Tap, Hold, Slide: Three Controls and What Each One Asks of You

Every ticket on this site is stamped with one of three words. They are more different than they look, and each rewards its own way of playing.

Look at the bottom corner of any ticket on Html5Game.sbs and you will see one of three words: Tap, Hold or Slide. That is the control, and it is the only one that game uses. Three words cover all twenty games. They also describe three quite different kinds of skill.

Tap: the decision

Fifteen of the twenty games are tap games. A tap is a single moment. It has no length and no direction. All the game can ask is: when?

That makes tap games tests of decision. In Orbit Dodge, each tap is a choice to turn round. In Spin Shot, it is the choice to fire now and not a moment later. In Green Light, the hardest taps are the ones you do not make.

How to hold the phone. For most tap games, one thumb is fine. For the fast ones, use two. Tile Runner and Quick Pads are both far easier with a thumb on each side of the screen, since each thumb has half as far to travel. Laying the phone flat on a table and using two index fingers is faster still.

The common mistake. Tapping too much. In Wheel Catch the extra tap "to be sure" is what ends most runs. In Lane Beats a tap on an empty lane costs a life. Tap games reward the number of taps you needed, and punish every one beyond that.

Hold: the judgement

Only two games use hold: Cave Copter and Fill Line. A hold has length. The game is asking: how long?

That is a different skill. You are not picking a moment. You are measuring a stretch of time with your finger, and people are worse at that than they expect.

In Cave Copter, holding makes you climb and letting go makes you fall. There is no hovering, so level flight is really a string of short holds, and you steer by making them a little longer or a little shorter. It is closer to balancing than to pressing.

Fill Line is a single hold per glass. You press, watch the level rise and let go. Since each glass pours at its own speed, you have to gauge it fresh every time.

How to hold the phone. Keep your thumb resting lightly on the glass between presses in Cave Copter. Lifting it clear each time makes every hold longer than you meant.

The common mistake. Releasing late. Your finger takes time to lift, and the game keeps going while it does. In both hold games, the cure is the same: let go sooner than feels right.

Slide: the tracking

Three games use slide: Gap Runner, Sky Hop and Ring Pong. A slide has position. The game is asking: where?

Slide games are about tracking. Your finger is in constant contact, and the thing you control follows it. There is no single moment to get right. There is a continuous job of being in the correct place.

A detail worth knowing: in Gap Runner and Sky Hop the ball does not jump to your finger. It glides towards it. That glide is what makes the movement feel smooth, and it also means you have to move early and then stop. Keep sliding and the ball overshoots.

How to hold the phone. Slide below the action, not on top of it. If your thumb covers the ball, you cannot see what is about to hit it. In Ring Pong, keep your finger just outside the ring for the same reason.

The common mistake. Chasing. Following the ball with your eyes and your finger at once puts you a step behind. Look at where you need to be next, and let your finger take the ball there.

Why only one control per game?

We could have combined them. A game where you slide and tap would allow more variety. We decided against it for a simple reason: with one control, you never press the wrong thing. Every failure is a failure of timing, judgement or position, never of fumbling.

It also means the word on the ticket tells you something true before you start. Tap games are sharp and quick. Hold games are tense and quiet. Slide games flow.

Try one of each

If you have a few minutes, play one game of each kind back to back: Ring Snap for tap, Fill Line for hold and Sky Hop for slide. Notice how different your hand feels in each.

That contrast is something small HTML5 games do well. With nothing else going on, you notice the control itself, and each of the three turns out to have a character of its own.