With iOS 13, Apple has made it easier than ever to pair your iPad or iPhone with a great game controller through Bluetooth. This, combined with the release of several heavy-hitting console and PC ports leads me to declare 2019 the Year of the Controller in iOS games.

So what’s it like going from playing exclusively via touch to playing like a True Gamer? Let’s take a look at some of the best games from 2019 to play with a bluetooth controller.

What are the best iPad games for controllers?

• Dead Cells
• Hyper Light Drifter
• Rogue Legacy
• Crypt of the Necrodancer: Amplified
• Gris
• Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap
• Journey

Best Controller for iPad

I picked up an Xbox One S controller, and although I am loathe to continue to contribute to Microsoft’s empire, it’s the best choice if you’re doing most of your gaming on PC in addition to your iDevice. The Xbox One S pad pairs as easy as any other Bluetooth device on the iThing and instantly with Windows PCs. What’s more, most games on both platforms will change their button prompts to match the Xbox controller’s layout, making it a cinch to pick up and play. If you already have a PS4, no need to run out and buy a new controller because those will work just fine too. For a dedicated iWhatever controller, most people like the SteelSeries Nimbus, but it’s not that much cheaper than the Xbox pad.

Pocket Tactics is an Amazon Affiliate.

Dead Cells

A platforming hybrid of Dark Souls and a procedurally-generated death labyrinth, the roguish Dead Cells requires both careful planning and lightning reflexes. If you’re leaning more towards the careful planning strategy, the touch controls are pretty good – a swipe-anywhere pad controls the game with virtual buttons and touchable menus. For twitch gaming, you need buttons. There’s just too many options in this game to remember where are the virtual buttons are by muscle memory. Then you’re dead, again.

Hyper Light Drifter

A stylish top down action game with a vast world, Hyper Light Drifter reminds me of a cyberpunk Zelda on acid. Beautifully animated and devilishly challenging, this game demands a lot from the player. The touch controls are okay — the game has fewer options than Dead Cells — but when the plasma bolts really start flying they’re not enough. With a joystick, Hyper Light Drifter‘s tight, lightning-fast movement shines. (For similar gameplay that works in one-handed portrait mode, Immortal Rogue is basically Hyper Light Drifter stripped down for mobile, and it’s pretty good!)

Rogue Legacy

The vintage NES-style platforming displayed in this game is best served by a classic d-pad rather than a joystick. I found the Xbox pad fairly comfortable but those with shorter thumbs may prefer a PS4-style controller with the d-pad placed at the top. Rogue Legacy was in the first wave of the platforming roguelike revolution on the PC, and it’s main innovation was adding random mutations to your hero, not all of which are helpful. Hypochondria, for instance, exaggerates the damage you take, while near-sightedness makes everything far away blurry.

Crypt of the Necrodancer: Amplified

Likewise, the grid-based movement in this rhythm-game/roguelike hybrid really benefits from a directional pad. This is one of the games that still worked pretty well with touch controls: basic swipes move your avatar and that’s it — combat and other interactions are handled automatically. Still, swipes aren’t the most precise motion to try to time to a beat. The game takes full advantage of its simplified control scheme to build interesting challenges that are all the more challenging for being executed on a beat. Your weapons hit automatically, but in unusual patterns; some enemies aren’t a threat on every other beat; you only have until the end of the song to finish the floor.

Gris

It takes something special for a narrative puzzle-platformer to stand out in this day and age, but Gris has that special sauce. A combination of a delicately-told story and beautiful music and animation makes Gris a journey worth taking, even though the puzzles and platforming isn’t the most challenging. It’s not a twitchy game, so the onscreen controls work okay, but it’s worth pulling out the gamepad just so you don’t have your fat thumbs covering up the gorgeous artwork.

Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap

A really truly classic platform game, Wonder Boy is a remake of a 1989 Sega Master System title. The old-school platforming challenge has survived the adaptation intact, with awesome new animated art replacing the original pixel graphics. The touch controls are not great in this case, with buttons that are too big for a phone screen and too small for a tablet. You’re better off playing the game it was meant to be played thirty (!!) years ago: with some real buttons.

Journey

Another recent iOS port from a previous generation, this Playstation 3 hit is a great fit for iOS, even with touch controls. However, controller support was added after launch, and it makes a big difference in the Journey experience, especially for controlling the camera in the platforming sections of the game. If you liked Sky: Children of the Light by the same developer, you should definitely pick up this one too.

