Request Touch Controls for Steam version of Pinball Arcade

[kurst]

I couldn't find it mentioned anywhere but does anyone know if there any plans for touch controls for Pinball Arcade on steam?

I have try running Pinball Arcade on my Dell Venue 8 Pro tablet while it looks "right" it doesn't have the touch controls.

I'm hoping it's in there plans because for me if FarSight could get the touch controls in windows it would be the portable version I would be playing.

 

[PC.Doctor]

I do not think FS has any intentions of doing what you request. If they did, they would announce it in one of their newsletters (monthly).

What kind of a PC do you have? I assume that your monitor has a touch-screen judging from your comment.

 

[Mike Reitmeyer]

We were able to get touch controls to work. Unfortunately, the DLL it requires isn't supported on Win XP. If I released the build with that in, Win XP users could no longer play at all. I haven't had time to work on a fix for that. So for now its disabled.

 

[kurst]

I do not think FS has any intentions of doing what you request. If they did, they would announce it in one of their newsletters (monthly).

What kind of a PC do you have? I assume that your monitor has a touch-screen judging from your comment.

My work machine is a Samsung Slate 7 running windows 8. Because of my work I am also caring around a Dell Venue 8 Pro both are multi touch devices.

Both those work with multitouch on some steam games.

 

[kurst]

We were able to get touch controls to work. Unfortunately, the DLL it requires isn't supported on Win XP. If I released the build with that in, Win XP users could no longer play at all. I haven't had time to work on a fix for that. So for now its disabled.

Cool that you worked on it. And I totally understand why it's disabled for now. I totally know that FarSight studios do have limited resources.

Just know that this person will be ecstatic when you have a chance to get it all working.

Thanks for the reply!

 

[Eric Qel-Droma]

I'd like to add my voice to this. I have a small Windows tablet and I can't use it to play TPA. Everytime I pick it up, I die a little inside because a PC without TPA is like a night without stars. (choke! sob!)

Seriously, if a fix can be figured out, the five of us out there with Windows tablets would really appreciate it.

 

[Alex Atkin UK]

Is there some way to release it as a beta?

Its such a shame that TPA runs excellent on Windows tablets but you HAVE to use a keyboard/controller.

 

[mpad]

Stop! There's no time for this. Let em finish dx11 lighting and camera angles and external dmd first, or we will never see anything besides new tables in an obsolete game environment.

 

[Dinre]

We were able to get touch controls to work. Unfortunately, the DLL it requires isn't supported on Win XP. If I released the build with that in, Win XP users could no longer play at all. I haven't had time to work on a fix for that. So for now its disabled.

Is there some way to release it as a beta?

I was thinking the same thing; Steam already has a beta mechanism. End-users who want to install the touch-enabled version would have to manually opt-in by using the beta participation section in the Steam settings.

I'll be honest here... I'm in the minority with a Surface Pro 2, but it's touchscreen and portrait mode that would make my Surface complete. Right now, I play on my gaming rig with a Dualshock 3, but I love the feeling of leaning over my screen the way that I *could* with FX2. But I don't want to play FX2. I want my Pinball Arcade, and I WILL NOT SETTLE FOR ANYTHING LESS!

Make this a reality and I will buy a season pass.

 

[Alex Atkin UK]

Stop! There's no time for this. Let em finish dx11 lighting and camera angles and external dmd first, or we will never see anything besides new tables in an obsolete game environment.

That's a very selfish attitude. For anyone with an x86 tablet this is literally the difference between being able to play "on the go" or not, hardly a minor feature.

Also as its ALREADY been coded, its not taking anything away from developing the other features.

I currently play on my tablet using a Duo Pinball. Adding touch controls would mean I could finally use nudge functionality and make using the on-screen plunger more reliable. (as I cannot support the analog plunger on the Duo Pinball as it would need a custom gamepad driver not the simple keyboard emulation I am using now)

 

[mpad]

Yeah I was kind of joking. Sorry fot my bad sense of humor. Mike already said that touch is on the way, so you might get lucky soon.

 

[Dinre]

Now that GestureWorks Gameplay has launched on Steam, my question is this: Will we get awesome touch support in the near future, or do I give my money to GestureWorks instead of putting that money towards a season pass...?

 

[Hinph]

GestureWorks looks like it will do what we need it to do until Farsight can get touch running natively, yeah? Sweet. I'm buying a Surface Pro 3 tomorrow and I'm definitely looking forward to playing Pinball Arcade on it with PC visuals.

 

[Dinre]

Well I went and bought GestureWorks Gameplay and uploaded a simple control setup to get people started. Then, FarSight went and discounted the launch pack to 0.01 USD, so I got the best of both worlds for now.

GestureWorks + Surface Pro 2 is what I'm using. If I rotate the tablet into portrait mode and then run the TBA config tool, I get the whole experience in portrait mode, complete with controls. It's fiddly to set up initially, but now everything works pretty well.

Now excuse me while I go try to become competent on Black Hole. Man, that table is unforgiving...

P.S. If anyone wants help learning GestureWorks or wants me to create a new control setup, just let me know.

 

[Alex Atkin UK]

What graphical settings/resolution are you running at?

I was wondering if the Surface Pro 2 could handle 1920x1080 with ball reflections on?

 

[Dinre]

I'm running at 1080x1920 (portrait) with ball reflections on and everything else off. The game runs butter smooth on this Surface Pro 2. I might be able to turn on aliasing and other improvements, but with a 10" screen, I'm dubious about whether or not I'll see a difference.

 

[Alex Atkin UK]

Good to know, thanks.

 

[_gl]

[MENTION=132]Mike Reitmeyer[/MENTION], you can use delay-loaded DLLs for that DLL, then the app will run anywhere, and you just detect at runtime if the DLL is available.

re. Gestureworks, what's the latency like? I was about to code my own little touch2key app for PA for my new Win8.1 Pro tablet, but if GW is responsive enough it's money well spent.

 

[Alex Atkin UK]

The touch control is being enabled for the DX11 build as that won't run on XP anyway. So not really much point in looking into alternatives any more.

I just hope DX11 doesn't break compatibility with low-end tablets as it would kill the whole point, lol. I'm hoping it will actually run slightly better.