In an interview with Gamedeveloper.com, Plastic Fern Studios director Jay Fernandes discussed the challenges of adapting its game The Descenders for mobile.

We’ve written previously that controls are a particular hurdle when it comes to mobile gaming, particularly in the midcore market which strives to offer a more intricate gameplay experience.

"We were lucky enough to work on the iOS and Android port for the amazing Descenders game which also included the challenges of trying to make a game that works so well on PC and Console feel just as good on mobile," said Fernandes.

As a biking game, Descenders is a game that requires intricate controls, and this presents unique challenges when it comes to fulfilling the studio’s intent of presenting an experience as close as possible to the console or PC releases.

Changing gears

"We knew there would be challenges since it needed to perform well, have multiplayer, and was a fast-paced game that could have issues translating to touch controls or small screens, but by far the thing we spent the most time on was the controls and UX during gameplay."

UI/UX programmer Sunder Iyer was instrumental when it came to porting the game and ensuring that the game played as well as possible on mobile devices, transcribing the controls onto a new platform.

"We experimented with a lot of different layouts. I mean a lot. Like even more than you’re thinking. Gamepads' bumpers and triggers (L and R buttons) present a challenge when porting controls to touch screens since typically you don't have these shoulder buttons and in many games, these can modify the action of the face buttons or analog sticks," said Fernandes.

"Sunder played with the idea of having an extra on-screen touchstick for just performing tricks or having two touch spots for the right touchstick such that one would initiate carving/tweaking while the other would perform tricks. He then proposed splitting the screen into quadrants such that dragging in certain zones on the screen would produce specific behaviors."

Eventually, the team were able to produce the final version of the control scheme, successfully adapting the game to mobile devices despite the limitations of the hardware.