iPhone Application Watch: Aurora Feint II: The Arena

Aurora Feint II: The Arena

Following the huge success of the original and free Aurora Feint puzzle/strategy/MMORPG, the creators have developed Aurora Feint II: The Arena.

Claiming it to be the first Asynchronous Massively Multi-Player World for the iPhone, it allows players to compete head-to-head with others, even when they're not online at the same time.

The press release explains:

Even though two players are not using their iPhones at the same time, a player can compete as if the opponent is playing in real time in a head-to-head duel. This is completely different from turn based non-real time competition, because Asynchronous Real Time is exactly like playing against an online player, with real time interactions and strategy. This is accomplished by "summoning ghosts" that play on behalf of a player and persist in the world.

Quite how this works in practice remains to be seen. Obviously, you may not be playing against a real human being but against an artificially intelligent piece of software.

Other features include a profile wall, world news feed and chat:

All players see a continuous stream of real time events happening in the World all the time, as a ticker on the bottom of the iPhone touch screen. Touching an "interesting" event in this ticker takes you to a new place in the world called the Tavern, where players can conduct "asynchronous" chat with other players in the world, propose duels, share strategies and compete for leader board rankings.

"We've raced to be the first Asynchronous Mobile MMO, or AMMMO, specifically designed for 'distractible' environments such as the iPhone. Game play is bursty, interruptible, and you don't know exactly when you will leave the game or when to expect your friends to be online. Yet even our casual gaming fans wanted massively multi-player capability and told us they would pay for it: so we built this AMMMO World where you can play at will in an MMO and still take a phone call in the middle without compromising game play. We are thrilled by the positive feedback we've received in the beta cycle," said Jason Citron and Danielle Cassley, the 23-year-old entrepreneurs who developed The Beginning in 10 weeks flat.

Available until Christmas for $7.99 (£4.99), $9.99 (£5.99?) thereafter.

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