An Opinion on Mobile Gaming Control Schemes
“Wait, I didn’t tap tha-… okay.”
In the past week, I have fallen fast in love with a game for iOS called Football Heroes. A wonderful arcade football game that brings me back to the glory days of NFL Blitz, without having to lug around an arcade cabinet. You build your own team from nothing into a formidable force on the field by playing well, earning money, and drafting players.
I’ve logged several hours into it already, and I am having far too much fun playing with my team: the Wu Tang Clan.
However, if I had to list something negative about the game, it would be its control scheme. You tap to hike the ball, tap and drag to move in a direction, tap to make a pass, swipe to do a spin move, tap to punch a guy (told you it was arcade!), and swipe to make a tackle. Have I mentioned that you also tap to change players?
Separately, these controls make sense. They are all perfect for what they are designed to do by themselves, but when you combine them all? Exercise in frustration.
Scenario: you are on defence, doing a blitz on what you suspect is a passing play. The ball is hiked by the opposing quarterback, and you move your player into position to make the tackle and swipe. Nothing happens. Crap, okay, start tapping the screen to punch him down! You’ve switched players. What?
I love this game, but this happens to me on a regular basis. Chalk it up to controls that need some getting used to, but that shouldn’t be happening. Why is this happening?
For starters, the game is played with a landscape, or horizontal, phone orientation — your thumbs are naturally poised to strike the screen while the rest of your fingers hold onto the phone, kind of like holding a PS Vita or a Nintendo 3DS. This is a natural position for your hands to be in when playing a game, except Football Heroes crams too many player controls onto a screen where everything can be touched, making it very difficult to get that level of control that you might need for a football game.
Bummer.
This isn’t to say that the controls make the game unplayable, but Football Heroes is just the latest example of a great game that has poor controls for mobile phones. In writing this, I wanted to postulate on player expectations when it comes to the control schemes of their video games, and the reason why I think mobile phones are limited when it comes to meeting those expectations.
Expectations of Video Game Controls
Video games come in all shapes and sizes: platformers, real-time strategy games, tactical card games, role playing games, you name it. Each game and type of game have their own unique set of controls that fit the interface and gameplay.
At the very least, all players should expect video game controls to be responsive, to be well thought-out, and to facilitate their actions. To receive anything less than that is an exercise in frustration, and will definitely drive your players away from the game.
Traditionally, controls have been based in the world of physical devices: gamepads, dance mats, keyboard and mouse, steering wheels, joysticks, and basically any peripheral that allowed you to control your actions inside of the game world. These devices allowed controls to be as fast and responsive as our mind and body would allow: a button press on your gamepad would create a seemingly instant action on-screen.
Today, most gamers on consoles and computers still use those same peripherals, and they work pretty darn well.
However, given the rise of mobile gaming, alongside the evolution of mobile phones, we are now seeing a huge number of titles developed for computers that fit inside of our pockets with one distinct difference: the main interaction for mobile phones is a touch screen.
Know the Limits of Touch
Modern mobile devices are almost exclusively touch screens, giving users the ability to quickly tap the desired part of the interface without having to use physical keys or a cursor.
The touch interaction can be seen as a blessing or a curse for mobile gaming, as the screens lack two things:
- Physical keys
- Haptic feedback
Not having either of these means that players do not receive any sort of feedback that they have interacted with the game, which detracts from the feeling of “responsiveness.” This lack of feedback can lead to issues like multi-tapping, mis-swipes, and imprecise actions. There’s a reason that even the Steam Controller dropped its touch screen.
Given the lack of physical feedback, it’s pretty difficult to play games on mobile phones with traditional joystick-controlled movement, such as moving a character left and right, or around a 3D plane, especially if they are required to move with any sort of precision.
Interaction with mobile phone screens is pretty much limited to taps, swipes, tap and holds, or tap and drags. Using these interactions to build virtual joysticks, ghost buttons and directional pads, or any other on-screen control is going to feel clunky and unnatural. Never mind the screen real estate now occupied by on-screen controls.
Traditional gameplay will simply not work on touch screens. They rely too heavily on the quick and precise inputs of physical peripherals. However, this does open up an opportunity for designers and developers willing to create games with these limitations in mind.
Touch screens do not allow for traditional gameplay, but there is a world of opportunity waiting for those willing to design within these bounds.
In Conclusion
Mobile phones are fantastic pocket-sized computers that are quickly growing a thriving gaming community and library. The number of titles available on most phones is astounding, and this trend is only going to continue.
However, the level of control available to touch screens are quite lacking. The simple fact that touch screens do not allow for responsive or precise actions means that the type of games available are restricted to those that are conducive to one or two fingers at any time.
On the bright side, one or two finger interaction (along with underpowered processors and graphics capabilities) will force developers to dream up new ways to play, along with new and innovative gameplay mechanics that embrace these limitations.
At least, I hope it does.
