it’s better than tilting the screen all over the place.
Any of those emulators would be nice, but damnit, where are my Atari emulators?