Why some touch controls just work

Nothing ends a game session faster than controls that don't trust your thumbs. After reviewing a few hundred mobile titles, I've got opinions about what separates the good from the finger-cramping.

Good on-screen buttons sit where your thumbs already rest and leave a little dead zone so a slightly-off tap still counts. Bad ones float in the middle of the action or shrink on smaller screens until you're playing a game of precision you never signed up for.

Tilt steering is divisive and that's fine, but it should always be optional. The best games I've reviewed, racers especially, let you swap input mid-session without wandering into a menu maze.

Developers, if you're reading: let us remap and resize. Thumbs come in all sizes, and the game that respects that is the one that stays installed.