Getting FPS (First Person Shooter) genre right on mobile has been a mean feat so far. Despite attempts from many developers with varying degree of success, most ardent fans are still awaiting a true contender.
Why is recreating convincing FPS experience on mobile so painful?
FPS games are known traditionally for demanding from players a high degree of mastery, precision, speed, focus and skill to become adept. Which is what makes the experience so rewarding (or frustrating depending on where you are at), in the learning curve.
Before exploring recreation of conventional PC/Console based FPS gameplay on mobile, let's look at typical loads involved
Loads & friction involved in a typical FPS game on PC & consoles
To a distant observer FPS may seem like a rush of chaotic mindless shooting activity:
Please...don't be FOOLED!
A FPS player is in fact juggling multiple cognitive loads of varying magnitudes, coordinating motor & sensory skills, overcoming the friction of controls in order to achieve his goal.
Does this satement sounds Amusing?
Like a juggler balancing many weights, in a typical FPS session a player has to balance the following cognitive loads:
Target Acquisition: Player has to effectively acquire or lock on moving or static targets in order to score a kill.
Target Leading: Player has to effectively lead. For example, if an opponent is moving to the right of the player, the player should be able to easily target the mental proxy in order to successfully hit the opponent.
Target Tracking: Player has to track moving targets without constantly needing to reacquire the target. For example, if an opponent is moving to the right, the player should be able to smoothly and consistently follow the opponent without losing track.
View Manipulation: Player manipulates the camera in any direction to complete the leading, tracking and acquiring tasks. A difference in speed at which player can manipulate the world view will affect his ability to track & lead fast moving targets.
World Navigation: The player should be able to navigate X, Y and Z axis in the game world to over-come obstacles or jump over objects.
Managing UI Controls: Along with all the above said tasks, player has to manage UI controls of load out, abilities, switching scope, using boosts, firing controls, reload and change weapons.
Game controllers map these onto the UI which helps reduce the load as they provide better mapping. But these are not part of standard mobile experiences.
While the loads above contribute to steeper learning curve in mastery of FPS, touch based interaction and scarce real estate on mobile makes it even worse.
Fitt's Law:
This scientific law predicts that the time required to rapidly move to a target area is a function of the ratio between the distance to the target and the width of the target.
The farther away a target is and the smaller it's size, more difficult it is for the user to correctly land on that target.
What that implies is smaller moving targets should take longer to aim at and shoot for FPS players. Studies done in controlled environment have proved mouse pointers to be more precise in terms of acquiring distant, small targets:
Mouse vs Finger comparison in terms of hit area.
Average area selectable using a mouse and a finger:
The images above illustrate pixel - perfect control of mouse pointer in attaining a small hit area in comparison to the less precise 40 pixels (minimum) hit area with a finger.
The problem of covering the hit area with a finger, also known as occlusion, is a commonly known issue.
Results of error ratios measured from different input devices:
(Click image to go to source)
Mouse pointers win, hands down, in terms of precision and acquiring small and distant targets owing mainly to precession with which they can acquire a single pixel on screen.
So on mobile, real estate and touch input is a real problem issue. Add this to the multiple loads/gestures (covered above) that a player has to juggle for a hard core FPS experience and the lack of precision input medium (finger) makes the adaptation even more difficult.
The question however is if you are a mobile game developer, how do you solve these problems?
Let's find out:
Load Management is the key!!
Most successful mobile FPS games have attempted to adapt the game play by concentrating on making load management easier for the players by..
Either easing them via reducing their magnitude or erasing them via removing them altogether
as we will see in the examples below.
Easing Loads
Modern Combat 5 - The Kitchen Sink Approach
Despite the challenges above, some game developers have attempted to recreate core FPS experience on mobile, most notable and successful among them is the Modern Combat series from Gameloft.
Genre: Hardcore - Midcore
TA: Hardcore FPS players used to playing COD, Destiny, Bioshock
Modern Combat series comes across as the most popular with players when it comes to FPS on mobile. The current version MC-5 (MC-6 is awaited soon) is a testimony of number of iterations it has taken GL to fine tune the experience.
While MC-5 initially provides FPS players with a standard control setup, floodgates tohighly personalised customisation open up soon after.
Pre-Mission customisation option
Settings screen in MC-5 offers players 3 different control options before player enters a mission:
