I hate playing a lot of games on the iPhone. Mostly, what I hate are the controls.
But I gotta work with what I have, right?
So what games are considered to have the best controls?
(I’m looking for examples of games that have a player who moves around and interacts with the environment)
Bastion is very interesting for those types of controls. Single touch.
This one, right?
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bastion/id537773100?mt=8
Interesting. I see it’s made by Warner Brothers. They put some serious work into this game!
-Chilton
Yah. The game is freakin heavy duty. So many audio files. And the scenes, are moving. In that, the bits that make up the ground, fly into and out of place as you move. Very interesting style.
Another, interesting title for single touch control is Temple Racer: The Beginning. It uses a grid, or tiles to move the player around. What you want ultimately is something that will reduce any carpel tunnel. So, in my mind, recreating a Nintendo controller if out of the question.
If you want to be successful and in general have the controls not be a barrier to entry, design around the fact that you have a touch screen:
Bastion is a good example of doing a complex game with touch controls. I’d still lean toward doing games like Angry Birds, Canabalt, Tiny Tower, Tiny Wings, Fruit Ninja, Flight Control and many others.
Making an FPS or similar core game for iOS is beyond stupid.
You do not want to fight the controls in a .99 or f2p game. Ever.
Batman and Spiderman are both doing pretty well, and both use virtual joysticks.
Those games do well because they are mega-huge licenses of Batman and Spider-man. They are going to sell well, regardless 
Virtual sticks can work but they are never going to be as popular or mass market as tap, swipe, trace, drag or other finger movements.
Being a mega huge license of a popular name doesn’t instantly translate to high sales. Both of those games play well, as well. Their fans are considering the game’s controls as they compare to the XBox/PS3 equivalents, so I suspect they’d have lots of detractors if the iPhone / iPad versions didn’t work well. I’ve played both, and didn’t have a problem with the controls.
I like Batman’s better. It resets the location of the virtual joystick when you release your thumb, and it bases the direction Batman turns in, on the offset from the initial tap.
Yah, there are ones like Disney’s MotorCity. They have classic controls but why it works for me, is that they are not restricted to a tiny space. Basically the UI detects where your thumbs naturally fit and allows the pad to be there.
Do what ever you like, but certainly a good idea is to base it off of ideas that work.
I suppose that’s better than the alternative.
I agree with most of you. D-Pads suck when you can’t feel them. There is an add-on actuall physical stick for iPads that sticks on the screen and can make those work well, but most people don’t have that, and it wouldn’t work on the phone, so screw that too.
Mostly leaning the screen sucks too, although it can be bearable. Basically games that use swiping, tapping, double-tapping, dragging and not much else have the best controls. Figure out what you can get away with, using just those few actions and start from that end of game design. You also can add a two-finger tap in there if you need another not-too-difficult gesture.
Good luck!