The folks behind CrossOver Games sent us a note that version 8.1.0 of their software has come out, and it's got some nice upgrades for Mac and Linux folks who prefer to run their games in Windows almost-emulators (it's based on Wine, and as we all know, Wine Is Not an Emulator) rather than Boot Camping over to the real thing. We tried out CrossOver Games a while back, and found it lacking in almost everything but Steam games, but actually that's OK, because lately Steam has a lot of games going on. Accordingly, this new version has support built-in for the brand new Left 4 Dead 2, as well as fixes for Steam's voice chat, a few upgrades for WoW on Linux and Guild Wars, and a couple of changes to ensure compatibility with Snow Leopard. Sounds like a nice solid upgrade -- owners of the software can grab it for free, or you can try out the app for yourself from their website.

In case you don't have the app yet, CodeWeavers also let us know that they're giving away a Linux rig that's the "ultimate" in... wait for it... gaming. Yes, putting together a Linux rig for gaming is like putting a UFC fighter on a dance show, but we guess stranger things have happened. Anyway, CrossOver Games will definitely help you play at least a few games on the decked-out rig, if you want a shot at winning the thing, all you have to do is pick up the software before December 1st. They'll pick a name out of a hat, and if it's yours, there'll be an awesome 'nix box headed your way. Good luck with getting smooth fullscreen Flash video to work. We kid! You Linux guys make it so easy.

Oh wait, what's that? Flash on the iPhone? I have no idea what you're talking about.

Last year, I was introduced to Funny Farm while working on a team project with my inlaws. I absolutely loved the idea of a puzzle that grew as you solved parts of it. The game works by associating words with their natural connections, e.g. "On the Farm" could inspire you to think of cow, chicken, and farmer (among other words). You then spin out those ideas to further connections. The chicken might be associated with rooster, hen, and egg, and so forth. So I was really excited to encounter iAssociate (iTunes link).

Developed by Fredrik Wahrman, iAssociate brings Funny Farm-style interaction to the iPhone. It's a really fun (and quite challenging) implementation with over a half dozen separate puzzles to work on, promising hours and hours of game play.

Each puzzle starts you out with a core idea. It's up to you to brainstorm ideas that fit around that idea, expanding each node into a wider set of associations. The word map is easy to scroll, and even though the iPhone display is quiter small, you can interact with a virtually large puzzle.

The game play is slightly different from Funny Farm in that instead of entering text into a central guessing area, you type text directly into nodes. If there are five nodes with six letters each, enter your guess into the central node, matching against all connected nodes. (You do get partial credit for guessing the right starting letters but the wrong word.)

I have only one real beef with iAssociate, which Wahrman promises me is being addressed in the next release. And that is the text size, particularly for the instructions. As you can see in the following image, helper overlay text is tiny. Speaking as a member of the graying community with weak eyes and a growing obsession with high fiber foods, iAssociate proved to me that I really need to look into bifocals or reading glasses. The text was headache-inducing small.

Beyond that, iAssociate was a blast to play. I enjoyed stretching my neurons a little and it makes a very good game for collaborating with friends. I do wish that Wahrman had built in some kind of multi-player feature, so groups could work on the puzzle together rather than be limited to pass-and-play. Hopefully that will be added in the future.

iAssociate costs $1.99 on the App Store. You can download a few versions (under the name "Associate This" (iTunes Link) as well, allowing you to try the game play before committing to buying the full product.

TUAW received a review promo code for this write-up.

We have a lot of apps coming through our tipline, but this one caught my eye, not only because it is called Zombies (the stumbling undead always catch my eye), but because it offers up a bit of good old-fashioned fun in the form of a Daleks!-style remake.

Gameplay is simple and straighforward -- you run, turn-by-turn in eight directions, from zombies, who pursue you at the same speed, and though the game runs at any pace you want (perfect for gameplay on the iPhone, in my opinion, since most of the time I'm just looking for a few seconds to a couple minutes of easy-to-pick-up action), the dread is real. Just like actual zombies, these guys shamble their way toward you with a hunger that only brains can satisfy.

The game is on the App Store now [iTunes link]. I will say that it is a touch pricey at $2.99 (a simple arcade game like this seems made for the 99-cent price point, and it will probably end up there eventually), but who am I to begrudge the developers a couple of bucks? I don't need to drink that cup of Starbucks anyway. If you're in the mood for a simple, zombified twist on an old classic, this is it.

While you're at it, check out the Zombies preview video we shot at WWDC last July.

