Best shmup control for iOS / Touch Screens?

[littlenando]

Hey developers Quick Q
I think I've played like... ALL shmups out there on iOS / Touch devices. Like, more than 20. And I haven't found any REALLY good touch controls. I mean, the best thing is relative controls, it seems. But still, you can never compare that to the feeling of playing, say, with an xbox controller or a typical arcade joystick.

Any thoughts on this? Have any of you found any good iOS / Touch device / Android game with actually -GOOD- touch controls?

Thanks!

[Dave_K.]

Trick question, there aren't any. Touch and tilt controls change shmup gameplay into something else. I'm not saying its bad (although most are), but its not comparable to joystick shmups. Although don't have an iCade, I've herd the bluetooth joystick controller works with some iOS shmups.

[littlenando]

Yeah, that's right. I agree. Shmups are pure feedback (like most games, tho), and the feedback is mostly on the controls...
Still, I´m a developer myself and I´ve struggled big time to achieve some cool controls using touch / iOS... I think I´m onto something, but it still needs development. I wanted to test my stuff with the best out there to see if it makes sense or not to keep pushing it.

Basically it´s a relative touch thing that changes "speed" (actually it´s not speed, it´s a % of the drag) when you shoot. You move with your left finger, shoot holding your right finger. It´s best for an iPad. And that´s another thing... most shmup games are "playbale" on iPads, but not on iPhones, as the finger(s) take out most space.

THe best iOS shmups I´ve seen where the CAVE ones, but mostly because they designed the frames for there to be lots of free space for your fingers so that you can see the full of the game without blocking gameplay...

[yorgje]

One supremely advanced technique that has never been achieved by mortal man would go as follows. You develop some shmup, but don't allow for any controls. Then, you create an API that allows players to program their dodges in the shmup, piggybacking off of iOS's fantastic keyboard. To promote good coding practice and prevent cheating, you would not implement any sort of copy paste function. Furthermore, there should be a highly aggressive auto-correct system that would cause the ship to exhibit hilarious bugs like drawing dicks on the screen or something. This is an unfortunate but necessary factor for mobile shmups, or mobile games in general, which by defecation are required to sell out to plebians.

[railslave]

Perhaps make it exclusively for one of the IOS controllers(do they have apps to support the wiimote like android ? ) ...

The right people WILL buy a controller to play it (like everyone had to have a 6 button controller to play street fighter 2 on the megadrive ) , but then the game has to be amazing...you wouldn t make it if it wasnt , right ?

Its either that .. or your back at square one, i dont think its the ideal platform..tbh..unless you make it. Unless the players prepared to make it the ideal platform.

Any real player on that platform will already have sorted that out.

Sure, you may lose a bit of that cash, but if the games that good, you will get alot more attention and respect .

[littlenando]

Yeah, controls in iOS generally suck. I think that a shmup for iPad/Tablets/iPhone shouldn't be really called a "shmup", but rather something else. Like, a new genre. Cause it's not the same thing. I'm not saying that these games shouldn't be played, just saying they should be in a totally different ballpark. And this ballpark still needs to find it's good "Controls scheme". Working on it

[Sarethums]

make it like dodonpachi on ios, with that space at the bottom.

[Rozyrg]

As long as you build and test the game around that control scheme and aren't just shoehorning it in where it will just be a hindrance, you should be ok. You've got to be willing to break a few genre rules, though, of course.

In my limited experiments with touch controls, I always set the cursor/touch point below the ship just far enough so that your finger wouldn't obscure it and added a border around the play area to compensate for that difference.

[n0rtygames]

Code: Select all

mvCurTouch = GetPointTouchedOnScreen();

if (TouchingScreen == false)
{
    mvCurTouch = ship.Pos;
    mvLastTouch = ship.Pos;
}

Vector2 vDir = Vector2.Normalize(mvCurTouch - mvLastTouch);
float fMag = Vector2.Distance(mvCurTouch, mvLastTouch);

if (fMag > SomeArbitraryThresholdToPreventTeleporting)
{
      fMag = SomeMaxValue;
}

ship.Pos += vDir*fMag;