There's a couple of things to consider if your adapting a game for the Netbook, or making something from scratch too really.
The main thing is to consider the end user, and the design of the Netbook itself.
The keyboard is small, so try not to clump keys together like you can with a standard keyboard, using cursor keys plus CTRL is not a good idea for instance as the keys are too close together for that.
The mouse pad is quite small as well, so I think it's a good idea to keep GUI's big and bold. The screen quality is really good, even on the cheapest models, when plugged in the screen is as bright and clear as any monitor I've used.
The resolution thing is something that is best dealt with effectively. Thing is, the games have to appeal to Netbook owners more than the existing games out there. The 1024x600 resolution is unusual, so try and accomodate that so your game looks good at that resolution. Avoid stretching the screen as much as you can, because that's the problem with existing games, they get stretched out as they tend not to support that resolution. There's a whole 224 pixels extra width, so use it as people will see straight through a simple re-package of an old game. If your game can run in a window, then remember that it's not ideal to have a big window, 800x600 is not a good idea, so 640x480 might be a reasonable compromise. I think most people would prefer a full screen application though, I doubt that Netbooks are used for multi-tasking all that much - maybe a windowed mode would allow for MSN messager etc, which might be appreciated with some types of game.
Think about sound and music, Netbooks are very portable, so consider switching to sounds that are unlikely to annoy, same goes for music - as people might not always have earphones handy, and there's nothing worse than annoying people and having to go without sound. Having quick and easy volume control is also an idea.
Any type of mobile game needs to have consideration for loss of power, and other unforseen events, sleep mode etc. Saving the game is quick and easy for things like Bejeweled, you could have it load right back up again if things go wrong. That's a luxury that most other PC games don't have, so think about it, can your game be made more robust. I have a check after every sync to see if the media has been deleted, after switching processes DBPro apps can loose their media loadout - so I re-load everything in that case. This means that with these measures, I have a very robust game experience, you simply won't loose your progress, even if the game crashes.
It's nice to be performance friendly too, if you can give a little back to the processor it can make other processes more efficient and your game won't 'daunt' the Netbook. For instance, by adding a SYNC SLEEP 5 before the sync, I got my app down to 30-35%, leaving quite a bit for other things. It helps if you have access to a Netbook so you can tweak this depending on how your game runs, as I said - even a low spec laptop could make a decent test system. It's best to aim at the lowest spec, maximize the potential customer base (which is damn huge BTW), so getting your game running on a low spec machine is a good start.
Lastly I'd say make the most of it - put things to one side and have a go at making some money, these oppertunities are quite rare in our small field these days. It's a precious thing, an actual growing market - I set up 4 Netbooks last christmas just for people I work with, buying them for their kids. I know more people with Netbooks than I do with iPods and iPhones. PC game developers have dreamt about a standardised PC platform for years, here it is, might be a bit of a step back from modern desktops, but very few indi developers can compete in that market.
Phew!, long post - hope some of you read it and found it useful.
