Digital Chocolate rolls out three iPhone games in a day

It may have been late to the iPhone, but Digital Chocolate is trying to make up for lost time. Today, it is launching three new titles for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch.
The games include 3D Rollercoaster Rush, California Gold Rush, and Crazy Penguin Catapult 2.
3D Rollercoaster Rush sells for $4.99 and it represents the company’s first major push into a game with 3-D graphics. It’s a sequel to the company’s original Rollercoaster Rush game, which became a top-downloaded game in June, said Trip Hawkins, chief executive of San Mateo, Calif.-based Digital Chocolate. In the game, you tilt and tip the iPhone and try to control a rollercoaster so that you stay on the tracks. It has 40 different tracks and sells for $2.99.
Crazy Penguin Catapult 2 is the sequel to an iPhone game that also hit No. 1 on games on the AppStore. In that game, the player puts a penguin in a sling and catapults it at a bunch of polar bear targets. In the California Gold Rush game, the player has to help a girl dig for gold and other artifacts in 30 different mines. The game sells for $2.99 and it also has a free version that shows off the game style.
Sure, there are more than 12,000 games on the iPhone among the 59,000 applications. We can expect that the rate of new iPhone game introductions will only accelerate because of excitement about the latest iPhone developments.  So Digital Chocolate’s titles may get lost in the crowd.
But four of the company’s previous iPhone games have hit No. 1 and the release of three games in a day shows that the company has its production schedule humming along now. Digital Chocolate can churn out the games quickly now since it already has a library of 80 titles and converting them isn’t so hard. Digital Chocolate stands a decent chance of making money with its iPhone business. But Apple better hurry up and figure out new ways to promote games in a viral way on the iPhone, or it’s going to become an overcrowded marketplace.