The mobile games that finally got touch controls right

Nothing kills a mobile game faster than fighting your own thumbs. Over the years I've uninstalled dozens of promising titles purely because tapping felt like wrestling a wet bar of soap.

The best ones solve this by designing for touch from the start instead of porting a controller scheme. Ember of Vael, for example, lets you drag abilities straight onto enemies — no clumsy cursor, no tiny buttons.

Racers are the hardest case. Tilt steering looks natural but drifts out of control on a bus. The games that let you choose, like Neon Redline, tend to win because they admit everyone holds a phone differently.

My rule of thumb: if I notice the controls at all after the first ten minutes, something is wrong. The great games make the interface disappear.