Best Apple Arcade Games to play with a Controller

If you’re an Apple Arcade subscriber, there’s several games there that do great with a gamepad:

• Bradwell Conspiracy‘s first person puzzling benefits from joysticks
• EarthNight is a very cool endless runner
• Hot Lava is unplayable with touch controls
• Sayonara Wild Hearts will hit the beat much more easily with buttons
• Shantae is another great traditional platformer
• Exit the Gungeon‘s bullet-hell arena is much more fun with your thumbs off the screen

Do you have any games you enjoy playing with a controller? Or a controller that you enjoy using with your tablet? Let us know in the comments!

Those on the hunt for a fun last-minute gift can pick up one of these digital gift ideas just in time for Christmas.

Disney Plus

Star Wars and Disney fans can enjoy new and original content with a Disney Plus subscription, with more titles added weekly. Friends will delight in seeing baby Yoda in The Mandalorian, or re-watch favorites like Avengers: Endgame and the original Star Wars trilogy.

Subscriptions start at $6.99 per month, with a bundle available for $12.99 per month that includes Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+.

Amazon Prime

A useful gift that can save recipients money year-round thanks to exclusive deals and free shipping upgrades, an Amazon Prime membership is an excellent choice for everyone from co-workers to close relatives.

Along with exclusive access to Prime Day deals and the shipping upgrades referenced above, Prime members can access a variety of movies and shows through Prime Video, as well as unlimited access to 2 million songs through Amazon Music. Annual plans run $119, offering recipients benefits for an entire year.

Adobe Creative Cloud

With apps for photographers, videographers and business professionals alike, an Adobe Creative Cloud All Apps plan is great for a variety of content creators. Enjoy access to over 20 creative desktop and mobile apps with the All Apps plan, including Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro and InDesign.

Annual plans can be prepaid for the entire year or broken down into monthly payments, allowing for easy gift giving.

B&H SmartGift

B&H Photo offers a neat SmartGift feature that gives gift recipients the ability to review, customize or exchange the gift you choose.

Once the gift has been accepted, you’ll be prompted to pay for it and B&H will ship it out for a quick and easy way to get friends and family the items they really want. And with deals going on now on everything from iPads to Apple Watches, saving on the perfect gift is a snap. Just look for the SmartGift button on corresponding product pages to get started.

Amazon gift card

From household essentials to accessories for your home or office setup, Amazon has something for just about everyone. And an Amazon gift card is great to use after the holidays for cables, chargers and stands to enhance other gifts received for the holidays.

Available for email, text or print-at-home delivery, Amazon gift cards are available from $1 to $2,000.

Sling TV subscription

Gift recipients will love not having to pay for a TV subscription each month when given a Sling subscription. Select from Sling Blue, Orange, or Blue + Orange plans depending on the desired channels, with popular favorites, such as HGTV, Food Network and A&E available with any plan. Monthly rates start at $20, with the combo plan running $35 per month.

Sling works on a variety of platforms, from Apple TV to iOS.

A few weeks ago, we found out the next entry in the popular Puzzle & Dragons series – Puzzle & Dragons GOLD – would be released in North America on 15th January for $14.99. Now, to help promote this upcoming Switch eShop title, GungHo has released a new English-dubbed trailer for the game, which you can view below.

If you’re not familiar with this series, it started out life on smartphones and made its way across to the 3DS in 2015. The North American release of the new entry lines up with the Japanese launch, but right now, there’s no word on a European release.

As shown in the trailer above, GOLD will feature intense puzzling action, the ability to challenge friends and rivals, a story mode, the ability to unlock and collect new monsters, and a practice mode. For more information, check out our previous post.

Have you played this series before? Are you planning to play the new game? Tell us below.

In case you missed the news, Sonic the Hedgehog will be running about in a pair of red and white Puma shoes in his live-action movie, due out on Valentine’s Day next year. Unlike the games, though, he might not be wearing his iconic kicks from the get-go.

You see, if a new television spot released by Paramount Pictures Australia is anything to go by, Sonic will receive his famous pair of runners at some point during the movie. So, in other words, don’t expect to see him speeding around in them from the beginning of it.

As James Marsden’s character explains in the clip above, Sonic struggles to “control” his speed and these shoes will help him channel it. It’s sort of similar to how the blue blur unlocks and receives shoe upgrades in some of his video games.

Will you be checking this movie out at your local cinema on release? Leave a comment below.

Greetings employees of Halcyon,

We want to take this opportunity to thank the incredible team behind The Outer Worlds. It is because of their hard work and dedication to this project that we received the Best Narrative, Best Performance – Ashly Burch, Best RPG, and Game of the Year nominations at The Game Awards.

