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Because the games I like are usually designed with one device and OS in mind. Touch, joystick, mouse, and keyboard interaction all have their strengths and disa

Because the games I like are usually designed with one device and OS in mind. Touch, joystick, mouse, and keyboard interaction all have their strengths and disadvantages -- games specifically made for them use those strengths. The same counts for the different OSes and their native SDKs. Unless these games are completely different on each platform, I doubt they would impress me. Granted, it can be done – Super Monkey Ball is a great example – but obviously, it's extremely expensive to do so.

baby 14y ago
Super Hexagon was designed at first for iOS. And then it was ported to other device. So if you can enjoy it on iOS you can enjoy it on other devices as well since the controls don't change that much. As for the other kind of portage. I'm trying Dungeon Defenders right now on a Nexus 7 to see how they managed it.
aviraldg 14y ago
Spoken like a true prisoner of the walled garden. Games (at least the good ones) are designed with emotions in mind - in fact, the ideal game immerses the player to such an extent that control differences become immaterial.
- Samuel_Michon 14y ago
  Control differences tend to get in the way. Arcade games that recreate the classic joystick and buttons on touch devices are often less than immersive. Games made for accelerometer or gyroscope input don't make much sense on a desktop computer. Games like Tetris aren't fun to use with a mouse. Etc etc.
- roryokane 14y ago
  One definitely doesn’t need to be a “prisoner of the walled garden” to desire platform-specific control schemes. One could be annoyed by badly-ported control schemes even if one uses only Linux and Android devices, neither of which are walled gardens.
  - Samuel_Michon 14y ago
    Thank you for that, as I doubt he'd listen to me. On a daily basis, I use FreeBSD, Debian, Ubuntu, and Android. Just because I also use iOS and OS X doesn't make me blind, or 'a prisoner of the walled garden'.
    - pydave 14y ago
      > Just because I also use iOS and OS X doesn't make me blind No, but dismissing games because they're multiplatform does. Just because you have open source friends, doesn't mean you're not racist. (Maybe you meant that you'd play them on your Mac and if they were designed for Android, then you're not interested because good touch controls rarely translate to good mouse controls. That's perfectly reasonable: The lead platform is usually the best place to play and not all developers put the effort into making good ports. But if you actually cared, you would have asked if these games have good mouse controls instead of being dismissive.)
lucian1900 14y ago
A surprisingly large subset of interesting games transitions very well between input methods. Suspend your scepticism.
roryokane 14y ago
Most of the games in this bundle are probably the same across all platforms, but Anomaly: Warzone Earth, which was in two previous Humble Android Bundles, impressed me with its platform differences. The desktop and mobile versions are well-tuned to their platforms. The desktop version gives you an avatar to walk around with using the arrow keys, while the mobile version lets you slide across the map to view the level. Because of this, on the desktop version you walk over powerups to pick them up, and on the mobile version you tap powerups. And an enemy unit that just makes your own troops attack you on the desktop version both saps health and disables attacks on the mobile version. The experiences of walking around with your troops and watching from above are significantly different, but both are fun. There are other differences. The mobile version has completely different levels from the desktop version. They also have very different stories – all the stories share is the events before the game. As a smaller detail, on the desktop version, you reorder units in steps with the arrow keys, but on the mobile version, you can just drag them. Basically, Anomaly: Warzone Earth is a great example of how to do an Android port right. I don’t know if there’s a game in this bundle that is as well-ported, but if there is, then this bundle is worth getting.

baby 14y ago

Super Hexagon was designed at first for iOS. And then it was ported to other device. So if you can enjoy it on iOS you can enjoy it on other devices as well since the controls don't change that much. As for the other kind of portage. I'm trying Dungeon Defenders right now on a Nexus 7 to see how they managed it.

aviraldg 14y ago

Spoken like a true prisoner of the walled garden. Games (at least the good ones) are designed with emotions in mind - in fact, the ideal game immerses the player to such an extent that control differences become immaterial.

Samuel_Michon 14y ago
Control differences tend to get in the way. Arcade games that recreate the classic joystick and buttons on touch devices are often less than immersive. Games made for accelerometer or gyroscope input don't make much sense on a desktop computer. Games like Tetris aren't fun to use with a mouse. Etc etc.
roryokane 14y ago
One definitely doesn’t need to be a “prisoner of the walled garden” to desire platform-specific control schemes. One could be annoyed by badly-ported control schemes even if one uses only Linux and Android devices, neither of which are walled gardens.
- Samuel_Michon 14y ago
  Thank you for that, as I doubt he'd listen to me. On a daily basis, I use FreeBSD, Debian, Ubuntu, and Android. Just because I also use iOS and OS X doesn't make me blind, or 'a prisoner of the walled garden'.
  - pydave 14y ago
    > Just because I also use iOS and OS X doesn't make me blind No, but dismissing games because they're multiplatform does. Just because you have open source friends, doesn't mean you're not racist. (Maybe you meant that you'd play them on your Mac and if they were designed for Android, then you're not interested because good touch controls rarely translate to good mouse controls. That's perfectly reasonable: The lead platform is usually the best place to play and not all developers put the effort into making good ports. But if you actually cared, you would have asked if these games have good mouse controls instead of being dismissive.)

lucian1900 14y ago

A surprisingly large subset of interesting games transitions very well between input methods. Suspend your scepticism.

roryokane 14y ago

Most of the games in this bundle are probably the same across all platforms, but Anomaly: Warzone Earth, which was in two previous Humble Android Bundles, impressed me with its platform differences. The desktop and mobile versions are well-tuned to their platforms. The desktop version gives you an avatar to walk around with using the arrow keys, while the mobile version lets you slide across the map to view the level. Because of this, on the desktop version you walk over powerups to pick them up, and on the mobile version you tap powerups. And an enemy unit that just makes your own troops attack you on the desktop version both saps health and disables attacks on the mobile version. The experiences of walking around with your troops and watching from above are significantly different, but both are fun. There are other differences. The mobile version has completely different levels from the desktop version. They also have very different stories – all the stories share is the events before the game. As a smaller detail, on the desktop version, you reorder units in steps with the arrow keys, but on the mobile version, you can just drag them. Basically, Anomaly: Warzone Earth is a great example of how to do an Android port right. I don’t know if there’s a game in this bundle that is as well-ported, but if there is, then this bundle is worth getting.