Following a semi-depressing seasonal lull in truly outstanding iPhone games, it appears that the indie dev community is starting to make a springtime comeback. Case in point: Kometen, the first iPhone game from Erik Svedäng, creator of Indie Games Fest 2009 grand prize winner Blueberry Garden (available on Steam here).

Not a terrible amount is known about Kometen, but — from the looks of the video above — it would seem to have at least some things in common with Svedäng’s prior work: primarily stand-out visual design (from Garden‘s pen & ink to Kometen‘s hand-watercolored universe, created by Niklas Åkerblad) and a focus on the pure joys of unguided exploration.

The app’s currently with Apple for approval, so it shouldn’t be long before we can feel its “speed, beauty & grace” for ourselves.

Announcing Kometen [Erik Svedäng]

In addition, Manomio, developer of the on-again, off-again Commodore 64 emulator for iPhone, has gotten an Amiga emulator working and plans to release Amiga games as standalone apps. According to Touch Arcade‘s report of a Retro Gamer magazine article, one of the first games in the works is another early karate title, International Karate+ — a slightly more modern version of a C64 fighter. The two titles will then face off in a one-on-one battle to be the most popular retro fighting game.

We told you about our experience with the just-announced Apple iPad yesterday; this morning, we’ll show you, by way of the above video. You’ll note that both Need for Speed Shift and NOVA are the same non-iPad versions available on the App Store today – the enhanced versions shown during the keynote are works-in-progress and weren’t available to demo. On the down side, the versions we played included the “2X” upscale button; on the up side, they benefited from the larger screen and increased tilt sensitivity.

While the above video isn’t representative of what the iPad is capable of, it is representative of how we think many iPhone owners will use the device, since iPhone and iPad games won’t be cross-compatible.

Miller, quoted in the “first printed issue of Gamesauce,” says “the next few years should see a strong resurgence in Duke.” Shacknews, which spotted the article, says Miller remains sanguine about the prospects of a franchise with one published title since the Clinton administration.

There are numerous other Duke games in various stages of development, several due out this year. We are definitely looking to bring Duke into casual gaming spaces, plus there are other major Duke games in production.

Miller says “almost all” of those projects are unannounced, but, Shacknews points out they likely include:

• Two Duke iPhone games Miller previously announced.

• A Duke Nukem Trilogy for DS and PSP, from Frontline Studios.

• The Xbox Live Arcade port of Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project.

• A scrapped project called Duke Begins, alluded to in Take-Two’s lawsuit against Miller and Broussard.

And, of course, Miller repeated the obligatory tease that Duke Nukem forever is not dead. “We’ve never said that Duke Nukem Forever has ceased development. … Yes, we released the internal team, but that doesn’t correlate to the demise of the project.”

Sorry, but at this point, games or GTFO.

3D Realms Teases ‘Numerous’ Duke Nukem Games, ‘Looking to Bring Duke into Casual Gaming’ [Shacknews]

The Unreal Engine 3 will only run on third-generation iPod Touches and the iPhone 3GS, and the demo being shown is not a fully-operable game, just a stripped-down version of Unreal Tournament.

Some elaboration from AnandTech from their meeting with Epic Games V.P. Mark Rein:

Epic isn’t announcing any sort of iPhone engine licenses nor are they entering the iPhone game market. Porting UE3 to the iPhone is simply one of many projects being worked on inside a newer, more svelte and innovative Epic Games (wait till you see what’s next…)… Mark said they planned to make this available to licensees at some point in the near future.

And here’s a thought experiment: How about a recent Epic hit ported to the iPhone?

…eventually it wouldn’t be too far fetched to see a full port of Gears of War to something as small as an iPhone. NAND Flash capacities to support multiple 9GB games will be there in another few years, as will GPU horsepower.

According to the site, Rein said that Unreal Engine 3 support will be announced for “another mobile platform” at next month’s CES, the biggest tech show of the year.

Epic Demonstrates Unreal Engine 3 for the iPod Touch/iPhone 3GS [AnandTech]

Game developer Mark Cooke did just that — all for Pecha Kucha in Tokyo.

For those who aren’t hip to Pecha Kucha, people give presentations. Twenty slides at twenty seconds. The embedded video is a screencast of Mark’s presentation. Check out the actual presentation here, complete with crummy sound quality.

Mark goes through and talks about each of the games he developed as well as what lessons he learned. The games vary, but voiced-controlled Space Invaders? Brilliant.

Mark Cooke [Pecha Kucha Daily]

Yves Guillemot crossed his name off the list of people who have yet to predict that Apple will become a bigger player in gaming hardware today. He did that as part of his explanation about how he thinks the home console market is going to transform gaming as we know it.

“There’s also a new entrant in the business,” he said, after riffing off the looming gaming potential of set-top boxes. “[That entrant is] Apple, with the iPhone. And we don’t think they will stop there.”

Guillemot made the comments about Apple during Ubisoft’s conference call to report the company’s finanicial results for its fiscal year ended in March. The head of the company behind hits such as Assassin’s Creed and Splinter Cell has repeatedly addresses the topic of the next generation of consoles in these earnings costs. He touched on it again, when asked by a financial analyst on the call: “We will see more customers coming to the video game industry .. they will start also to come under the boxes you see under the TV because those TV boxes will be more powerful.. We will see more consoles on which we will be able to put products. As for the next generation of consoles we can’t give you a date but from what we see there is a lot of energy to improve the consoles [that are out now.] We are already working on some of the elements that will appeal in the next generation.”

The allusion to the impending importance of gaming via set-top boxes prompted a follow-up question from an anlyst, and this produced more specificity about why the devices like cable boxes might begin to be discussed in the same breath as Xboxes and Wii: “You saw new interfaces with the Wiimote and also with the DS with the stylus,” Guillemot said. “What we see for the future is they will also be big announcement in interfaces. It will not only happen in consoles but also happen on those TV boxes as well.”

And right after that, Guillemot made his remark about Apple.

One of Guillemot’s older brothers, Michel, runs GameLoft, one of the most aggressive developers of games for Apple’s iPhone.

[PIC]

Well, as repeatedly predicted on here, we have the Zune to take on the world. And they haven’t put a phone in it!

Features:

• Wi Fi internet access.
• Widescreen multitouch OLED screen (nicer display technology).
• HD Radio.
• Video and music playback.
• USA market only.
• Uses Xbox Live.
• Downloadable games.
• Web browser based on Internet Explorer.
• Accelerometer.
• HD video out.
• Available for Q4 ‘09.
• Flash memory (no hard drive).

It looks nice and has nice features but Microsoft have lost it. We are at a time when the number of pocket devices we carry is reducing as the features integrate into one piece of equipment. And the Zune HD is behind the market. No camera and no phone, who will want to carry that around? Meanwhile the iPhone and Google Android phones offer a far better real world ownership proposition.

This is 8bitone, by Japanese devs Yudo, and it lets you arrange your own chiptune soundtracks on the fly. It’s not a professional solution, of course, but hey, it’s a program for your phone. And for that, it looks pretty good.

It’ll be available on the App Store in June, but you can check out a preview in the clip below.

8Bitone [via GSW]