TMSOFT Ports Quake to the iPhone; Features Include Accelerometer Controls

November 2009

Disclaimer

Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat
1	2	3	4	5	6	7
8	9	10	11	12	13	14
15	16	17	18	19	20	21
22	23	24	25	26	27	28
29	30

This website is not owned by, is not licensed by nor is a subsidiary of Apple Computer, Inc. Apple iPhone are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. The content of this website is not supplied or reviewed by Apple Computer, Inc. All articles, images, logos and trademarks in this site are property of their respective owners. Please follow this link to read the complete disclaimer.

We had reported that ZodTTD, the iPhone developer who had ported Quake to the jailbroken iPhone had announced that he had submitted his free iPhone app to Apple and hoping to get an approval.

However, his effort seems to have run into trouble as id Software CEO Todd Hollenshead informed Touch Arcade that ZodTTD’s port would be illegal and will not be allowed in the App Store as it was not sanctioned by the company.

If you are a Quake fan and disappointed to hear that news then there is some ray of hope as another iPhone Developer, TMSOFT has also ported Quake to the iPhone. They are looking at options of licensing the game from id software and publishing it via the App Store.

Kevin Arunski and Todd More of TMSOFT have ported Quake, one of the most popular first-person-shooter game to the iPhone. They have provided the following details:

Quake is heavily dependent on using a keyboard and mouse so adapting player controls that didn’t take away from game play was very important. The accelerometer was used to handle player movement by tilting left, right, forward, and backward. The iPhone’s ability to track up to 5 individual touches at the same time meant the touch screen could easily support free look while pressing jump or fire.

The graphics were rotated to landscape mode using the full screen resolution of 480×320 and native Open GL ES. Numerous optimizations were added to make full use of the iPhone’s PowerVR MBX GPU. The game currently runs at 20 to 30 frames per second and includes effects like perspective correct multi-textured polygons, trilinear/anisotropic filtering, alpha blended explosions, and depth testing.

The sound was implemented using Open AL and network support enabled using the WiFi connection. The menu system received a button overlay for the arrow keys, escape, and enter buttons along with a keyboard popup for entering things like player name or IP address.

Their version of Quake includes the following features:

Native OpenGL ES - optimized for the iPhone
Keyboard and menu - all console commands supported
Accelerometer controls player movement
Multi-touch controls - free look, fire and jump
Multi-player support using Wi-fi network

Even though the some versions of Quake engine are free and is covered by GNU General Public License, the chances of it being approved by Apple without the blessing from id Software who own the copyright to the game seems doubtful. We have already seen some iPhone apps rejected or removed from the App Store due to copyright issues.

So the developers are apparently looking at options of licensing the game from id software and publishing it via the App Store.

You can checkout the video demonstration of the Quake app to get an overview: