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I like tablets, they feel personal and are great for media consumption.

I really enjoyed making Bloblocks for the iPad and am looking forward to test it on Android.

However, there's something I miss: a good old joystick.

I think the touch screen and the tilt are not good enough for classic game-plays. Damn, playing to a good platformer on a keyboard already feels wrong. With a touch screen it's just feels shitty.

You know, we've been creating joysticks and pads for more than 30 years. The feel of a mechanic button is something valuable to create a link between the game and the player. Push the button!

Of course many games are perfect for touch (Bloblocks wouldn't work well without some kind of pointer). But well... even more game-plays are really great only when played decently.

I would like to create some games controlled with a pad and was worried about tablets. I would like my players to be able to enjoy games and not fight with their controls.

That's why I looked for some solution to this problem. I was happy to find a few.

The keyword here is "iCade" (arCade on iOS).

Thinkgeek sells this funny iCade 8-Bitty: http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/ecea/

The Gametel controller seems less hacky on android but cost more and is less fun to look at: http://gametelcontroller.com/

But searching for "icade gamepad" on amazon will give you many results and more recent gamepad designs.

The idea is that gamepads connect via Bluetooth to iOS and Android and pretend they are an external keyboard (or a regular joystick on some android devices). The game just have to bind fake keys to game action. Easy and well documented.

I am worried about the qwerty layout though... In France the common layout is azerty which may require the user to switch his keyboard layout when he wants to use an icade device (I have to investigate this).

I don't know yet about multi gamepads support for multiplayers games.

On the developer side, I found a few things for iOS:

• https://github.com/scarnie/iCade-iOS
• http://kode80.com/2012/08/20/simul80-ios-joystick-simulator-for-osx/

The last link is cool, the emulator can use a regular USB joystick plugged to OSX and proxy its commands to your iOS device through Bluetooth. Perfect for work and might work with an android device too with luck.

All this leaves some room for more labs.

By the way, joystick support also comes to browsers so... Great times ahead for gamers with a pad in the pocket ;)