To all of those who voted for us in The Game Awards, you are all fantastic and we are so grateful for your support. The reception to The Outer Worlds has been unbelievable to see, and even just being nominated means a lot. However, the journey isn’t over yet as we are excited to announce that we will be expanding the story through DLC next year! Details will be made available at a later date.

Now we would like to allow our game directors to share a message with you all:

We just wanted to personally thank our team for doing a wonderful job and our fans for their tremendous support.

And Tim would like to say what an honor it was to work with me. – Leonard

Whatever, Leonard. Now that we’ve finished, I expect that certain photographs will be destroyed, as per our agreement. – Tim

The game industry has plenty of horror stories about crunch and poor work/life balance in general — so it’s good to hear a game dev talk about attaining success without sacrificing a studio’s collective health and well-being.

Guillaume Boucher-Vidal is CEO at Quebec-based Nine Dots, which recently released the ambitious open world RPG Outward. Games in this genre often require large teams working extra hours at some point in development. But Nine Dots was able to make Outward with 10-15 people, and according to Boucher-Vidal, zero crunch.

And by all indications, it’s a commercial success.

“The two main elements that made it possible to make a large game world might sound super obvious, but it’s pre-production and not crunching. Those are the main two important elements,” he said during a recent GDC Twitch stream.

Boucher-Vidal, who also served as creative lead on Outward, defines crunch as over 52 hours of work per week, per person, for an extended period of time over two weeks. By those standards, he said, Nine Dots has never crunched.

He said Nine Dots had a “very bottom-up approach” when making Outward, meaning that the team was able to scale and scope specific elements of the game while remaining productive and efficient, all depending on what’s working during development.

“For instance, at first we planned on doing less monsters but more regions,” he explained. “And as we advanced in development we realized that we were able to make a much higher number of enemies, but we had to slim down the number of environments. We could sort of shape the game according to our own abilities while we were developing. It was more effective, and it was also a matter of maintaining the velocity.”

In this case, environmental terrain was proving difficult to get right at a larger scale. Boucher-Vidal said the team restarted terrain for a specific region about four different times, trying to get it right. This was not an efficient way to develop, so instead of concentrating efforts on that time sink, the team scaled back environment, and scaled up enemies.

“I hear so many horror stories from other studios where they throw away maybe 70 percent of what they develop, and that’s definitely not something we want to do at Nine Dots,” he said. “We are a small team.”

Boucher-Vidal said Outward‘s completion provides something tangible to show the game industry to prove that it’s possible for small teams to make big, ambitious games without exploiting developers.

“I have something to prove. When you treat developers right, you actually achieve more and [spend] less. We’re trying to lead by example, something I feel the game industry is doing wrong,” Boucher-Vidal said bluntly.

“It’s been a subject matter that’s very active recently with the whole unionizing question, and the crunch debacles that keep sparking on social media at the moment,” he said. “This is something that I’ve been trying to be loud about over the past eight years, but I’ve been thinking like, ‘nobody’s going to listen to an old fool who’s shouting at the clouds.’ But if we make something that’s impossible to make, maybe they will listen to us.”

Boucher-Vidal admitted that development wasn’t “perfect” by any means, and there were plenty of problems the team had to overcome. But he said Outward‘s development lays the groundwork for future projects that will hopefully enjoy even more efficiency.

“Now that we know better, I feel like, with the same resources and the same time, we could actually achieve much more than what we did,” he said.

Boucher-Vidal’s thoughts on crunch don’t end there — perhaps more controversially, he thinks the concept of “finding the fun” contributes to the crunch problem. (“Find the fun” is a phrase oft-repeated by game designers, and attributed to Sid Meier of Civilization fame.)

“I think that part of the problem is that game designers are too lenient on themselves — you know that expression that I hate? ‘You got to find the fun.’ If you don’t know where the fun is, why are you a game designer?” he said.

“And that is extremely harsh for a lot of people, but if you can’t answer that question right, you’re not a good game designer and you’re actually wasting very precious development resources,” Boucher-Vidal opined. “I see the game design job as being closer to an architect or director, like you would see on movies where you actually have a plan laid out and try to execute it.”

“The closer you are to the final, the closer the final product is to the game design you had, the more it says on your ability to predict how things are going to work out,” he said.

Rather than looking for the fun during a prototyping phase, Boucher-Vidal rather asks what kind of experience does the team want to convey. Then, it’s up to players to decide whether or not that’s fun.

For Boucher-Vidal, the experience that Outward intended to convey from the start is making the game wholly-immersive, and making sure nothing in the game would break players’ suspension of disbelief. This can be seen in how spellcasting works, the game’s survival mechanics, and in the other ways that the game tries to earnestly simulate fantasy tropes.

