Carmack wants Rage iPhone game

By Tom Bramwell Published 4 November, 2009

He's busy working on Doom 4 these days.

id Software's John Carmack has said he hopes to do a Rage game for iPhone, and spoken a little more about the developer's plans for the Apple format.

"I want to work on a Rage-themed game to coincide with Rage's release [on PC, Mac and console], but we don't have a firm direction or team chosen for it," Carmack wrote in his release notes for Doom Classic, which launched recently.

"I was very excited about doing a really-designed-for-the-iPhone first-person shooter, but at this point I am positive that I don't have the time available for it."

That's not to say id will be giving up on the iPhone though - far from it. While Carmack is "now working downstairs at id with the Doom 4 team" and splitting his time between that and Rage, the developer now has two people "dedicated to iPhone work".

"I doubt I will be able to personally open Xcode again for a few months, but I do plan on trying to work out a good touch interface for Quake Classic and the later 6DOF games," Carmack added.

"I also very much want to make at least a tech demo that can run media created with a version of our idTech 5 megatexture content-creation pipeline. I'm not sure exactly what game I would like to do with it, so it might be a 500MB free gee-whiz app..."

In the immediate future, Carmack said not to expect free versions of future products ("since we didn't notice anything worth the effort with Wolfenstein, and other developers have reported similar findings"), and that Doom Classic would be supported with updates, while work has also begun on an iPhone-specific version of Doom 2 RPG.

"The real-time FPS games are never going to be enjoyable for a lot of people [on iPhone]," Carmack explained, "and the turn-based RPG games are pretty neat in many regards. If they are well received, we will probably bring over the Orcs & Elves games as well."

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (9) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Eraysor #1 2 years ago

    The original Quake on the iPhone would be wonderful.

  • chukcyQ #2 2 years ago

    A good game would be wonderful, I don't want yet another tech demo.

  • frankfurter209 #3 2 years ago

    No more first person shooters on iPhone, please. Everytime they have to draw controls on the screen it goes straight down the shitter

  • wizlon #4 2 years ago

    I would lap up a Doom 2 RPG on iPhone like crazy.

  • MENTAL1ST Verified Senior Software Engineer, Picsel UK Ltd. #5 2 years ago

    I'd rather have the tech demo.

    Then perhaps, someone might be motivated to create a game based on a licensed top-notch engine that actually suits the platform, rather than perpetuate id's adherence to the Wolfenstein and Dungeon Master tropes.

  • smoothn00dle #6 2 years ago

    I use to respect this guy because of his work but now he is just talk. Where is the game? The day of tech demo game sell like mad cow is over. Ppl want not just good graphic but also out of this world gameplay - Demon's souls and Uncharted 2

  • butler` #7 2 years ago

    If only id had game designers to match their programmers.

  • GamesConnoisseur #8 2 years ago

    Second the idea of licensing the tech out to devs, then we would see greater variety of ideas using an excellent tech. Played first few levels of Doom Classics last night on iPhone, great visual but fps control are dead difficult to get right. Never gonna be able to smoothly emulate mouse/keyboard and so instead of ports which will always be dragged down by control, far better to do proper iPhone game from ground up.

    Doom 2 RPG would work far better as turn based and THAT I m looking forward to.

  • smelly #9 2 years ago

    I dont own an iphone - So serious question - How on EARTH do you play Doom on one?!