OnLive is a company that has been claiming to do the seemingly impossible -- they plan to set up a sort of "cloud gaming" console, where instead of hardware in individual houses (like we have now; you buy a console for your home), they'll have hardware over the Internet, and stream your game to you like watching television. All of the processing and coding will be done on a remote server, but with signals flowing from your controller, it'll seem like you're just playing Xbox at home. It all works in theory, but in practice, Internet connections aren't solid or stable enough to send commands and full HD video back and forth without enough lag to make things unplayable.

Still, without actually releasing a product so far, OnLive claims they can do it, and now they're claiming to do it on the iPhone as well. AppleInsider reports that at a recent event in New York, OnLive showed off the same game service running on "2 iPhones, a tv, and a computer" simultaneously, with gamers on all the devices able to communicate and watch each others' gameplay. CEO Steve Perlman admits it's a "tech demo," but doesn't go into detail on what that means (it could simply be a demo running separately on the devices, to show what it would be like, or I've heard of OnLive events where the server is sitting in the room next door). And of course, there's no date or information on an actual release yet.

OnLive's service definitely sounds possible someday -- as Internet connections get faster and hardware gets even cheaper, it's not a stretch to think we'll eventually move the heavy processor lifting to another location, leaving much tinier consoles and PCs taking up space on our desks and TV stands at home. But so far all it seems they've got is an idea (and the money that excited financiers have put into the project). We'll have to believe it works when we see it.

While some say Apple never wanted the iPhone to be a gaming device, the company knows which way the wind is blowing and wants to get involved. Apple is looking to hire a game and media software engineer for its iPhone and iPod touch team, which could mean it wants to make games of its own.

The job description doesn't say "games" specifically, focusing instead on "interactive multimedia experiences." However, the ad is looking for someone with "3-4 years of video game development experience," someone who has "shipped at least one AAA title," and someone who is a "passionate gamer."

id Software co-founder John Carmack says higher-ups in Apple aren't overjoyed with the growing status of the iPhone and iPod touch as gaming devices. But there's big money in games. Research firm DFC Intelligence sees profits for dedicated game-device makers like Sony and Nintendo shrinking 27% over the next five years, while expecting revenue from games for Apple's handhelds to rise from $46 million last year, to $2.8 billion dollars by 2014. That's a lot of money flowing through Apple, though most of that will go to developers. With over 100,000 apps available in the App Store, only four available today are made by Apple, and only one of those - Texas Hold'em (iTunes link) is a game.

[via Apple Insider]

Touch Arcade has the news that the long-awaited Ravensword and a number of other games built on the Unity game engine have been rejected by Apple from the App Store. The problem appears to be a number of API calls in the engine (though not specifically the game themselves, as I understand it) that allow the games to access the iPhone's number and send it back to the developer's servers.

Apple considers these to be private APIs, and they also got games developer Storm8 in trouble earlier this week; their games were pulled from the store in response to a lawsuit alleging that they were collecting data from users without their knowledge.

Chillingo, publishers of Ravensword, contacted us about this story, and they said that while the Unity engine does allow developers to use these calls, they did not use them or collect any user information. We're also told that the problem APIs "have been removed," and Chillingo has resubmitted the game for App Store approval.

As I understand it, this is the same type of issue that came up with Google a while back. It's not the same APIs (Google was using the proximity sensor back then), but now as then, it's Apple's call whether they will allow developers to use these private and undocumented calls. Obviously some apps on the iPhone have to access the address book from time to time, but it's Apple's call whether they can use APIs like that or not. This time, it appears, they said no.

Update: Unity has also contacted us, and they say that the engine was updated to Apple's wishes as soon as they learned of the issue. They also would like to point out that while Storm8 did use the same private API calls, they don't use Unity to run their games. Storm8's update on the issue is here.

App Store developers can be a rebellious kind -- we've already covered the story of a company shooting their price up to $40 just to show their customers how much they could be charging, and now, in response to an overly defensive trademark owner, developers on the store are putting the word "Edge" in their titles. Even high profile releases like the sequel to Eliss and the popular Canabalt are becoming Edgeliss and Canabedge. Critter Crunch becomes Critter Edge on their main page, and so on.

The story starts with a guy named Tim Langdell, who started a company a while back named Edge Games. Since he founded that company, he has mercilessly gone after any other game company who dares to use the word "edge" in their title, claiming that he has the trademark to any and all "edge"-related gaming. He's gone after EA's Mirror's Edge and a few other titles, but the App Store has been a prime target, where he simply contacts Apple, claims the app is in violation of his trademarks, and gets apps pulled without a problem. The latest target is a title called Killer Edge Racing by a company named PuzzleKings, and reportedly Langdell has gone so far as to trademark that name, despite the fact that the game using it has been around for years.

