With the exception of the Razer Edge, Windows 8 tablets are not the best when it comes to gaming. The majority of PC games are designed using a keyboard, mouse or a gamepad in mind. While Civilization V and other select titles have special multitouch controls for the Surface Pro enthusiast, the majority of games are impossible to play without peripherals. The solution? Find an intermediary.
GestureWorks Gameplay promises to solve the tablet owner's mobile gaming woes by creating a virtual touch interface that emulates mouse and keyboard inputs. The software lets users create custom multitouch controllers with virtual joysticks, dpads, buttons, and even mappable swipe gestures. It's an interesting proposition particularly when you think about the effort Android and iOS gamers make to avoid touchscreen controls. We met with the company to take a brief look at the beta versions the app.
GestureWorks CEO Jim Spadaccini met us with the ThinkPad Helix and his son who was racing through the world of Castle Crashers on his own Windows 8 device. The lower part of Spadaccini's tablet was adorned with a digital directional pad and small numbers of buttons. These were overlayed on the game as native controls. It was easy and enjoyable, but Spadaccini stopped us short of engaging in a gamefirst, he wanted demonstrate how to set them up.
Gameplay's menu system is simple, with the main screen into profiles available for download, and a list of locally stored layouts. Leaves farm The community currently has about 50 profiles available to download. Editing or creating new profiles is simple. Spadaccini hit the edit icon on Castle Crashers to pull up an identical layout to the one displayed on his son's slate. With just a few taps, we were able to add and move or resize buttons. Buttons can be mapped to any keyboard or mouse input as well as a virtual joystick can be added to allow direct cursor control. There's also a gesture menu that allows the user to translate commands into flicks, swipes or pinches and we were informed that motion control options will be added in the near future which will allow the use of accelerometers to steer driving games. Users can save the profile from here, but if they aren't satisfied, the layout can be tweaked in-game.
After creating a profiles it is possible to link the layout to the game it was created for, making it simple to launch multiple titles simultaneously with its custom control setup. It was as easy as pressing the play button to play Castle Crashers with our host's son. The game's basic controls worked with the touchscreen. Spadaccini said that Castle Crashers as the program's "sweet spot," and they worked with ease. Portal 2 and Borderlands 2 were quite different -- while GamePad offers relatively easy access to all the game's primary commands, managing them all with our thumbs was a bit heavy. We also encountered some issues with the virtual joypad, which mimics an unsteady mouse input, rather than an actual analog joystick input. Despite these issues, we were able to solve a few of GLaDOS' maniacal tests with an ease, and were told by GestureWorks that mouse emulation would improve prior to the final release.
Gameplay isn't an ideal application, but it seems to at least be an acceptable one. It fulfills a need, lives up on its promises and does it all with an intuitive and easy to use interface. Although the touchscreen gamepads won't replace physical ones but they do provide Windows 8 tablets with casual gaming capabilities that are impossible without the additional hardware. However, it does have one compatibility issue: it is only compatible with games that utilize DirectX (that means there's no Minecraft Sorry kids!) If you own an Windows 8 tablet, a Steam backlog, and don't mind that compatibility stipulation, GestureWorks Gameplay just might be right for you. You can sign up to be a beta tester on the company's website, or wait for the full version will launch on November 5th for $14.99.
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