
Usability of Accelerometer Controls in Games - sraquo
http://chopperdefense.com/blog/2010/12/15/the-sins-of-accelerometer-controls/
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beej71
I'd like to see the trivial code snippet that uses simple trig and other axis
data to handle both tilt methods at any orientation.

Imagine your device is sitting face-up on your desk. The acceleration vector
is pointing out the back of the screen (gravity). Now if you rotate the device
90 degrees (keeping it face up on your desk), the acceleration vector remains
unchanged, pointing out the back of the screen toward the center of the Earth.
Edit: it's exactly as if you never moved it. :-)

And as the device approaches this extreme, it becomes more and more difficult
to use the 3rd axis to discern exactly what the user "means", especially with
a noisy accelerometer.

The general problem is that the accelerometer vector needs to change in order
for you to use it for control. And for each of the two tilt types the author
shows, it's really easy to come up with a device orientation in which the
accelerometer vector remains unchanged regardless of the amount of user tilt.

I mean, something can be done up to a point, but I think "works both ways in
any orientation" is going to be tough. There might be a reason why the author
has not seen any games do that. :-)

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wccrawford
Awesome advice.

Control is one of my biggest concerns with games. If the controls are bad, the
game is dead to me. I can overlook bad plot, acting, graphics, audio, and many
other things, but I can't overlook bad controls. I have actually played games
that otherwise sucked, just because the controls were so awesome.

~~~
sraquo
Yeah. I also noticed how some games e.g. Reckless Racing "brute-force"
controls usability by offering a handful of different options – virtual
wheels, accelerometer, simple buttons, etc.

