Amazingly, gaming has taught the world to be complete multi-tasking experts with their entire body and brain. This wasn’t always the case.
If you were around during the first arcade gaming days, the coin-op arcade games introduced titles that were either fully button controlled or had single joystick (or dual) with buttons. One example would be Atari’s Asteroids, it was all buttons. When it first found its way into convenience store and arcades, it was extremely difficult to play well using both hands. Other than musicians and a few other skills sets, most hadn’t had the need to be completely ambidextrous- yet.
Playing Asteroids, the left hand had to tap two different buttons to rotate left or right and with the right hand the player had to gently thrust, moving the spaceship, or blasted away at huge asteroids as fast as possible. In the case you got in to trouble, there was a failsafe hyperspace button in the middle that would send the spaceship somewhere random on the screen- usually right in front of an asteroid. Atari also mixed things up and added enemy spaceships that would come out and shoot at the player that would need to be destroyed. The key to playing well was not having to look down at the buttons so you could keep an eye on the screen. Note: early gamers figured out they could leave one or two chunks of asteroids and the small space spaceship would keep coming out, racking up points and extra lives- whic
h could run all the way off the screen.
Then came the home consoles like Nintendo’s NES Console. Now there was a new controller called a “D”-pad that goes in all directions. NES was not the first but the games were developed well. Developers would get the max out of those controls with left/right/up/down movement or up to jump while utilizing the two buttons for game play like firing weapons. Some may remember playing Ghosts and Goblins so long their thumb would become blistered and sore- which never stopped anyone from continuing to play, only mom could do that. 
As consoles progressed, more controls came to the scene with platforms like the PlayStation. Now we have two joysticks, a D-pad and 8 buttons (10 counting select and start). Note: I remember at first just avoiding the joysticks because the D-pad was so familiar and was kind of hoping I could avoid using it. But EA’s Madden finally forced me to learn because I was tired of losing.
PC games were no exception, games like Diablo 2 used most all of the keyboard. When that game first came out, we all lost 5 years of our life. While playing, one hand was on the mouse clicking drastically, while the other was hitting “F” keys and keyboard shortcuts. It got to where we didn’t even think about the keyboard hand constantly tapping keys. Kind of amazing actually. Note: I always thought the way the developers created the “exit game” created stress. Especially if you played hardcore and needed to get out fast in order to keep your character alive.- well done.
When Nintendo’s Wii appeared on the market in 2006, gameplay became moving a wand-like-joystick. Most loved it- minus some parents who lost their TV screens, windows and lampshades due to gamers losing grip on the controller. But hey, it’s just game-play progression.
Now these controls are all second nature, we can pick up and play any game and use any console controller and we start playing instantly knowing all those controls do something. For most gamers today, they can play a new game for a short time and have the controls down allowing to quickly focus on the game itself- and developers today just keep making it better. 
Back to the future- mobile gaming. When the very first mobile games began surfacing developers had to experiment with controls. At first we saw some on-screen joystick games, with buttons on the screen for playing. Many of us had to figure out how to control the game without moving the thumb too far away from the joystick or the character would not move. Or to remember to keep the other thumb on or around where the buttons were, so you wouldn’t find yourself dead by not being able to fire or use powerups. And many had no idea what to do. These types of games in the early days often got reviews saying they were too hard or difficult.
Developers also experimented with swiping, tapping, dragging and titling. What seems like almost instantly, mobile gameplay taught us how to control a game with a touch mobile screen. The result-gamers know how to play games on a completely flat screen. Incredible really.
So today, when developing a game, developers think about how many ports they can do with one single game. After all, one game could easily be 10+ games by making it available across many platforms. For that matter many game companies are going back to their previous titles that were once console and or PC only and porting them to mobile. For many new gamers it is a totally brand new game, while to gamers that have previously played those games, it is fun and sort of a new experience because the controls are on a mobile device. Win win.
