What do game controls and popular genres have in common on mobile? So, we're making this puzzle adventure game for touchscreen devices first. It's a 2D point&click-ish game so we never really considered anything else but as simple as possible one finger "tap-and-swipe" controls for it. As a matter of fact, we were even joking about emulated d-pads and virtual joysticks on touchscreen. Anyhow, I really like playing mobile games. A lot. But as much as I like controlling a 3D character on my PC or Xbox, I find myself playing more slow-paced games on mobile that I can easily control with 1 finger. I don't know. Perhaps I'm getting old, but it just doesn't feel too pleasant under the nail of my left hand thumb when I jerk that virtual joystick on my iPhone. The way I see it, it wasn't necessarily the large casual gamers group on mobile that paved the way for all kinds of "simulations", "strategy" MMOs and "puzzle" games to thrive there, it is more the limitations and specifics of the touchscreen that have done this. What do you think?
Totally the opposite. Virtual joysticks work fine on iOS. I've got lots of emulators with virtual joysticks, all work fine. But it depends on the type of game As for games, platformers in my view always need virtual controllers, shoot em ups should have relative touch, just a given i think on iOS Look at the successful games on iOS and they have these sorts of controls. Problem is some devs think their personal opinion might be gospel ! Just look at threads of similar games to see what the gamers think Totally disagree with 'Angry Big Joe'. Some people with old views might also think gaming on a small 5 inch screen is crazy and it should be a console ! But again if your games point n click then yeah you dont need a joystick, just touch the screen. Platformers - virtual controls, shoot em ups - relative touch, point n click - touch the screen (Personally not a fan of runners or swipe games !)
Generally, my most played genre are the ones "natural" to the touchscreen. The most is probably behind-the-back runners. Im pretty sure i've spent over 100 hours on each of the titles like Temple Run (and each of its incarnation as i've maxed out upgrades on all of them), Pitfall, Boson X, Blood Roofs, TheEndApp, Agent Dash and now Spider-Man Unlimited to name some of the best ones i've played. The next genre i mostly play are the arcade combat type of games like Bardbarian, Slayin, Knightmare Tower, Heroes of Loot, Spooklands, Savant Ascent, Nimble Quest and Colossatron to name some. Somewhat "simple" games that actually has combat mechanics. Then there are platformers and rpgs. That said, for specific titles, my most played based on actualy time spent (approximately) are: 1. Monster Hunter Freedom Unite 2. Infinity Blade 3 3. Temple Run 2 4. Spider-Man Unlimited 5. EPOCH.2 6. Fireball SE 7. Slayin 8. Colossatron 9. Phoenix HD 10. Boson X Spider-Man's pretty new, but i've been playing it non-stop, mostly because of me loving the game, and trying to be competitive coz this is the first game that's pretty competitive that i have really tried getting into.
ARPG's, MOBA's like solstice arena which since its cross platformed then i play on pc too and shadowgun deadzone cross platformed
Shooters (FPS, Twin-Stick, etc) and turn based strategy games in general, TBH I'm also quite surprised of how MOBA's feel nice on a touchscreen.
All games I have on my device right now has virtual d-pads, so I guess I'm fine with them. I've been using touch screens for quite a while, it became second nature to me. My favorite genre is RPG but I'll play anything that has a good story to tell.
That's some really cool insight from you guys! Hope I can get the feel for the virtual controls sometime as I really like the games that use them otherwise. The key here is practice, I guess. Just finished downloading Solstice Arena (tnx epik5), I'll try this today Quite a fan of LoL but have been a reluctant about playing Zynga games lately.
I'm a big fan of RTS/ARPG on PC, but d-pad and virtual joysticks, tbh, seem alien to me on mobile , I prefer more natural point n click, swiping... But really, as a developer, I couldn't see any less awkward (to me) way to create RTS games on mobile.