Hence the indie game developers' "edge-volution." They aren't actually renaming their games in the store, just showing off solidarity with other developers against what they see as Langdell's wrongdoing, and getting the word out about his actions against "edge" on the App Store.

The C64 emulator that was pulled from the App Store by Apple for leaving a BASIC interpreter intact has now returned, though we presume it's minus the Apple-offending code. But while it will no longer run your own code, it will run some old-school C64 games, including eight for free with the app, and more coming with in-app purchases. It's got everything you'd expect from an emulator, including original sound and graphics, an auto-save, and the option to play in fullscreen portrait or landscape.

In fact, the only thing it doesn't have is an interpreter, but of course you know why that is by now: Apple doesn't want anyone running code on their devices that they haven't approved through the App Store. The app sells for $4.99 right now, and they expect to release the in-app purchases sometime this December, with no price announced yet.

Large-scale layoffs have been hitting everywhere in the past year, and Electronic Arts is now no different: according to Gamasutra, the game publisher announced today that it will lay off 1,500 workers by April 2010, after posting a year-to-year decrease in revenue and a net loss of $391 million.

About 1,300 of the freshly unemployed individuals will result from the full closure of some of EA's facilities. This will cost EA money at the outset, but they estimate that by dropping the facilities they stand to save about $100 million annually. According to EA CEO John Riccitello, the cuts are happening in "targeted areas," so the company can focus up on its bigger, more lucrative games.

EA has kept up well with the iPhone platform and has released some of its most popular titles to the App Store, such as The Sims 3, Rock Band, and Spore. Consumers still pay a premium price for them, however. For example, Rock Band costs $9.99 and comes with only 20 songs, and charges 50 cents for each additional song. Still, Rock Band ended up selling well, so maybe we'll be seeing more of EA in the App Store in the coming fiscal quarters.

EA also announced today its acquisition of Playfish, whose primary business is Facebook games, for $300 million. Hopefully out of the layoff ashes rises some brutally addictive social-based game for the iPhone.

Folklore.org is a tremendous repository of Apple history and lore. Check it out if you haven't; you'll find some entertaining and incredible stories.

I'm reminded of Folklore whenever a story emerges describing Apple from behind the scenes, like this interview with id Software's co-founder John Carmack. Speaking with Kotaku, John describes the ups and downs of working with Apple:

"I'll be invited up on stage for a keynote one month and then I'll say something they don't like and I can be blacklisted for six months."

We suspect such a public revelation won't get you back on stage anytime soon, John. Or maybe not, as he's now got "a man on the inside." Former id coworker Graeme Devine now works at Apple's iPhone Game Technologies division. However, the most interesting part of this interview confirms, in a small way, what I've always suspected: Apple begrudgingly promotes the iPod touch and iPhone as gaming platforms.

"At the highest level of Apple, in their heart of hearts," Carmack said, "they're not proud of the iPhone being a game machine, they wish it was something else." I have no way of backing this up, but I've long suspected that Steve Jobs in particular has no interest in the world of gaming. They're certainly pushing the iPod touch as a gaming device, but I'm sure it's through tightly-clenched teeth.

There's an exciting announcement at All Tech Related this week that has us saying, "We can't wait!"

ZodTDD, the developer behind GpSPhone (a Nintendo Gameboy Advance emulator for the iPhone and iPod Touch), announced the development of an N64 emulator for the iPhone and iPod touch. Zodttd believes that the current generation iPhone and iPod touch have the graphic CPU horsepower necessary to run those games. "...I can't promise it will run games top notch just yet, as things are too early to say. There's hope though, with a 3D accelerated graphics plugin, as well as an ARM dynarec."

As iPhone Savior points out, the toughest challenge could be fitting the controls onto the screen in an unobtrusive yet usable way. That was my main complaint about Resident Evil for iPhone [iTunes link] -- my hand is often in the way of what I'm trying to see.

Note that this will require an jailbroken iPhone or iPod touch.

[Via iPhone Savior]

Here's a few interesting stats from a survey recently conducted in Europe. These aren't specifically about the iPhone, but given that smartphones relied on buttons almost exclusively before Apple's handheld came along (and nowadays, everyone's bragging about their touchscreen technology), a temperature-taking on what people think of touchscreen controls is more or less a referendum on what people think of Apple's influence.

