Mobile side scrolling control scheme experiment

Hi all,

I'm experimenting with a control style for a touch-based mobile side scrolling game.

This is a very rough experiment with no real graphics or anything, just a focus on controlling the character.

To control:
Touch and Slide on the Left side of the screen = move left and right
Swipe on the right side of the screen = jump in the direction of your swipe. You can also double jump.

Testing out the control scheme should only take a few minutes and your feedback on it would help a lot.

Download the Android build here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/knlsbozbnedt34e/ninjikko.apk

It requires no permissions and will be listed as 'Ninjikko' in your app tray for when you want to uninstall.

-----------------------------------------------
For those not in a TL;DR mood right now, here's why I'm trying out this control method.

I find platformers controlled through touch to be frustrating, so I'm trying to alleviate that by allowing you to easily control your jump vector. I don't allow you to move while in air because I'm trying to simulate the 'once you jump, that's your jump' mentality of some of the old school NES games like Castlevania. However, I'm trying to minimize the frustration of that by allowing you to choose your jump vector as well as allowing you to double jump in a new chosen vector.

If this control method works okay, I have some plans to enhance it. For one, I would like to have the swipe distance equate to the jump velocity, so a shorter swipe is a hop, and a longer swipe gives you more air. Also, planning on allowing you to hold down on the right side to let you grab walls, or hang off ledges like in Metroid Fusion. For attacking, I plan to have your character automatically melee attack any enemy that's in front of your character and within melee distance. This is so that the focus on the game is jumping/acrobatic based. Imagine seeing a big enemy, jumping towards him, and double jumping back away from him and getting a few automatic melee hits in there.

 

At least you need to insert some screenshot here. People won't download if they don't see it's interesting ...

 

This is a very rough experiment with no real graphics or anything, just a focus on controlling the character.

Thanks for reading.