Touchgrind BMX 2+ Pedals Onto Apple Arcade With Its Two-Finger Stunt System

Touchgrind BMX 2+ joins Apple Arcade today, bringing Illusion Labs' touchscreen BMX stunt game into the subscription catalogue. Its defining idea remains wonderfully suited to mobile hardware: rather than covering the screen with a miniature imitation of a console controller, the game treats two fingers as the rider's hands and asks players to manipulate the bike directly. Tricks therefore emerge from gestures, timing and physics rather than memorising which translucent virtual button represents an ankle.

The + edition arrives without advertising or in-app purchases as part of Apple Arcade, making it a cleaner proposition for players who previously encountered the standard free-to-play version. Touchgrind's control philosophy is also a useful reminder that mobile games are often most convincing when they stop apologising for touchscreens and design around them.

Phones can now run enormous console ports, but there is still something satisfying about a game whose interface would actually become worse if somebody bolted sixteen physical buttons onto it. Expect elaborate flips, painful virtual landings and the inevitable moment when a trick performed accidentally looks substantially better than everything attempted deliberately during the previous hour.