John Carmack's Cell Phone Adventures

Mr. Carmack has updated his blog with news of his latest interests. Apparently mobile gaming on cell phones has consumed a large portion of his time of late, and he has some witty commentary on programming for the emerging game platform. From the article: "I'm not a cell phone guy. I resisted getting one at all for years, and even now I rarely carry it. To a first approximation, I don't really like talking to most people, so I don't go out of my way to enable people to call me. However, a little while ago I misplaced the old phone I usually take to Armadillo, and my wife picked up a more modern one for me. It had a nice color screen and a bunch of bad java game demos on it. The bad java games did it."

Time consuming

[kryogen1x]

Apparently mobile gaming on cell phones has consumed a large portion of his time of late

No kidding. When I play chess against the AI on my phone, the thing takes minutes to make a move. It usually takes 20 minutes to play a game that would take two humans to play in 5.

Re:Time consuming

[TheGuano]

Well, don't expect it to get any faster, but I'm sure Carmack will add some kick-ass per-pixel lighting and dynamic shadows to the board and pieces!

Quake...

[alexandreracine]

Are you not suppose to be working on Quake 4 or something? Don't tell me you will release Quake 4 on the phone!

Yes, but..

[Anonymous Coward]

..how long will it take him to color the entire screen black and call it Doom 3 for mobiles?

There too?

[AtariAmarok]

"how long will it take him to color the entire screen black and call it Doom 3 for mobiles?"

It's bad there too? I remember "Doom" for Nintendo 64. You wanted to shine a flashlight at the screen, it was that bad. For those if you who have not experienced it, try playing your favorite game while wearing sunglasses 3 deep.

It's outsourced.

[AtariAmarok]

They were too cheap to complete a chess program with good AI. You are not waiting for a slow computer. You are instead waiting for a rather frazzled guy in Mumbai whose job it is to play the computer opponent in anywhere from 10 to 50 phone chess games at any given time.

Re:'I don't really like talking to most people'

[Anonymous Coward]

...and my wife picked up...

nope.

Re:The good old shareware days

[BigBadDude]

Please dont use John Romero and feeling in the same line. Brings back bad bad memories...

Re:Time consuming

[Mr.Dippy]

Imagine playing Chess in dark and you can't move your pieces until you put down the flashlight becasue you only have one hand. I can't wait for the fun.