I am developing a game where I have the following control scheme:
The user can steer a car ( 2D seen from above ) by tilting the phone towards where the car should go. However, when he user first presses “start” to start the race, the accelerometer is calibrated by storing the “normal position”. The direction of the car is “how much the phone is tilted relative to that normal position”.
It is is also possible to steer using a virtual joystick. This joystick is created anywhere on the screen where the user touches and is only visible while in use. Once the user lets go of the screen, the game reverts to tilting as described above, while also recalibrating by setting the new “normal position”. I practice one can then just tap the screen to recalibrate ( for example if the player changes position ) when using the tilt steering mechanism, by briefly switching to virtual joystick mode and back again.
This means of control is very good for my game and feels natural and accurate, but I am afraid that most users won’t understand how it works and therefor find the controls unpredictable and useless.
I am trying to find a good way, using mostly illustrations, to explain to the user how to operate the game. I want to use the words everyone else uses to describe this kind of control scheme.
It is a very simple game, so there is no room for elaborate documentation.
If anyone can point me to apps that use similar control schemes and are popular or do a good job of explaining how it works to the user, that would be great.