“By understanding questions like ‘why are we making this game, why is it going to be different, what kind of experience will it be [providing]?’ we make all of our decisions according to that before even writing one single line of code. Every single line of code going forward will be directed with focus and there would be less waste. We would know where we’re going.”

“That’s one of the core aspects I feel game design is not really achieving so well — that [developers are] going to start making the game before knowing where the game is going to be. That’s extremely wasteful.”

And, to Boucher-Vidal, when time, money, or assets are put to waste, that’s demoralizing and “disrespectful” to team members during the course of development. “He won’t be as happy, and if he’s offered another job, he will leave,” he argued.

All that said, Boucher-Vidal isn’t anti-experimentation in game design, but it does have a time and a place. “Experimentation is good for when you’re in research and development but when you are in production and have a product in mind you just achieve it,” he said.

As someone who runs the company as CEO, but also served as creative lead on Outward, Boucher-Vidal simply thinks that designers should be creative, but also more business-minded. “This is something that I feel — so many game designers will hate me after [saying] this…the job of a game designer ultimately is to cut on expenses,” he said. “The more you justify your game design on paper the less random things you will have to make to make sure it sticks somewhere.”

In this 2017 GDC session, Capcom’s Kenji Kojima, Akiyuki Morimoto and Ken Usami discuss their methods to create realistic high-quality sound during the production of Resident Evil 7.

These methods not only made sound implementation more efficient; they also helped increase the quality of sound. The speakers also dug deep into how they achieved a horrific soundscape, in part by using a technique called “music-concrete” to cover a wide variety of sound texture, tones, and noises  — delivering an uncomfortable and disturbing atmosphere in the game.

The whole talk was fascinating, especially if you’re a big Resident Evil fan, and now you can watch it completely free over on the official GDC YouTube channel!

In addition to this presentation, the GDC Vault and its accompanying YouTube channel offers numerous other free videos, audio recordings, and slides from many of the recent Game Developers Conference events, and the service offers even more members-only content for GDC Vault subscribers.

Those who purchased All Access passes to recent events like GDC or VRDC already have full access to GDC Vault, and interested parties can apply for the individual subscription via a GDC Vault subscription page. Group subscriptions are also available: game-related schools and development studios who sign up for GDC Vault Studio Subscriptions can receive access for their entire office or company by contacting staff via the GDC Vault group subscription page.

Just in its name, Space Pioneer immediately conjures up an undeniable sense of awe and spectacle. There’s a feeling that you’re going to be embarking on an epic journey of discovery as you take your first steps on one of many exotic planets. Space Pioneer certainly has a whole bunch of planets to explore, but the only feeling you’re going to be getting here is one of increasing boredom thanks to the game’s repetitive nature right off the bat.

Space Pioneer is a twin-stick shooter through and through. Each level effectively takes place on a different planet and sees you taking on wave after wave of various enemies whilst accomplishing several task objectives at the same time. These mostly comprise of collecting bombs, destroying nests, escorting travellers, and defeating boss creatures. The game features twelve chapters, with each chapter containing up to eight planets, the final of which housing a formidable boss to take down. You can tackle the game on your own or with up to three additional players, with the game featuring a rudimentary class system to accommodate this.

The core gameplay is pretty decent for the most part. The twin-stick shooting feels great – every weapon is effective in its own way, and they all feature a cool-down mechanic which eliminates the need to locate additional bullets. You’ll also have grenades and healing items at your disposal, both of which feature a longer cool-down that will often leave you open to attack if you’re not careful. Unfortunately, very early on in the game, you’ll start noticing the same enemy types, the same planet designs, and the same objective cropping up over and over again, and the solid gameplay simply cannot hold its own against the overwhelming feeling of repetition.

The progression system is surprisingly quite deep, but is also anchored by coin collecting and loot boxes. As you complete objectives within the game, you’ll be rewarded with a bunch of coins, and these can then be spent levelling up various stats like armour and weapon damage, along with perks such as ‘berserk’, which increases your attack damage when your health falls below a certain percentage. Loot boxes feature quite prominently but are only tied to optional objectives and trophies, so thankfully you won’t be gambling any of your hard-earned cash for these.

There’s a lot of potential within Space Pioneer that is unfortunately largely squandered by its repetitive nature. Once you’re done with one chapter, it really feels like you’ve seen it all, despite another eleven lying ahead of you. Its core gameplay really is a lot of fun, and our hope would be that if a sequel is developed, this is backed up by an engaging story and meaningful objectives.