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GC 2008: Kroll developer working on two unannounced games

But will they be iPhone, N-Gage or another platform?

GC 2008: Kroll developer working on two unannounced games
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Spanish mobile developer Digital Legends Entertainment is working on two as-yet-unannounced games due for release this side of Christmas, says CEO Xavier Carillo Costa.

The news will please iPhone gamers, who've been working themselves into a froth about the company's Kroll game, which was shown off at Apple's WWDC show earlier this year.

The company is also readying N-Gage beat-'em-up ONE for release. Thus, the two mystery titles could be for iPhone or N-Gage. Or another advanced mobile platform.

"We have two other projects that we are working on for Christmas, so we are pretty busy!" he told Pocket Gamer in an interview at the Games Convention show in Leipzig. "We can't talk about them right now, though."

Sadly, Carillo Costa isn't able to spill any more beans about Kroll until it goes live on the App Store. Judging by the demo shown at WWDC, it'll be a cross between Pandemonium and Dragon's Lair.

One thing Carillo Costa can say is that the game will make the most of the iPhone. "The important thing is that we're targeting mobile gamers, so we are adapting the gameplay for mobile," he says.

"We want Kroll to be accessible to everybody. The theme may be fantasy, but we need to combine that with gameplay that is quite simple, and works with the interface. We have learned that you can't just throw a PC game onto mobile and expect it to work well."

Digital Legends has learnt many of these lessons from its work with Nokia on N-Gage – both the original gaming phones and the relaunched N-Gage platform.

The original version of ONE came out in the dying days of the first N-Gage, but won critical acclaim nonetheless. However, Carillo Costa says the developer recognises its faults.

"It was a bit too hardcore," he says. "N-Gage wasn't a console, it had a wider audience. So for the sequel, we decided to change it. You can't play this kind of game with one thumb, so we went with two-thumb controls. It's working pretty well: the inspiration was the Nintendo Game Boy with the cross-pad and two buttons."

The new ONE (it shares the same name as its predecessor), still has motion-captured fighters and rich backgrounds, but should be easier to play.

"We've made the combos much more simple and worked a lot on the Story mode," he says. "But we have other innovative features in there too, like Bluetooth, which is working really well."

ONE is apparently ready to go as soon as Nokia presses the button, so should be available for N-Gage in the coming weeks.

Meanwhile, Digital Legends will continue to explore various smartphone platforms, including N-Gage and iPhone, but also Windows Mobile, Linux and BREW.

Stuart Dredge
Stuart Dredge
Stuart is a freelance journalist and blogger who's been getting paid to write stuff since 1998. In that time, he's focused on topics ranging from Sega's Dreamcast console to robots. That's what you call versatility. (Or a short attention span.)