Rocks'n'Diamonds

i'm using the unofficial iphone port, and the "virtual buttons" scheme is broken in that version (the virtual buttons are completely invisible regardless of what button transparency i set, and tapping "configure virtual buttons" in setup gets me stuck forever without being able to do anything), so i'm trying to use the "wipe gestures" scheme. (i'll attribute the virtual buttons bugs to something the port developer got wrong and/or reasons why not to develop for iOS.)

however i cannot tell how to drop dynamite or snap in this mode. if i make a weird three-finger gesture and wiggle my fingers around, that sometimes results in dropping dynamite (as well as either snapping or moving a couple tiles), but i can't tell what the intended gesture for dropping dynamite or snapping is supposed to be.

maybe info for how the different touch controls work could be in the info screen, or in the "touch controls" menu itself?

however i cannot tell how to drop dynamite or snap in this mode. if i make a weird three-finger gesture and wiggle my fingers around, that sometimes results in dropping dynamite (as well as either snapping or moving a couple tiles), but i can't tell what the intended gesture for dropping dynamite or snapping is supposed to be.

It works like this: The left 1/3 of the screen is used for the snap/drop button(s), and the right 2/3 of the screen is used for moving up, down, left or right.

While the moving part is easy (and easy to be detected by just trying it out), the buttons part may need some more explanation: Just tap the screen for the "snap" button (heads up: this also triggers dropping an item from the inventory in the BD and EM engine, as these engines only support a single button!), and move it a bit up or down for the "drop" button.

You can configure the sensitivity of the buttons in the setup menu (snap/drop distance).

Two things are still severely missing:
- a way to tell the player how it works exactly (as described above)
- a mirrored mode for left handed persons (as the default probably works better for left handed persons)

maybe info for how the different touch controls work could be in the info screen, or in the "touch controls" menu itself?

Yes, indeed. I assume that an animation would work best to demonstrate how things work, but some text would probably also do it.

Thinking about touch controls: What's also really missing (I think) is a virtual joystick (as used in other tablet games) that you can touch and then direct into any (or any of eight) directions. The main disadvantages of the virtual buttons are (in my opinion) that you cannot really do diagonal direction input, and that you can too easily miss the buttons (by moving the finger too far into any of the directions you want the player to move to, resulting in no movement at all). Both problems would work much better with a virtual joystick.

One day I will add this...