Sumea is preparing 3D Rollercoaster Rush for App Store

As with much of the mobile industry, publisher Digital Chocolate has found a new touchy feely love in the shape of the App Store.

Famously, it’s had its games downloaded over 10 million times and it’s keen to keep that million clock ticking over by releasing plenty more.

One such is Rollercoaster Rush, one of the publisher’s most successful mobile franchises. It’s currently being remade for iPhone and iPod touch by the Helsinki-based inhouse Sumea studio.

Named 3D Rollercoaster Rush, it follows on from the 3D mobile versions, although with a new gold mine setting. We can confirm it’s a different team working on the game than that behind the just released (and most lovely) California Gold Rush, but clearly Sumea’s office has a gold mining theme ongoing at the moment.

Anyhow, as with the games before it, 3D Rollercoaster Rush has you varying the speed of your rollercoaster as it rushes around increasingly complex tracks. All the while, you’re trying to go as fast as possible while ensuring you don’t deposit your passengers into the great abyss, but keeping them as thrilled as you can with high speed jumps.

This being the iPhone/iPod touch version, the game works using tilt controls, although you’re also provided with a little meter in the bottom left hand corner of screen that graphically shows you how fast you’re going - green good, red bad being the basic feeling.

Producer Marko Lastikka says there will be around 40 levels of fun, although the game is only at its first playable stage, so there’s plenty more still to make and polish.

3D Rollercoaster Rush will be a significant iPhone title for Digital Chocolate, with the ability to race ghost rollercoasters promised. These will include a ghost of your best time to complete each level as well as examples of the optimum strategy as provided by Sumea’s own gaming experts.

We also asked about the possibilities of up/downloading other players’ fastest times. No clear answer was as yet forthcoming but we think this sort of thing is being planning after Apple’s release of the 3.0 SDK. Similarly, we expect that a level editor and Bluetooth multiplayer features will find their way into future versions/updates.

So it looks like Digital Chocolate’s PR machine will have plenty more millions of downloads to trump about as the year draws on.

We expect 3D Rollercoaster Rush to be corkscrewing its way onto the App Store during the summer.