id Software's John Carmack talks Wolfenstein, Doom Classic, and Rage iPhone

With Doom Classic making its Halloween deadline on the App Store, id Software founder John Carmack has been reflecting on the work his team has done on the company's classic games, and in which direction he's pointing it in the future.

Clearly the iPhone is still very much at the fore of Carmack's mind, as he admits hoping for a kind of Rage spin-off to tie in with the highly anticipated game's launch.

"I want to work on a Rage themed game to coincide with Rage's release, but we don't have a firm direction or team chosen for it," Carmack explains. "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."

It seems this desire is slowly being realised internally at id Software (which was recently acquired by Bethesda) as the company has set up a dedicated iPhone team - admittedly of just two people, but it's reassuring to hear that id intends not only to continue its work on adapting its valuable franchises, but to support its existing releases, as Carmack explains.

"We do read all the reviews in the App Store, and we do plan on supporting Doom Classic with updates. Everything is still an experiment for us on the iPhone, and we are learning lessons with each product. "

This continued support extends to Wolfenstein Classic, after the premium Platinum version was revamped into a free update for the existing game, which also proved to be an education for the id team.

"Wolfenstein Classic Platinum was a break-in opportunity for the new internal iPhone developers. We were originally planning on making the Spear of Destiny levels available as in-app purchased content. Then we decided to make it a separate Platinum Edition application at a reasonable price.

"Finally, we decided that we would just make it a free update, but something has gone wrong during this process," says Carmack, refreshing open not only about the difficulties faced, but in the interesting direction it's taken the game.

"People who buy the app for the first time get everything working properly, but many people who upgrade the App from a previous purchase are seeing lots of things horribly broken. We are working with Apple to try to debug and fix this, but the workaround is to uninstall the app completely, then reload it.

"The exciting thing about Wolf Platinum is the support for downloadable levels, which is the beta test for future game capabilities. Using a URL to specify downloadable content for apps is a very clean way to interface to the game through a web page or email message."

You can check out John Carmack's full release notes over on the official id Software blog, and read our Doom Classic, Wolfenstein 3D reviews right here on Pocket Gamer.

Eurogamer