Hey there loyal Appspy readers!
Another week, another round of great comments from our community. I realise that the question was a little tricky, but you all rose to the challenge. Let’s see what you had to say.
Infinity Blade was brought up for its uniquely touch screen only controls while masquerading in the production value of a console or handheld title. Bastion was mentioned for taking a game from another system and adapting it superbly for iOS. Star Wars: Falcon Gunner shows off the immersive possibilities of an augmented reality game, and the use of tilting for racing games such as Real Racing 2 show off how fine tuned the accelerometer can be.
When pondering the question, a few games come to mind. In terms of sheer simplicity, there is still a joy in the swiping mechanics of Fruit Ninja that has yet to be replicated (perhaps it’s one of those cases of ‘first come, first served’). In terms of taps and swipes, the port of Frozen Synapse earlier this year had this uncanny ability to make me believe that I was a commander giving troop movements on a digital clipboard, as i weighed the pros and cons of my team’s current situation.
One of the games that sticks out the most for me in terms of utilizing the unique controls of the iPhone is Labyrinth 2. Using the accelerometer, you tilt a ball around a maze of holes to reach the exit. Having grown up with the analogue version of this game, it was astonishing how true to life the ball felt as you were rolling it around. The controls are just so precise that the developers and the community using the level editor could be as devious as they desired with their a-maze-ing creations (oh and they were).
Like the most creative games on the Wii, a lot of what makes great control schemes on the iOS memorable is utilizing simple movements in creative ways, and then fine tuning these movements to where the game becomes an extension of the person playing it (if you’ve ever had a time playing a console or PC game when it felt the controller stopped existing because you were so in-tune with what you were doing). With natural hand gestures, it could be argued that the iOS presents a greater opportunity to help a player reach that level of engagement, but yet as our answers show, it can be quite rare.
Well that’s it for another week. I want to once again thank everyone for their involvement. I’ll be back with a new question on Monday. Enjoy your weekends, and happy gaming all!
