Carmack Reveals "Mutant Bash TV" as id Software's First Rage iOS Game

Legendary developer John Carmack revealed that he had successfully ported Rage's id Tech 5 engine to iOS at QuakeCon 2010, showing off a small section of a Rage level running at 60 frames-per-second.

Rage, as it appears on the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360

Carmack announced that a game would be released in 2010 for iOS with another mobile Rage title releasing alongside the actual game on September 13, 2011. That first title is based upon Rage's "Mutant Bash TV" game show and the game should be released in November, writes Carmack on the Bethesda Blog:

The little slice of RAGE that we decided to build the iPhone product around is "Mutant Bash TV", a post apocalyptic combat game show in the RAGE wasteland. This is the perfect setup for a quintessential first person shooter game play experience - you pick your targets, aim your shots, time your reloads, dodge the bad guys, and try and make it through to the end of the level with a better score than last time. Beyond basic survival, there are pickups, head shots, and hit streak multipliers to add more options to the gameplay, and there is a broad range of skill levels available from keep-hitting-fire-and-you-should-make-it to almost-impossible.

The game will be launched for $.99, but an $1.99 HD version will also be available for the iPad and iPhone 4. There is a lot more detail on the project at the blog post including Carmack's requisite technical details, but I'll leave you with this slice:

While it would (amazingly!) actually be possible to compile the full-blown PC/console RAGE game for an iPhone4 with some effort, it would be a hopelessly bad idea. Even the latest and greatest mobile devices are still a fraction of the power of a 360 or PS3, let alone a high end gaming PC, so none of the carefully made performance tradeoffs would be appropriate for the platform, to say nothing of the vast differences in controls.

Is there anything this man can't code?