触屏控制方式优劣编辑本段回目录
我最近刚将一款桌面游戏移植到手机上；这款复古街机风格的射击游戏《Titan Attacks》是用鼠标或键盘操作的。
在我着手这个项目时，我想到的第一个问题是：手机版游戏的最佳控制方法是什么？
过去几年，我见到手机游戏有许多不同控制方法，有些比其他的好，所以我想在这篇文章里探讨几种常见的操作方法的优缺点。
重力操控
开发商们一听说iPhone有加速器了，就迫不急待地开发使用重力操控的游戏。
Velocispider(from pocketgamer)
我玩过许多采用重力操控的游戏，包括一款相当出色的射击游戏，叫作《Velocispider》，我强烈推荐你玩一下这款游戏。在游戏中，玩家通过倾斜设备使玩家角色左右移动，而射击是自动的，你还可以用手指触屏发射光弹。
一开始，重力操控好像很有趣，充分利用了手机/平板电脑的硬件优势，但最终我觉得重力操控恐怕只是开发商的噱头，在控制的准确度上还有待提高：如果你坐在行驶中的车上，怎么办？如果你躺着玩，拿手机的姿势比较怪，怎么办？如果玩家的设备的加速器刻度不准怎么办？此外，有些重力操控就是不太管用。以上所有问题中的任何一个都会影响玩家的游戏体验。
如果游戏本身适合重力操控，那么开发商确实可以考虑将其为作一种理想的操作方法。然而，通常有其他选择能发挥更好的效果——如果是这样，就不要强迫你的玩家使用重力操控了。
虚拟控制杆
另一种常见的操作方法是，在游戏屏幕的左下方有一个虚拟的小控制杆或方向键，右下方有一个动作按钮。许多游戏都采用这种操作方案，这样玩家就能重新调整自己觉得合适的输入对应键，真是一个高明的主意。
我见过有些屏幕控制杆是数字式的，不是虚拟的，所以玩家角色会以固定的速度移动。我知道许多老式街机都是这样的，但现在看来，这种操作方法不免僵硬，特别是在手机设备上。
所以，如果开发商计划使用这种操作杆，我建议做成模拟的——除非你有意强化游戏的复古风格。
然而，我认为最大的问题出现在当我的拇指离开控制杆的时候。显然屏幕上的控制杆是很小的，在触觉反馈中无法感应这种信息。所以这个问题必须好好考虑。
最后，尽管我可以理解为什么有些开发商要采用这种控制方式，但我认为将传统风格的游戏移植到手机设备上时，还坚持传统的操作方式，通常不会太管用。
滑动手指移动角色
在某些游戏中，玩家只需在角色旁边用手指或拇指拖拽，角色就会跟着手指移动。
这种操控方法的最大优点就是简单——尽管如果玩家角色不停地移动到手指所在处，会让人觉得有点儿傻。那就是为什么许多开发商在角色移动中故意加入一点儿延迟。
这种方法的一个潜在缺点是，你的手指不仅盖住了玩家角色，也挡住了屏幕上的其他重要的信息（或敌人）。平板的大屏幕可能没有这种困扰，但仍然有它自己的问题——玩家不得不将手指移动得更远，才能达到与手机上相同的距离，这可能会减慢游戏节奏。
如果你打算采用这种操控方法，那么你可能要考虑的是，添加一个虚拟控制杆作为可选择的辅助控制方法。
super-crossfire(from pocketgamer)
但如果游戏只需要向左向右移动——如《Super Crossfire》，那么只需要在界面底部放一个矩形的滑块就够了。滑块的区域与屏幕的宽度相当，所以当你用手指加速或减速移动滑块时，玩家角色就会相应地移动到目的地。这种操作方法更自然，更适合手机设备。
轻击
PC和Mac上的休闲游戏通常只需要用鼠标操作，所以非常适合移植到手机设备上——特别是平板，但只在它们不需要右击的情况下！
如果开发商试图在手机屏幕上填塞太多轻击的物品，或者如果这些物品太小，不容易点中，问题就来了。
开发商面临的另一个问题是，手机上可不会发生什么“鼠标悬浮”的事件，因为它们只能感应触觉，这意味着玩家反馈减少，没有弹出式提示工具条。
我刚买了一块绘图板，当数位笔悬置在画板上方时，它也能感应到——真是太棒了；我希望将来的手机设备也能利用这种技术。
手势和多重触摸控制
有些游戏一开始就是手机版的，但借用某些非常适合游戏的手势或多重触摸控制，因此博得大量关注。例如：《切绳子》、《水果忍者》、《Fingle》等。
制作基于手势的游戏，特别是采用多重触摸控制的游戏，开发商面临的唯一的问题是这类游戏可能不太适合移植到台式机或游戏机上。
另外，开发商还得在真正的目标设备上做测试，而不能只在他们自己的PC或Mac上用鼠标测试——这当然需要耗费更多开发时间。
结论
我希望这篇文章能启发读者思考现在的操作方式的优缺点，即它们只是噱头？过时了？流畅吧？实用吗？
当然每一款游戏都是不同的，存在细微的差别，可能需要相应调整这些操作方法。即使是相同的游戏，为了适应不同设备的屏幕，也可能需要不同的操作方式。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，作者：Jake Birkett）
Best of British: Grey Alien Games talks the pros and cons of touchscreen controls
by Jake Birkett
I’m currently porting a desktop game to mobile.
