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[Continuing Gamasutra's 'Game Design Essentials' series, which has also included '20 Difficult Games' and '20 Open World Games', this fascinating installment examines unconventional control schemes, from Robotron through Crazy Climber to the Wiimote and Guitar Hero, with detailed design lessons for each concept.] Stop for a moment and consider what it is that makes a game control well. It is not as easy a question to answer as you may think. There is a theory that the controls of a video game should do their best to get out of the player's way. The interaction between the player's mind and the game world should be as simple as possible. The perfect controller, to this thinking, is something that would read minds and eliminate all possibility of confusion, other than that in the player's head. There would be no controls to learn, no buttons to press, and no fumbling with control pads. Input would be completely mental, and output would be a holodeck. In the absence of such technology, controls should be standardized so a player can move from one game to another easily. They seek to develop a shared control language that applies across games: left stick moves, right controls camera, the major action button shoots, a secondary one jumps, shoulder buttons flip between weapons -- that kind of thing. Every control style mentioned in this article speaks against this theory. Some present their own standards in its place, due to their being well-suited to their style of game; the dual joystick (shooting) style has been used in a few games itself, from the old classic Robotron: 2084 to Geometry Wars. Others really have no chance of ever becoming a standardized control scheme, but are okay with it. After Donkey Kong Jungle Beat, why would anyone else even care to make a platformer controlled entirely with the pressings of two buttons? But then, why would someone have cared to make it to begin with? For some of these games, special hardware is needed to measure player performance in greater detail, so as to translate it into game terms. In the Golden Tee games, rolling the trackball further and faster makes for a stronger shot. Other games use special controllers to accentuate the game experience. Guitar Hero naturally does this to help the player feel like a rock star, and the bicycle-powered arcade game Propcycle is perhaps the closest we will ever come to experiencing human-powered flight. The purpose of this article is not to describe the games themselves, unless it is important to do so to explain what makes its control scheme interesting, or if the style is mostly relevant to only one game. Because it's concerned with games that purposely do things in a non-traditional manner, there's an unusually large representation from arcade developer Atari Games on this list. Finally, again, although the list is numbered, this should not be taken as a list of the "most" unusual control styles ever seen in games. Attempting to make such lists will always make some folk unhappy. I know I'm never happy with them. These games are given as examples. Some are obvious, and some push the limits of the theme. That is the point. The idea is to give you ideas for your own project, and to show some notable successes, and maybe failures too.
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Comments
In the section "5. Dual Joystick (movement)" you make this comment:
"For more mundane tasks this might not be such a good idea; no one wants to play a game in which he must manipulate a soldier's legs independently step by step."
Actually, in Robot Alchemic Drive you control a giant robot's arms and legs individually using the analog and shoulder controls. Combined with the visual perspective (that of a young human standing outside of the robot), the control scheme does a very good job of conveying the experience of 'controlling a giant robot'. And to be honest, sometimes it's fun to mess up and accidentally backhand a civic building in combat. I suspect it is a fairly niche experience, but it's done consistently and well.
Jason Pineo: I stand corrected, thanks.
Tony Dormanesh: Front Line's an oversight, meant to remove but apparently forgot.
Leaving out two-stick mech games is an oversight, but they could be considered a variant of tank controls.
Note, by the way, that the title says 20 games but there's actually 21. That's because Progress Quest could be considered to be not a game at all....
The biggest detriment to the rotating stick was probably that it was more expensive to replace when broken.
The discussion for adapting Trackball One-to-One motion deserves mention of Super Monkey Ball's analog stick tilt-the-stage approach.
The design lesson discussion for Motion Wand calls Wii Sports gold swing as an obfuscated version of Golden Tee's trackball. I think the opposite is more accurate. When it comes to swinging a golf club, spinning Golden Tee's trackball is more an abstraction than swinging the Wii remote like a golf club.
The weakness of Wii Golf may mostly be that Wii detection just seems shoddy in general, for both hardware and software reasons. This will remain an issue for the Wii in the long run, which from all accounts simply cannot match or even compare to more dedicated motion detection and aiming hardware, whether it be the Guncon 3 or some cheap plug-straight-into-the-TV plastic sword swinging game.
I'm afraid I have more experience with the NES Ikari Warriors (which I -hated-) than the arcade.
Super Monkey Ball's (and the original Monkey Ball's) analog stick is known of and greatly appreciated, but unfortunately there's only 20 (or 21) slots. And more and more games are using that kind of motion.
My description of Wii Sports as a version of Golden Tee's system is due to chronology (Golden Tee has been around for a while now) and rather a lot of experience with Wii Sports Golf. The fact that the game ultimately resorts to a power bar is a little bit of a cheat. From different perspectives, though, each is closer to real golf.
And I disagree about motion wand detection being shoddy on the Wii. There are a number of games (like Wii Monkey Ball) that use it quite precisely. For example, people have built machines into which a Wiimote can be inserted that are capable of bowling a strike every time. I expect it's how- the data is used that is the problem, that the reason it seems inaccurate has to do with data averaging and discarding done in order to avoid picking unintentional motions.
I cannot speak to Wii Monkey Ball's performance, as I've not played it. To me, the design of the series has only gone downhill, so SMB2 was my last purchase. I have certainly read a fair share of complaint about Wii Monkey Ball control though, mostly in the form of people who find it sloppy compared to what was done for analog sticks.
Actually, the guitar controller originated in arcades in Japan- Guitar Freaks was a Konami Bemani game in the same series as DDR, there were 4 or 5 versions as well. I played the game in Japanese arcades in 2000. The only difference in the controller was the lack of whammy bar and perhaps one less fret button. It also had a lift in the air component for bonus points. There might have been a home controller for the Japanese PS as well.
Glad someone said the DDR proves twich games still sell. :)
Interesting article, dude.
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