Publishers reveal their motion-sensing mobile games

Yesterday, we looked at why mobile game developers and publishers are so excited about motion sensing technology. Today, it's time to find out what they're actually doing with it right now, and how they think it should be used.

And trust us, they are all doing it. "We have a division devoted to exploring what can be done with new technology such as this," says Chris Gibbs of EA Mobile.

"They have experimented with a few things, and we've released a few games with motion-sensor support, like Burnout and Need for Speed. The Harry Potter franchise on Wii uses the Wiimote for intuitive spell-casting, and we have used motion-sensing to take some aspects of this for use in the next Potter mobile game."

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Gameloft and Glu Mobile are both also using motion-sensing already – funnily enough, in their respective cooking games. We played a motion-sensing version of the former's Pocket Chef this week at Gameloft HQ, running on a Sony Ericsson phone. It saw you jerking the handset forward to slice onions, amongst other examples.

Glu's Get Cookin', meanwhile, also supports motion-sensing cuisine on capable handsets. "We're looking at incorporating innovative features in a number of our upcoming titles," says Glu's Chris White.

"There are so many cool features in modern handsets, from the camera to new control methods, that playing a mobile game will soon become a unique experience. I'm sure we'll look back and laugh at the thought of using a numerical keypad in a few years' time."

It's tempting to present motion sensing mobile games as something brand new, but Vivendi Games Mobile's Paul Maglione points out that the idea has been around for a while now, at least in Japan. In 2006, Vivendi made a version of Crash Bandicoot that was preloaded on two Sharp handsets, and used Gesturetek's camera-based motion-sensing. "It allowed users to manipulate Crash through snowboarding gates and other challenges via the motion sensor," he says.

"The phones in question sold in very large volumes, and we like to think that having such an innovative mobile game, branded with Crash Bandicoot, helped increase the buzz around those phone models."

That certainly isn't the last motion-sensing game we'll be seeing from Vivendi. Meanwhile, RealArcade's Wilhelm Taht says his company is also well underway with motion-sensing development.

"We have developed a version of Luxor 2 with motion sensing functionality," he says. "We are also currently working on a number of exciting projects which we can't talk about in great details yet."

A lot of publishers are similarly mysterious, which in some cases is likely because their motion-sensing projects are for iPhone, and they're bound by Apple's publicity lockdown. For others, it's simply because they're at the experimental stage.

"We have been doing research into this," says Kyu Lee of Gamevil. "Our company likes things that can only be done on mobile devices. There are a couple of confidential ideas that cannot be disclosed now."

Going beyond control
Putting motion-sensing into your mobile games doesn't have to be about the controls alone, mind. PopCap's Andrew Stein explains that his company has made some games that use accelerometers in more simple ways.

"For example, tapping into the phone to detect if it's in portrait or landscape mode, and automatically reorienting the game on the screen," he explains.

Meanwhile, Astraware's Howard Tomlinson says his company has some motion-sensing games coming along, but is similarly cautious.

"Mostly it isn't appropriate to twist the interface to make users have to use motion/direction sensing, so some of our own won't necessarily feature it too highly. There'll probably be a few Easter Eggs to find, though."

For some developers, incorporating motion-sensing into their games will be an extension of what they're already doing with other technologies – particularly those developers working with the Zeemote joystick.

"Since we already worked with Zeemote implementing analogue controls in Heli Strike, Planet Riders, Galaxy on Fire and Powerboat Challenge we will continue to support analogue controls based on motion sensors on any platform," says Fishlabs' Michael Schade.

And this is the real point about what developers and publishers are doing – they're incorporating motion controls into games where it's appropriate, and suits the game, rather than just slapping them into every title.

For example, TAG Games has created a motion-controlled version of its Rock'n'Roll game for the Samsung E760 phone, as a proof of concept.

"It works very well, but we were fortunate that the existing control system suited motion sensing almost perfectly already," says TAG's Paul Farley.

"We also have an original game in development for iPhone that will mix motion sensing and touchscreen control methods for some completely original game-play interactions. We are very excited about it, and no, it isn't a collection of mini-games!"