It’s called Titan Attacks, and it’s a retro arcade-style shoot ‘em up controlled by mouse or keys on desktop machines.
Naturally, my first thought when taking on the project was: “What will be the best control method for mobile?”
I’ve seen a bunch of different controls methods in mobile games over the years, some of which work better than others, and so I thought I’d go over the pros and cons of a few common ones in this article.
Tilt
As soon as developers heard that the iPhone had an accelerometer, they rushed in droves to their compilers to bang out games that utilised tilt controls.
I’ve played a lot of games with tilt controls including a rather excellent shoot ‘em up called Velocispider, which I highly recommend you check out.
Velocispider in action.
You tilt the device to move left and right, the player character fires automatically and you can hold a finger on the screen anywhere to charge up a beam shot.
At first tilt controls seem fun and a good use of phone/tablet hardware, but ultimately I fear that tilting is really just a gimmick and not practical for accurate control.
What happens if you are in a moving vehicle? How about if you hold the device at a funny angle when lying down? And what if the player simply has a device with a badly calibrated accelerometer?
Furthermore, some implementations of tilt controls are just bad. Every one of these issues can create frustrating experiences for the player.
If a game lends itself well to tilt controls then developers could consider having tilting as an optional control method. However, there are usually alternatives that would work just as well or better – if that’s the case, don’t force tilt on your players.
Virtual Joystick
Another common control method is to have a small joystick or d-pad in the bottom left and an action button in the bottom right. Many games using this control scheme also allow players to reposition the onscreen inputs as they see fit, which is an excellent idea.
Some of the onscreen joysticks I’ve seen are digital, not analogue, and so the player character moves at a fixed speed. I know that many old-school arcade games work like that, but it feels pretty wooden to me these days, especially on a mobile device.
So, if developers are planning on using a joystick I’d recommend they make it analogue – unless you’re trying to foster a deliberate retro vibe.
However, the biggest problem for me is when my thumb slips off the joystick. Obviously an onscreen stick is small and offers nothing in the way of tactile feedback, so this is a problem that warrants consideration.
Some games handle this by having the joystick reposition every time the player lifts up their thumb and places it down again – a solution that often mitigates the problem considerably.
Ultimately, though, I can see why some developers use this control method, but I feel that just porting traditional controls, and indeed traditional-style games, to a mobile device often doesn’t work very well.
Slide finger to move player
Some games allow you to simply drag your finger or thumb around and the player character will follow it.
This control method has the advantage of being dead simple to use – although it can feel a bit like cheating if the player character instantly moves to where your finger is. That’s why many developers implement a small purposeful lag into the movement.
A possible disadvantage of this method is that your finger covers up the player character and may also obscure other important information (or enemies etc.) on the screen. A tablet’s larger screen size may help here, but it also produces problems of its own – players have to move their finger farther to make the same movement, potentially slowing down play.
If you’re going to use this control method, then, it may be worth considering including a virtual joystick as an optional secondary control method.
But if the game only requires left and right movement – like the awesome Super Crossfire – then a rectangular slider bar can be used in the bottom corner of the device.
Super Crossfire.
The slider area is mapped to the full width of the screen, so as you slide your finger around in the rectangle, the player character moves smoothly towards its destination with acceleration and deceleration. This has a very natural feel and works well on mobile devices.
Tap
Casual games on PC and Mac often only require the mouse to play and as a result they port very well to mobile device – especially tablets – but only if they don’t require right clicks!
The main pitfalls are if the developer tries to cram too many tappable objects onto a phone screen or if the objects are too small to tap easily.
Another issue for developers is that there is no such thing as ‘mouse over’ on mobiles because they only detect touch, which means reduced player feedback and no pop-up tooltips.
I just got a graphics tablet that detects where the stylus is as it hovers over the tablet – this is pretty cool and I’d love to see future mobile devices with such technology.
Gesture and multi-touch controls
The games that often grab people’s attention are the ones that were built for mobile right from the start and that use some kind of gesture or multi-touch controls that are well-suited to the game. For example: Cut the Rope, Fruit Ninja, Fingle etc.
The only problem for developers making gesture-based games, especially ones with multi-touch, is that they may port badly to desktop machines or consoles.
Also the developers have to test on an actual target device; they can’t test on their PC or Mac with a mouse, and this slows down development time.
Conclusion
I hope this article gets you thinking about the pros and cons of the main control methods out there for mobile, which range from gimmicky and old-school to smooth and practical.
Of course every game is different and has nuances that may require variations of these controls. The same game may even need different controls on phones and tablets to take into account their size differences.
I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments on what your favourite control methods are and why. Thanks!(source:pocketgamer)
