Lets Talk Touch!

Whats up everyone, I cant sleep so im up coding just as always so i would love to ask a question to everyone!

im trying to gain feedback on the best way to control a platform game with no on screen controls. I want to make my character jump and perform basic platform abilities but i dont want to clutter the screen.

Can i get some good feedback of what everyone prefers. any and all feedback is welcome.

Whats up everyone, I cant sleep so im up coding just as always so i would love to ask a question to everyone!

im trying to gain feedback on the best way to control a platform game with no on screen controls. I want to make my character jump and perform basic platform abilities but i dont want to clutter the screen.

Can i get some good feedback of what everyone prefers. any and all feedback is welcome.

Invisible sprite on left side of screen to jump

invisible sprite on right side for attack

Triforce what would you do for walking? thanks for your feedback aswell, Im sure not only me but alot of people now and in the future will love to have this information.

Well I don't think you will have a set of guides that will apply to all games, because ultimately you will need to optimise for each game.

First, remember you can get a lot of information from each touch, so no need for invisible buttons you can just interrogate the screen vectors.

Second, many of the default touch functions like swipe and double tap take a few ticks to set and will also co trigger with many other touch commands so if you use these make sure your logic clearly discriminates.

I actually favour subtle on screen buttons (partial opacity) for discrete functions, like interact, or shoot etc. Allowing you to check touch is on button if in certain side of screen and if not move/walk your character for example. Walking could be lower 2 quarters of screen for example and jump in top of screen.

EDIT, forgot to say that once a touch has begun you can store and remember it, so for example, if you touch screen left and the character walks left, but then slide your finger right the player can turn around and track it.

Invisible floating stick on the left for movement and a huge invisible button on the right that takes up half the screen for jump. note the button isn't just for the jump, it is to record the Id of the right hand touch to be used for jump.

There is a tutorial on here somewhere which does that and I adapted to make dual invisible floating sticks.

I just made a video for some other thread. As u can see there are no controls on screen. Control is intuitive and responsive like having a dual pad in hands. It also floating and dragging. Meaning that wherever u put ur thumbs is point zero and if you reach full throw the stick drags along. however it is worth noting that I put the hud all at the bottom as that's where ur thumbs are. If you have a camera that stays center on player then you won't need to worry about this.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6AQ9z ... p=drivesdk.

Cocoon.io apk on Android on Xperia z1 compact a small a rather old phone.

It depends on the actions you need, personally I don't think there's a solution that will let you make a solid platformer with intuitive controls using touch controls, it will never be like using a keyboard or a gamepad.

You must strip down your controls, for example a run button is very messy to use especially if you need to press another action button with it like jump.

For movement, I think positioning a low opacity circle with a knob in the center to the start touch position, then moving the character in the angle and velocity according to the knob position, in any case, if you're going for a virtual pad or just buttons, my advice is to capture the touch start of a button and release the state on touch end and not using is touching object, because you'll be limited to the buttons image area and a slight nudge outside of it will stop the character's movement and that is very annoying.

I think you can also you the drag behavior and cancel both X/Y dragging, then using the is dragging condition will keep it's state when dragging outside of the image bounds.

I also recommend giving up on the up/down direction for movement or actions, not very intuitive.

Slower moving speed for the character, for a wider user input time-frame.

Most mobile platformer games are using auto-move for the character, the main reason is crappy touch control, but that's a way to go.

I'm making a platformer game for PC, I didn't even consider porting it to android/ios just because of the touch limitation, that and lots of optimizations, but mostly the touch <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt=":)" title="Smile">

This is my game, Bad Pad,

http://badpadgame.com/

I did though make another platform based android game recently, based on Bad Pad but with limited controls and different gameplay.

I used auto-run in one directions, jump and double jump are triggered by touching anywhere on the screen (except for other UI buttons), Air diving and Jetpack have designated buttons on the bottom left and right, appears only after purchasing the upgrade.

There are shooting sequences where I spawn fireballs at the direction of the touch.x.y, again touch anywhere on the screen, in this sequences the player can't move the character, it is locked in on a predefined path, diving and jetpack are also not use-able and the buttons are hidden.

The boss levels are little bit less intuitive, you press anywhere on the screen to move there and press on the boss the shot at it, the problem is that your hand can sometime cover crucial parts of the screen while touching, so I had to make the boss levels a bit easier.

You can see it here,

https://play.google.com/apps/testing/co ... mes.badrun

It's still marked as beta, I'm releasing in a few days, just missing a few buttons graphics.

If I were you, I'd make a prototype based on Triforce 's suggestion and tilting your phone to walk left or right to see how it feels to play.

[quote:1vsri03n] I don't think there's a solution that will let you make a solid platformer with intuitive controls using touch controls, it will never be like using a keyboard or a gamepad

I have to disagree 100%. I can think of 100 different ways to make touch controls intuitive and invisible for a platform game.

The thing with touch is that it cannot not and should not be standardized like a joypad or keyboard.. Each touch method should be tailored specifically for the game its self. Very very few games get it right . even games from the big companies, most are still thinking in terms of traditional input methods such as keyboard joypad button etc..

You have a whole screen to work with , to make into your own magic joypad, you can program any layout and input method you like from drags, swipes, taps, multi-touches but people are still thinking in terms of left button right button , touch the player to drag around touch the enemy to shoot etc blabla.

for example if the OP wants player to left right jump and fire.

why not have a linear x axis only invisible floating joystick on the left for run left right ,

have a swipe up maybe on the left for jump.

right hand side could just be hold to fire double tap to change weapon, or a floating analogue stick for 360 firing.

its all possible and construct 2 gives you the tools to do it very easily.

just need to think outside traditional input methods.

It's all good and nice I theory, but the fact is that covering the screen with your hand while playing makes it hard to play and keep track of what's happening, the lack of physical feedback also degrades the exprience, I'm not saying it's not possible I'm just saying it's not accurate as using a keyboard, and for fast paced pixel perfect platformer games it's not ideal.

My guess is that after the flexible bending screen will get standardized we'll start seeing some adaptable screen that will let you bump out parts of the screen, for UI elements, or maybe it'll sink in on touch, who knows, as long as you get some sort physical feedback and boundaries for the element.

Im going to take all of this into account,I really want to make something that feels cool.

Has anyone tried to use pathfinding for touch? MoveTo touch type of controls inside of a platformer? My game has sandbox elements but not like terraria or minecraft. The landscapes are not destructible so i feel like i am open to do more.

id say best approach wold be to use variables and touch indexes. for example for movement, tap &hold and drag direction left or right to move, if u want to jump just tap and see if the 2nd index of tap is detected seems the best reasonable approach however i didn't tested it yet, il try maybe tonight