What separates good touch controls from bad ones

We've played enough mobile games to know that a great idea can be ruined by controls that don't fit a touchscreen. A phone isn't a gamepad, and the games that ignore that end up frustrating no matter how good they look.

The best touch controls do one thing well: they put the action under your thumb without hiding the screen. Arcade games like Coin Strike nail this by using the whole display as the input — you're not hunting for tiny buttons, the gesture is the game.

Tilt controls are a gamble. They feel magical in a racer like Dust Circuit when they're tuned right, and nauseating when they're not. We always test both schemes before judging, because a bad default sometimes hides a good alternative in the settings.

If you're trying a new game and the controls feel wrong, check the options before giving up. Half the time there's a layout that fixes everything — and if there isn't, that tells you something about how much care went into the rest.