Stop Accepting Ineptitude

It shouldn’t be neccesary to explain this, but bad controls equals bad games. You can’t get to say “despite its’ bad controls, it’s still a very good game.” You can praise other parts, but it’s still broken nonetheless.


But even seasoned game pundits seem to accept touch screen games for being naturally inferior and then simply continue to praise them to the heavens, for just the effort.


I bought N.O.V.A for the iPhone and I tried the demoes of Modern Combat and Modern Combat 2. I even paid for Battlefield 2. There is no reason to try and sugarcoat this. The controls are bad. Unresponsive and not the least bit tactile.


All reviews note this. And praise them nonetheless. “Oh it’s so amazing to see something like this on a cellphone!” they say. No. No it’s not. The iPhone is a technical beast and less than the iPhone is also capable of 3D shooters.


But when the Nintendo DS and Wii had poorly designed games released, the hammer dropped. Why? Because these were stated game systems.


Well guess what? When a game is released for a device, it’s a game system. And a broken game that only costs a dollar is still broken game.


Two days ago, Dead Space was released for the iOS devices. Unanimously, the controls are criticized. Well obviously. It’s the same controls as Battlefield 2 featured. But the overall game is still praised. At least it tried.


It’s not about criticizing just to be critical. It’s about demanding developers to do the effort that is required of them. I know it can be hard to put words to game design. We aren’t as trained in enunciation what, how and why a game works, as we are when it comes to films. But never before have games been as big a part of our lives.


We owe it to ourselves to understand when we aren’t being respected by the designers, whose creations we invest our time in.

Abuse & Play on the Touchscreen

1

I don’t want for games to be a science. So it doesn’t seem like I should call for correct or specific terms. We get enough of that with the insane hunt for correct naming of genres and other inane nerdy banter like that.

But commonly defined and understood terms can be a great help to describe and understand the new and misused.

The title says it all.

We are all, no matter which touch-screen device we use, quite blessed by the extreme functionality on display while using the iPhone.

It doesn’t dictate, but exemplifies what is the most tactile, pleasant and beneficial way of playing on a touchscreen.

We press the home or sleep button, and then we slide to unlock. On the homescreen and all the proceeding menus we swipe around to navigate and when we find something interesting we point it out and enjoy. Slide. Swipe. Point.

The other ways of inputting all comes from these three.

Slide is finite (in both space and time). Precise and restless (I’ll get to that). Unlock, volume and playtime. Swipe is fast, inertial and tactile. Point is decisive and responsive.

Of course Apple’s marketing chose to call it all fun but we can’t all think alike.

So as a general touchscreen-only interface (compared to the Nintendo DS and its’ phystical buttons), Apple is the vanguard, concerning how this should be used.

2

Behind these three moves is a less obvious but absolutely equally important point:

Only one hand is used for input. Being less obvious, more explanation is needed.

The small screens of the iPhone and Nintendo DS are a good but lacking explanation as to why only one input device should be used. For each input device, screen real estate is lost. But counter-examples such as the most excellent game Reckless Racing serves to show that this isn’t dogma. Adhere to it nonetheless. It will serve you well.

The single input device concept is bound to the three touch screen input methods and their optimal implementations.

While not a genre by themselves, the Legend of Zelda games are quite distinguishable. The two games of the series released for the Nintendo DS too, but in their own way. They are the perfect examples of how to re-imaging classic game concepts to a new platform. The success of this is not just lossless, but even an improvement. On a scale determining whether a touch screen game has an intelligent input design, Zelda is the good end.

Since I don’t like to point out ineptitude, I should resign to simply make the other end of the scale dual stick emulating controls. Plenty of games land in this category. I don’t need to rub it in on a single game.

3

I’m saying that there are four core features to take heed of in touch screen design. Not just game touch screen design.

Without a template game from Apple, iOS developers have instead resorted to often recreating the thumb stick featuring controllers of modern video game systems.

When simulating a thumb stick on a touch device, a three hundred and sixty degree slide-able point is presented. Hold and drag this point in a direction, and then hold this direction for continuous movement, camera navigation or weapon fire.