At least in France, Germany and the UK, reactions are mixed. While 38% of those surveyed say they were planning to get a touchscreen on their next mobile phone, only 47% of people who already owned a touchscreen said they would get another one. In other words, less than half of touchscreen owners thought they'd stick with the technology on their next purchase. Apple remains an anomaly -- both HTC and Apple have a higher amount of current customers planning to stick with their touchscreen interface (with the full numbers being released at a conference later this month), but the fact remains: current touchscreen users aren't anywhere near 100% on living button-free forever.

Especially as a gamer, that makes a lot of sense. Touchscreens are great for a lot of things -- they allow for limitless flexibility in the kinds of interfaces on offer, and especially with multi-touch, a lot of the controls on the iPhone are extremely intuitive (you automatically know now that pinching equals zooming, and so on). But as nice as touchscreen is, there are a lot of functions on mobile phones, from adjusting volume or changing music tracks on a phone out of sight in your pocket, to hitting exact button controls while twitch gaming, that work much better with tactile feedback. Steve, as he always does, made a big deal about the iPhone being a one-button interface, but I wouldn't be surprised at all to see future iterations of the iPhone include either a few more buttons, or, even better, a few more haptic interface technologies.

Ngmoco's Eliminate has been building up buzz ever since it was announced, and now the first-person shooter is out on the App Store to try for yourself. As you can see above, it offers some relatively basic FPS gameplay when compared to shooters on other platforms (I've been having a lot of fun with Borderlands lately), but given that this is the iPhone we're talking about, this kind of twitch 3D gameplay is actually pretty impressive. You can play online over 3G or Wi-Fi, and as you play, you can earn credits and level up, which gives you access to more weapons and better gear. The game itself is free, but it's all based around a microtransaction system where you buy "energy" which allows you to earn those aforementioned resources. You get a certain amount of energy per day on your own, and if you use it up, you can't progress any further unless you get out the wallet or wait another day. And the game uses ngmoco's own Plus+ social interface to track leaderboards and accounts. Interesting plan, and we'll have to see if players vibe with it or not. Some have already voiced strong concerns about the in-game pay-to-play microtransaction system.

If that doesn't vibe with you, and you'd rather play some old-school (and old business model) FPS gameplay instead, id's Doom Classic also got released on the App Store last weekend. That game comes at a cost of $6.99, but then again, with old-school Doom, you know exactly what you're getting into. And you won't have to buy any extra energy to charge your BFG and slay any demons you happen to come across.

We mentioned Gamesalad's plans to bring their publishing system to the iPhone earlier this year, and now they've done it: for $99 a year, they say that you'll be able to design games on their game creator development tool, and then publish them straight out to the iPhone's App Store. If you don't want to bother publishing the games yourself, you can create them and have them "viewed" through the Gamesalad Viewer (which we couldn't find on the App Store quite yet), or you can export them out as full applications and publish them as your own iPhone apps (Flutterby is in the store right now as an example of a Gamesalad Creator game).

There's also a $1999 membership service that lets you customize every aspect of your games, and provides you with direct customer support, which is supposed to be for "elite users" (like, we guess, actual game companies). And truthfully, I've developed a few apps using just Xcode, and it's not too big a deal (though I've never had to go through an actual release or worked with end users, which I'm sure is most of the battle anyway). But if the thought of using professional coding tools to develop your little game idea sends you into panic attacks, and the Gamesalad creator seems more your speed, this might be a nice viable way for you to turn your gaming idea into App Store gold.

It costs nothing to download and try out the creator, so if the idea interests you, you can work on putting a game together, and then pay later when you decide you've got something you want published on the iPhone. And hey, if you do put a game up, be sure to send a tip and let us know -- we'd love to see the end products of this process.

Just in case you missed it, I got my wish from a while back: there is an official version of the classic board game Settlers of Catan, called just Catan, on the App Store right now. I'm still playing Kolonists, the unofficial knockoff that got kicked off of the store for infringement, but if you've got wood for sheep, this official version should get you your portable fix. If you're unfamiliar with the Catan juggernaut, check out this thorough piece from Wired.com.

There's hot seat multiplayer gameplay (I assume you just can't cheat by looking at what resources other people have), or a few AIs to tangle with if you don't have friends at hand, and the game includes a scrollable board to play on, game stats to track, and a tutorial for those of you who haven't rolled the dice and tried to build the Longest Road yet.

The game is created by United Soft Media, a German company that's also ported the game to the DS, and while it's not quite as shiny as the Xbox Live port (my personal favorite version of the game, outside of the real thing, of course), the reviews on iTunes say it gets the job done, at least while you're waiting for the next board game night (and while we're talking about board games, can I recommend Dominion? Best table game I've played in years). The game is $4.99 and available right now. Anyone have any ore?