Mobile Gaming and the War On Fat Fingers

Gamasutra reports on a talk at this year's Game Developers Conference by Mike Pagano, game producer for EA Mobile. Pagano brought up the difficulty in designing games for devices like the iPhone, where screen real estate is already limited, and a poorly implemented UI will result in players' thumbs and fingers blocking crucial parts of the action. Quoting: "Pagano recommends button maps on the bottom of the screen, finger-sized, whenever possible, keeping interface away from the play area. 'Apple puts the main interactions on the very bottom of the screen,' he said. 'When you're unlocking for example, you know you can read what's on top. That's a huge thing, especially when you're designing games.' ... For accelerometer input, 'we did a lot of tuning with this SOB,' Pagano said, referring to Spore Origins. Pagano stressed that games using the accelerometer should have a mechanism to allow players to change their zero positions, effectively letting them play in a variety of positions — sitting in bed, leaning over the device, or holding it up. Early in development, Spore Origins had a touchscreen control scheme. 'Where it started to fall down was, again, sausage fingers.' Said Pagano. 'We made our decision right there to flip to the accelerometer.'"

Learn from the Wii

[Toonol]

The accelerometer can be a very immersive addition to gameplay, but it needs to be used with great restraint. You should always ask "would having a button be simpler and less frustrating?". The vast majority of times it seems to be a tacked on, frustrating, gimmick.

Still, the potential is excellent, and when used well it can open up a whole new style of gameplay. I'd like to see some learning routines implemented. Have the player 'dodge' a few times, for instance, and have the computer learn what movements on the player's part constitutes a dodge. This would be similar to training a speech recognition program.

Re:Learn from the Wii

[Anonymous Coward]

Overuse of an accelormeter for gaming is akin to a website filled with animated gifs. Case in point: red steel.

Developers: just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.