Hey guys, I'd run an strace UFlip a couple of weeks ago and found the same reference to .db and .db-journal. Sorry I forgot to post, I've been a little preoccupied lately. Anyway, I had created empty files in vi at the root location, and did chmod 664 (rw-rw-r--), and the game did update the modified date/time. I've attached them here (as a ZIP with the preceding . removed), looks like it doesn't (can't?) write to the .db (0 byte filesize) but no problem writing the .db-journal. Not sure if this is of any help to anyone, I can try other scenarios if anyone has some ideas.
chmod-ing 777 the .db file ? i didn't even find it but i chomd-ed the UFlip file itself and didn't work