This goes completely against what has been so carefully exemplified as functional on a touchscreen. While not infinite, non-finite is a fine term to describe the amount of time the slided area is to be held with this setup. This makes input feedback impossible. How far has the user’s finger slid? For how long? Worse still, there’s no physical barrier to stop the sliding.

In other words, using slide in this way, is non-finite and patience demanding.

Using two of these thumb stick simulators is even worse, because then two thumbs are eating away at screen real estate, while performing unresponsive and intangible inputs.

Before I get to the Zelda games, I would like to point out that Epic Games created a tech demo for their Infinity Blade game, called Epic Citadel. While not a game, it is play. And it absolutely is the best example of functional first person controls on a touch-only device yet.

Controls consist of the user pointing to a point they wish to go to and swiping to navigate the camera. This is done with a single finger. A first person shooter could benefit from gun control consisting solely of pointing to the desired area to shoot. Strafing could be enabled by widening the field of vision with around 20-30 degrees.

As for Zelda, this Japanese commercial should be sufficient exposition:

A single input device has successfully replaced a digital pad or thumb stick, and combined non-intrusive interactive HUD elements, function buttons are replaced. The input methods don’t go against the descriptions I outlined in the introduction and very little screen space is obscured in the process.

4

Only subpar games are time wasters. Games should give us experiences, fun, inspiration, understanding and relaxation. As developer you will be glad that you changed you game to benefit from a touch screen instead working against it, trying to turn it into what it definitely is not. As a player, accepting poorly designed games just to satiate your thirst for something that exists on another platform, will only make you thirstier.

And just to make sure that you don’t think I only believe the two Zelda games are imbued with thoughtful and effective touch screen controls, here are some other examples of games that fall into place with my ideas:

• Zenbound 2

• Kosmo Spin

• Soul Bubbles

• ChuChu Rocket

• Edge

• Perfect Cell

• Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan!

• Cut the Rope

• Meteos

iOS gaming 2: Kosmospin Again

You can hardly say that I communte a lot, so it isn't there I get to experience my iOS games. Still, I do find the time.

Kosmospin's characters and world are growing on me. Sure the characters are stereotypes (french person, british military man and so on). But they're cute and lively. Acquinting them in the actual levels and not just the menus though would definitely make them more alive.

And now we're at it, could they please eat some of all those dang treats I rescued? It seems like they just like hogging them from Ufo.

"Why won't you eat them, damnit!"

The meat of Kosmospin, the quests (or levels as we'd normally say) is not of a huge amount, but the difficulty, which is quite engaging and rewarding does make it last a while. Some of the objectives though, are a little cheap (gather 1000 points...!).


Perhaps the various levels could use some balancing. Often the constant bombardement of Ufo makes completing a task neigh impossible and quite frustrating. In those cases, there's nothing to do but make for failure, since there's still no restart button. It ends of meaning that the possibility of completeing a level is based solely on which random balls (and amount of them) that Ufo ends up hurling at the planet.

I don't know if I'll have more to say about Kosmospin, but I might. If not, there are still plenty of good iOS games to discuss.

iOS gaming 1: Kosmospin

Seeing as I've always loved my mobile games and never had any issues with engaging in a story on a small screen, I do ever so hope that iOS gaming will eventually be more than cheap 5 minute thrills. Until then, Kosmospin falls neatly in-between the two.

The newest addition to my iOS games, is Kosmospin, by, if I'm not mistaken, Swedish developer Simogo (Simon + Gordon?).

Spin the planet to control Nod, the little character on the planet, to collect treats and deflect incoming balls from the menacing Ufo.

Lovely music and breathing visuals with a bit of written humour. I just hope they create a new icon. This one is just to plain to do the game justice.

Besides an endless mode, there are also a bunch of small objective based levels, with more to come.

Bounce various spheres back to Ufo

Importance

What is important about this game, is that Kosmospin, besides being a good game overall, is a very fine example of a touchscreen game. The little spin move that the game consists of, and the sliding-of-finger motion that the player performs is as natural and unintrusive as the core iOS systems normally are.

Before iOS gaming can become truly great, as few games do even today, a common understanding and acceptance of what works for input and play is needed. Kosmospin definitely has this and I hope Simogo's next game, on a yet unrevealed platform, will continue their touchscreen success.