Chaim Gingold spent the past few years creating ways to create things in Spore, most notably the game's Creature Creator. Now the former Maxis design lead has decided to take a different path, making an iPhone game that's all about destroying things ... as a creature. Titled Earth Dragon, Gingold's debut effort on the App Store puts players in control of a dragon with some very simple needs: Laying waste to castles and enemies, and abducting princesses. It relies on simple tilt and tap controls to fly, smash and breathe fire.

In an interview with Gamasutra, Gingold spoke of his philosophy on iPhone development, saying, "My mantra while developing Earth Dragon has been 'Make Donkey Kong, not Super Mario Bros.' Think small! If people like it, you still care, you can pile in the other million ideas you have later." As for what he'll do next, it seems that iPhone will again be his platform of choice. "I have a ton of ideas sitting in my personal prototype vault that I've never been able to figure out what to do with, but I think many of them would work nicely on the iPhone, which is exciting to me."

If you're keen on playing the game -- which, in Gingold's words, contains "the most intense level of cartoon violence Apple allows" -- hit this link to the iTunes App Store. Just want to see it in action? Check out the video after the break.