Radio Flare is a musical side-scrolling shooter with a soundtrack that dynamically morphs as you play, responding to your actions. While I love the audio and believe that its spot as an IGF finalist in Audio Achievement is definitely deserved, the core gameplay ultimately failed to hook me.

While major publishers work to port their blockbuster games to the iPhone, it’s the indie developers that are paving the way to the platform’s strong suits. Eliss brings innovation as well as targeted controls to the playing field, but how well does it actually deliver?

Independent Games Festival Mobile Winners Announced – iPhone Sweeps!

The IGF Mobile awards were announced at the Game Developers Conference this week, and the iPhone, less than a year after commercial games became available for it, swept the awards winning all categories.

In celebration of these awards and due to extra publicity by Apple in the App Store, have reduced their prices to help increase sales for the nominated applications. Here’s a rundown of the winners:

Best Mobile Game – Fieldrunners
(on sale for $2.99, down from $4.99 iTunes Link)

Best iPhone Game – Zen Bound
($4.99 iTunes Link)

Innovation in Game Design – Galcon
(on sale for $0.99, down from $4.99 iTunes Link)

Mobile Achievement in Art – Fieldrunners
(on sale for $2.99, down from $4.99 iTunes Link)

Technical Achievement Award – Real Racing
(Not yet released – target release date: late April, 2009)

Mobile Audio Achievement – Zen Bound
($4.99 iTunes Link)