How iPhone Gaming Should Really Work. Mock Up Included. | Hacker News Reader

How iPhone Gaming Should Really Work. Mock Up Included.

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7 pointsdell90008 comments

Anyone who's jailbroken their iPhone and played around with NES.app (from which you could create almost this exact screenshot, instead of having to make a mock-up), knows that game-pad emulation on the touchscreen can be a little iffy. We're used to being able to lightly rest our finger on one button and then "lever" over to another; touch sensors destroy this intuitive response by reading both buttons as depressed.

The other problem is that the touchscreen lacks the tactile feedback that a gamepad has. On e.g. old-school 2D action-platformers, you end up using finger-feel and "twitch" more than conscious thought.

Maybe once there are add-on controllers (like this: http://www.icontrolpad.com/) which will be made possible with OS 3.0, then these types of games will be playable.

Though what I'm wondering is if a standard for game controllers will emerge or if there will be competing standards with games have varying support for the different controllers that are available. Maybe Apple should define this standard?

Good catch, this is why Wolfenstein's control scheme seems to work so well: instead of moving left and right, you rotate left and right. This makes finger-shifting work much more intuitively.

Don't know if you've seen John Carmack's iPhone Wolfenstein 3D that was just released, but it does a terrific job of breathing new life into an old classic. Great gameplay, and the controls (which use almost exactly the scheme you propose) are even easier than the old keyboard version.

Rick Rocketson on the iphone is a traditional platformer like that, it would be nice to have Mario but it still gives you that old school gameboy feel, with a similar control structure.

Would work well for 2d narration games mostly. But great for those

See "DuckHunt" on the app store.

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