MMO gaming coming to the iPhone ... asynchronously

OK, so what the heck does that mean? Basically, we're talking massively multiplayer gaming for the iPhone that takes place in … well, almost real time. It's a pretty cool concept once you wrap your head around it.

The game is called Aurora Feint II: The Arena, and as Kotaku reports, its slated to arrive on the iTunes App Store any day now. The $9.99 game is the sequel to Aurora Feint: The Beginning, a free fantasy role-playing/puzzle game that's a blast to play; if you haven't tried it already, get thee to the App Store.

Anyway, the real fun of Aurora Feint are its clever, Tetris-like puzzles, and in Aurora Feint II, you'll be able to compete head-to-head in real time—sort of—against fellow players online.

Here's where the "asynchronous" thing comes into play. When you want to challenge another player, you can "summon" a "persistent ghost" (think of it almost as a recording) of an online competitor's gameplay. In other words, your iPhone downloads the "ghost," you compete against it, and once there's a victor, you upload the results back to the Aurora Feint servers.

Other players may then challenge your ghost, leave comments, initiate chats, and so on. Each individual battle figures in the overall Aurora Feint world, and there's even a news feed to keep you abreast of what's happening.

That's really cool—and the best part is that you can communicate with—and compete against—individual players in the Aurora Feint MMO even when they're not online.

I haven't tried Aurora Feint II yet, but I'll be among those forking over $10 bucks once the game appears online—and I'm hoping other iPhone developers take the "asynchronous MMO" ball and run with it.

Related:
Aurora Feint II: The Arena Brings Asynchronous MMO to iPhone This Friday(ish) [Kotaku]