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What the iPad will do for gaming

Feature by Ben Briggs, February 01, 2010

Now it’s out in the open, Apple’s iPad has been praised by some and rejected by others. It is a device that is not available and yet people have dismissed it as being a larger iPod touch without actually getting their hands on it. Those who have seen the device in person have noticed the speed, the greater information density that a larger 1024x768 resolution provides, and the new direction that Apple is taking computing in with iWork specifically designed for multitouch gestures. Discussion about what we would like to be included in the device is irrelevant here—this is a 1.0 product that, over time, will be improved upon steadily just like the iPhone was. However, we would just like to bring our opinion to the table, that iPad will do for gaming exactly what iPhone did. Here’s a few points to consider.

Software familiarity

Familiarity is crucial to the iPad’s success, whose software model is an upscaled, full fat version of the iPhone OS. Ergo, developers and users understand how to use the platform because it uses the very same traits as the pocket sized version, just in a package that is larger, faster and much more capable. In the scant two weeks before the January 27th event, Apple contacted a handful of developers to provide iPad friendly versions of their games and applications and they delivered. New content it wasn’t necessarily; however the speed of development is apparent. Developers have written posts about how great it is developing for the iPhone, and you can bet that same model will be used for iPad.

It helps that iPad is compatible with the majority of applications on the App Store too, so that users can play their existing content, but we know that iPad exclusive games will become more pervasive as developers learn the ins and outs of the platform. They can simply take their existing games and add in checks for iPad hardware to run them at a higher resolution and if necessary develop a separate game that takes full advantage of the Apple A4 chip. You can see this already with Ancient Frog—a beautiful iPad only version that has richer graphics.

Similarly, developers like Illusion Labs know how to make innovative games and how to make full use of the increased resolution—as you can see in the above video, the opportunity to create deeper, more intricate levels for a game like Labyrinth 2 cannot be ignored. Developers are excited about programming new games for the device, with Flight Control being announced, and Gameloft looking to bring their content over to the device. But it’s not just the big guys, indies are interested in this new platform—check out this screenshot of Smiles that has been optimised for iPad.

Performance

Without actually getting our hands on the device we can’t say how noticeable the performance increase is over the iPod touch, although many people attending the special event were impressed with how the device performed. This means we can have richer, more intimate gaming experiences with the iPad’s 9.7 inch display if developers take full advantage of the hardware. Plus, now that Apple is designing their own silicon we may be able to see the same kind of capability in the iPhone—it’s no accident that it was promoted a fair bit in the keynote.

A larger scale device

We believe that the iPhone has barely scratched the surface of what you can do with a multitouch user interface. It’s hard to do complex gestures on a 3.5 inch display but that barrier is easily broken when the screen real estate increases. It makes games like Eliss much less about cramming your fingers onto a small screen, instead having the freedom to hold four fingers down somewhere whilst you use another finger to do something else. Imagine Green Fingers with 15 pots instead of 5, or Bed Bugs with many more enemies to manipulate and deal with.

It’s almost impossible to list all of the possibilities here, but if you think about the progress that we’ve made over the last year or so, then you can bet that programmers will find new types of games that will flourish on the iPad. You can bet that board games will do well on the device, or any game utilising a large set of onscreen controls. Certainly, the new device will provide a much closer experience with multiplayer party games where the iPhone felt crowded—even with a limited set of controls as in SlotZ Racer.

This all happened before

The iPod touch became an unexpected runaway success because of its portability, price and the sheer volume of content available for it. The iPad has all of that, except in a larger form factor. We don’t know how it will stack up against the rest of the games consoles, but the Wii has proved that large screen gaming doesn’t have to be graphically intense to make it fun. In the same way, the opportunity multitouch has in this larger form factor outweighs the graphical capability of the device because it will make the games just that bit extra special. Multitouch as a user interface is increasingly becoming more pervasive—it feels like a much more intuitive way to interact with silicon than a mouse and keyboard.

Tradeoffs

Sure, the iPad is not a perfect product, yet. It’s indicative of where Apple is going to take computing to over the coming years, making it more accessible to people who don’t understand the complexity of traditional desktop computers. As far as we’re concerned, Flash as a technology is on the way out, with its video delivery mechanisms becoming replaced by more advanced HTML5 constructs and gaming being superseded by slick App Store titles. Of course, we recognise that iPad won’t be the be all and end all of how we will interact with future products, but cannot escape the fact that this is a big step forward. Not just an oversized iPod touch.

At any rate, we can’t wait for the iPad and all the new games we will be able to play.

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