Imperfections in MFi implementations

Behind the very existence of AfterPad is the fact that there is no official list of MFi-supported games. Yet months after MFi controllers started hitting official Apple Stores, the company promised a list of games that supported the standard. Why didn't it arrive? To me, the answer because obvious after a dozen or so downloads of MFi supported games, and that answer is that not enough games support it properly for Apple to vouch for their purchase. In this thread, I'd like to talk about examples of good and bad implementation of the standard.

Walking War Robots A very popular but corny-titled Mech Assault clone, this game has nearly full support of MFi. But the developer don't even seem to know it's supported. I bought a controller for this game alone, but when I began playing on the Mad Catz controller, I found I could do everything except jump. I have to tap the screen for that. An email to the developers about it got a confused reply, they said they didn't support controllers at all. Presumably a miscommunication within the team, or maybe a rogue developer is adding controller support in secret. When playing on iPhone attached to the controller, pressing the jump button on-screen is easy. Still, I have refused to spend money on the freemium game until they map jump to a controller button.

Fur Fighters It's both with pain that I have to call this a "hidden gem" and an amusing example of bad MFi support. On the first point, this is a brilliant Dreamcast platform with amazing gameplay and environments that far too few people have heard of due to the Dreamcast fiasco. And it get MFi controller stuff almost right. But the major screw-up is that the game turns off all touch screen controls, but once you die there is a menu only programmed to receive those touch-screen controls. To carry on, you have to power down your game pad, tap continue, then power your pad back on. Considering you shouldn't due too much, it's not a deal breaker. And considering this port to iOS, which costs only $1, seems to be an actor of love by the original developers (who were bought and then dropped by Microsoft years ago), it's amazing this game works as well as it does while others still have triple-A game that only fit 3.5" screens. Buy this.

Last edited by Noah (Jun 06 11:31 PM)

This type of thread is exactly why I launched the forums!

I'm surprised they didn't know Walking War Robots worked - they contacted me about buying advertising for it here on AfterPad, precisely because it has controller support!

Fur Fighters used to work better, I don't remember this being a problem. It might have been an update or a change in iOS. Still sad, it's a classic