Controllers

You can play an nxnative game with on-screen touch controls or with a game controller, and games that use the Switch's motion sensors can read a controller's gyro or the iPhone's own. This page sums up nxnative's playing documentation.

Your own keys and games only. These controls apply to apps you packed yourself from games you own.

Touch controls

On an iPhone or iPad, the game starts with a touch gamepad drawn over the picture. It has two layouts:

2D, a simpler layout for 2D games.
3D, a fuller layout for 3D games.

Tap 2D or 3D at the top of the screen to switch; the app remembers your choice. Each game starts in the layout nxnative chose for it. Super Mario Bros. Wonder, Celeste and Cuphead, for example, start in 2D; most 3D games start in 3D.

In the 3D layout the right stick, which moves the camera in most games, is not drawn. Instead, swipe on the right third of the screen, starting anywhere that is not a button.

Some games use touches outside the controls for their own purposes. In Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Galaxy 2 they move the pointer. In Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker and Big Brain Academy: Brain vs. Brain they touch the game's screen, as on the Switch. A few games, such as Balatro, are played by touch alone.

Touch feedback on the settings screen gives a light tap when you press an on-screen button. See Settings.

Game controllers

Connect a game controller and the touch controls disappear; every button stays available on the controller. Buttons are mapped by their position on the controller, except on a Nintendo controller (a Switch Pro Controller or Joy-Con), whose face buttons are mapped by their labels.

Each controller is a player of its own, for local co-op: the first one connected is player 1, the next player 2, and so on up to 8. A one-player game treats every controller as player 1. A controller that disconnects gets its player back when it reconnects.

On the Mac the same applies: a Mac app accepts connected game controllers.

Rumble

The game's vibration plays through the iPhone's haptic engine or a compatible connected controller. Controllers with separate left and right motors keep the two sides separate. On the settings screen, Game rumble, Rumble strength and Rumble cutoff control it. nxnative notes that phone rumble only approximates the Switch's effects.

Motion controls

Games that read motion, such as aiming in Breath of the Wild with its motion controls turned on, can use:

A controller with a gyro that supports Apple's game controller framework, such as a DualSense or DualShock 4, on the iPhone and on the Mac.
The iPhone's own gyro, for controllers without one, such as the Backbone One, Razer Kishi and other controllers the phone sits in. It behaves like a Switch held in handheld mode.

At the time of writing, nxnative says gyro from a Switch Pro Controller on the Mac still needs support that is being developed.

Shaking

Shake the iPhone to shake the controller, in games that read it. Super Mario Odyssey's motion moves, such as throwing the cap with a shake, need it, and Odyssey only takes them in its default docked mode. A light bump does not count; a sharp flick does.

Turning motion off

If motion misbehaves, add a line to the app's Documents/env.txt (in the Files app, under the app's name):

DM_PHONE_MOTION=0 stops only the phone's gyro.
DM_MOTION=0 turns off all motion.

You can also pack the game with --no-motion for an app without motion; DM_MOTION=1 in env.txt turns it back on later. More on the file: Settings.