Tilt, Turn, Shake – iPhone Games Using Alternate Inputs

The iPhone and iPod touch come with very accurate accelerometers – the programs which are running can know when the device is being moved, and how much/how far/which direction it’s being moved. Game developers have taken advantage of this capability to develop some games which just rely on the device being moved or shaken!

This is not a type of input that’s been used before for games, as far as I know, and I think it has great assistive technology implications. Here are some games I could find which use shaking or moving as their main or only input type:

SPORE: Origins

Eat-or-be-Eaten in SPORE: Origins! Put your iPhone’s motion-sensing accelerometer to the test by tilting, turning and twisting your creature through the primordial ooze. Feast on the weak and flee from the strong to survive 2 exciting modes and 35 challenging levels. Evolve from a single-cell weakling into a ruthless predator with the Creature Editor. Customize your texture, shape and body parts to improve your offense, defense, perception and movement. Rule the tidal pool with SPORE: Origins.

Super Monkey Ball

With each monkey inside of a transparent ball, you must tilt the device to roll the monkey past a range of obstacles such as gaps, slopes, narrow ledges and moving platforms. With a pinpoint control mechanism, players will simply tilt and turn the device to maneuver their monkey, accelerating and decelerating as they make their way through the colorfully animated world.

MotionX Poker

A flick of the wrist is all you need to get your dice rolling. And if you’re using an iPhone, specifically, you’ll feel the device buzz and vibrate as if the dice were rattling around inside. (You can turn this option off, if you don’t want to waste your battery, but where’s the fun in that?)

Dizzy Bee

Guide a friendly bee by tilting and turning the iPhone or iPod touch. Lead him through windmills, bumpy bumpers, avoid the baddies, rescue the fruits and bring them to safety.

Tilt Fighter

In Tilt Fighter, you tilt your iPhone / iPod Touch left and right to manuever your space ship past asteroids and through enemy fire. Then touch the screen using gestures such as taps and pinches to unleash your arsenal of weapons, such as your Laser Cannon and Anti-Matter Bombs.

If you go to the iTunes story and search for “accelerometer” you’ll get a long list of games and other programs that use this type of input, but the list is not complete. It will only pick up programs that use that word in the description or title. Do you know any other games that use moving the iPhone/iPod Touch for input? Are they any good?

- Ricky Buchanan