I’m wondering if gyroscope controls for games are really appreciated by the iOS/android communities.
I’ve been trying to think of big titles that were making use of the gyro and all I could think of was doodle jump.
Is it only because of the ratio (games with gyroscope/total games) that I get this feeling, or because users in general dislike using gyroscopic controls?
I always think I will, but I never do.
There was a really good Unity game for Android (and maybe IOS) called Reverence. I never got the impression it was truly finished but I played the beta and it was surprisingly imersive none the less, largely due to it using the gyroscope/accelerometer to pilot your spacecraft.
I’ve not seen many games that use it, in fact I could probably only name that and Doodlejump 
Ridiculous Fishing is the only game I can think of that used gyroscope controls to great effect.
One of my all time favorite games “My Paper Plane” and also one good driving game used phone rotation for controls.
Although those games used phone rotation they didn’t use the gyroscope as my phone didn’t have it (like a lot of other phones don’t) but instead the values were generated by the accelerator and compass.
Gyroscope controls are not that much of a novelty anymore, so the sole fact of using a gyroscope is not enough to entertain someone. But I think it has been largely unexplored, I sense there’s a lot of room to make interesting controls using gyroscope that haven’t been implemented in games yet.
The gyro is just not reliable or intuitive enough for most games.
Considering on an older device the gyros can’t often get screen orientation right, it’s often more of a frustration then a useful input.
It works great for racing games till the crazy euro bus drivers take corners like a racer, throwing your gyro off and your in game car into a wall. Didn’t know if I should be mad or amazed.
We’re using gyroscope in our game as an alternative input method, but unfortunately I don’t have any feedback on whether players prefer it over touch input. I personally think it works pretty great for first person aiming.
What I’ve noticed is that the quality of gyroscope sensors varies greatly from phone to phone. Some sensors have drift, jitter, lag, others are fast and very precise.
Tilt to live had good “gyro controls” (remember the gyro by itself is not nearly responsive enough, the combined mag/accel/gyro is good through). These motion controls only really seem to fit a few game styles, if your game happens to be one of them great if not don’t force it though. Marble games, racing games, and a few others are ok with it.
Input is one of the key elements to any game be sure to pick the right input so it feels natural seamless whether its motion, controller, touch, etc.
Add analytics to your game so you can get feedback! Not only will it start to answer some of these questions, but it will help you make your game better on whatever people don’t like.
We do have analytics, it’s just that by the time we added gyroscope support, we practically moved on onto our next project, and I never thought of measuring which input mode is more popular. I personally prefer gyro, so we’ll try to have both options for our future games in this genre.
No, not at all! Having to hold the phone horizontally (screen facing up) is really annoying. Constantly rotating it to move is also annoying.
If you want gyro controls in your game give the user the option to disable it and use something better, if you only have time for one input type then leave out the gyro one.
That’s not a problem with gyro controls, it’s a problem with design. There’s no reason the gyro has to be centered on any particular orientation. If a user wants to use gyro controls with the device held vertically then that should be fine.
Implementation is key. Most games whether marble or not will let you choose (or better yet auto-detect) what your initial orientation is. I have played poorly implemented marble games that don’t and I agree with you holding it flat is usually not desired. If you’re playing laying down, sitting, etc. is very different on what the initial orientation would be (which would then effect what the tilting orientations need to be) but it is relatively easy to make the game work at more comfortable orientations.
Most let you calibrate the start position, but it doesn’t actually work if you aren’t holding the phone almost-flat (screen facing less than 45 degrees away from up). I’ve never seen a marble game where the gyro controls actually worked the way I expected them to do.
Why not? I remember playing the mobile version of Rage and the accelerometer controls in that definitely worked well moving around vertical orientations.
Is it the default option?
If the phone is rotated 90 degrees, different axes need to be considered for the direction you want to go. Noone does that though.