How many platforms the game will be on is all about budget and time and not everyone has both. Note: hardware is also a consideration, not all things can render and crunch physics the same. Recently I read a blog post “The expectation that any desired information or service is available, on any appropriate device, in context, at your moment of need” on CDS Global. This seems true to gamers too. If your friend tells you to try the new game they are playing chances are you will just bring up google and try and find it for your platform.
So today’s game designers are now challenged to think about how the game will work from a controller standpoint across multiple platforms. There is no doubt there will be brilliant people using the current day controls in new ways- including simplifying the game controls down to almost one button like we have seen in some of the runners that have appeared on the market over the last two or so years- like Temple Run and Canabalt. 
What to do? Here are some points to consider about game controls if your game will be on different platforms and plan to include mobile.
1. Design the game front to back. We like to use Visio to create low poly screen flows, world layouts, skill trees, powerups and so on. This is a great way to “imagine” your game working before too much development starts.
2. In the final release candidate, there may be some small differences in controls of the game, especially from console to mobile. For most this is totally acceptable. So think up front how you are going to tackle these issues and make adjustments during the design phase. One of the things that will kill time is to figure things out as you go. Time=cost. Just to note there are some games/controls the player will expect to work exactly like the console game. It’s like listening to a classic song, you expect to hear specific parts of a song and when you can’t or its not there- something feels empty. So keep this in mind.
3. Fast pace games tend to be harder to allow lots of control on mobile. Slowing the game down here and there or even creating an artificial pause/stop (like entering a new level) to allow changes in powerups and gear will help. For the most part, fast pace games on mobile devices will often equal less overall inputs. There is only so much space on the game screen. But there have been some developers that have pulled this off well.
4. Some exact game controls will not work across all platforms. The flow of the joystick and R1 like buttons working with the animations may not convert. Maybe think of an alternate mobile version to develop using the same game assets or help the player by automating some of the gameplay. An example could be Dark Souls by From Software. The way the player animations flow is very tuned to how the joystick works- like swinging around and doing the backstab. 
5. Negotiating controls with the development team is crucial. Sometimes taking away or adding a few things here and there during the design phase will help ensure the game gets out on time and on budget. If there is disagreement at the beginning it won’t go away. Always take the time to understand the issue, and work through it. It there is time in the budget, create a prototype just for controls. This is a great way to discuss control issues with the team.
6. Play games. Playing a variety of games will create ideas for your future games. But perhaps even more, it gives you something to show the development team how you are seeing the controls work. As they say a picture is worth a thousand words. There is nothing wrong with using a control feature from another game, we are all one community.
7. Watch YouTube videos and read gamers posts. Every so often there is a brilliant post that will light up your creative mind. Also if you see the same complaint over and over it is good to know for future titles what gamers “did or didn’t” like about something specific.
8. Work together and talk it up. Talking about the game controls with others will give you great input. Keep in mind there are some that only play Candy Crush and you are developing an action shooter. This is OK because you want everyone to buy your game, just don’t go overboard and lose sight of how your game needs to work.
9. Use a beta group. If you can get a group of people willing to play the game, they will talk to you. They are not too hard to find and most gamers love the idea of working with a development team. If they all are posting they can’t control the game, it is better to know during beta than when it hits the market.
10. Make a fun game across platforms. There is a difference between challenging and difficult. You know the story- great game idea, great graphics, great physics, great animations, poor mobile control= not a fun game. Testing and tweaking controls during development will make your game more fun to play in the end.
11. Have fun making the game. Game development is perhaps the most awesome thing a person can do. Sometimes during the development process we get tired and quite possibly bored and stressed out. When a game team has finally created their masterpiece release candidate they will have played a thousand or more hours. Not keeping it fun will sometimes lead to hurried decisions where “just that one thing” can make a huge difference- and will often lead to needing to create an update right after launch.
I once read a twitter post from a game designer saying something like “there are no shortage of great game ideas”- something like that. Agreed, but I would say “A great idea is one that is awesome, fits the budget, thought out “and” designed well and there is a definitely shortage of those”.
Thanks for taking the time and we look forward to hearing from you.
Charles Joyner
RocketPop Games
