Smartphones: coveted, compact and capable...

.. so give me a game that I give half a shit about!

Smartphones are becoming ever more prominent in the cell phone market. With hot sellers like the iOS and Android platforms providing third party developers with accessible markets, gamers are growing more curious as to how the smartphone development paradigm will effect mobile gaming.

A fantastic PlaysStation emulator for the Android

platform, courtesy of developer yongzh.

(image sourced from phandroid.com)

So far, little has changed in the sense that most games developed for smartphone OS's are still applications aimed at casual players. Sure, we have titles now that overshadow classics like "Snake" on your old Nokia candybar handset, but few smartphone titles are drawing those who are looking for a more immersive gaming experience. We do have mobile games that satisfy this demographic, but they've appeared on handhelds designed primarily for gaming.

There are no overt technical barriers keeping developers from making intriguing games for smartphone platforms. Handsets are now equipped with large hard drives, their processors are capable of 1+ ghz speeds, they are armed with 3D graphics, and can play HD movies on surprisingly high-res displays.

A single-player port of Nexon's Maple Story on the iPhone.

Besides the playable character being smaller than the direc-

tional keys, isn't Maple Story worthwhile solely because it is

a free online multiplayer game? (image sourced from

toucharcade.com)

Is it about convenience? Some people could argue that mobile games need to allow busier players to accomplish in-game goals in shorter stretches of time, and so smartphone games are designed accordingly. However, the Nintendo DS solves this problem by letting players close the device's lid to suspend their progress in a type of sleep mode. Both iOS and Android are capable of accomplishing this using the onboard process and power management. So what's holding developers back?

Get your stinkin' thumbs off of my Chun-Li!

(image sourced from dailymobile.se)

In my experience, controls are one of the bigger stumbling blocks for smartphone gaming. When the iPhone was the premier high-end phone in the market, people were absolutely taken by its touch controls. You can simply tap around the relatively large display to manipulate game objects and some games even include onscreen controls. I think the problem with this, however, is the limited amount of practical operations that can be performed with a touch screen. Screen real estate also presents a problem in this arena. The more buttons you place on the screen, the less room there is for essential in-game visuals; and no matter how you implement touch controls, the user’s fingers will cover parts of the display to varying degrees throughout gameplay. While larger screened tablets with iOS and Android are becoming a popular manufacturer trend, I think they barely qualify as candidates for mobile gaming platforms due mostly to their weight.

Unlike iOS devices, some Android handsets have hardware keyboards in addition to the touchscreen hardware. This is a little more helpful, as it provides developers with more control options. However, because some Android handsets lack this feature, developers can’t develop games whose controls require a hardware keyboard without substantially limiting their userbase. Aside from that, a phone’s QWERTY keys are typically too small for folks with bigger thumbs, and using them for gaming can easily become a clumsy ordeal.

Do a web search on "iphone + marble".

The sheer number of these apps is staggering.

(image sourced from iphone.qualityindex.com)

Yeah, I know that most of these products have accelerwhatsits and gyrothingies for motion controls. But few games venture beyond the gimmicky tilt and shake gestures whose charm seemed to have worn off shortly after the iPhone was released. Controlling characters or objects by these means seems to be limited to rather mundane approximations of real world physics. Navigating a marble through a labyrinth. Steering a race car. These games don’t get much deeper beyond the hackneyed illusion of physical control.

Typical smartphone controls may be inhibiting the development of contemporary equivalents to classics like Super Mario Bros., Life Force, and River City Ransom on your smartphone. While waving a handset around and swiping at it with a finger is certainly easier for a video game novice to comprehend, the slightly extended range of motion required to play the typical smartphone game makes a surprisingly substantial difference. As a player, I find myself focusing on the physical work of interacting with the device.

Button-driven controls provide a different experience. The player maps out their control options by sense of touch, haptics. Once muscle memory has associated the game’s responses with the button presses, interacting with the game becomes effortless. The ease by which muscle memory makes the device disappear can create a wide opening for player immersion. A bipollical controller (that is, two-thumbed controller) provides the best example of this by combining tactile simplicity with control diversity.

So will we ever get captivating games on our mobile handsets? Or do hardware manufacturers like Apple get to have the satisfaction of redefining the gaming market by putting a lid on immersion? I wouldn’t worry about the latter, because I don’t think that business model is sustainable amidst game consumers who always want “more”. However, there just may be hope for the former if a platform with the right hardware, the right third-party support, and the right financial backing were to step into the game.