Android gaming is a pretty big deal, to put it bluntly. There are an absolute ton of games available on the Google Play Store, obviously, with everything ranging from match-three puzzle games, RPGs, first-person shooters, sandbox games, simulations, platformers… if you can imagine it, there's probably some variation of it available for Android.
And despite being a legal gray area, emulation and retro game ROMs are also pretty common in the Android community. So when Motorola and Lenovo released a game controller Moto Mod, many people gave the Moto Z line of phones a serious look for their gaming needs. But despite being a cool idea, it never truly caught fire. That didn't stop me from scooping one up on a Christmas deal (Moto Z3 Play and Moto Mod Gamepad) and doing a little hard-modding to build a nifty Android gaming experience.
Moto Mod Gamepad first impressions
On its own, the Moto Mod Gamepad is, well, okay. You drop your Moto Z phone into the controller, and they share battery and data. You can navigate your entire phone with the buttons and joysticks on the Mod, but most importantly, you can play games without needing your touch screen.
In my experience, though, actually using it wasn't the most comfortable thing in the world. It's kind of thin and there's just nothing to actually hold onto, which is a problem I also have with the Nintendo Switch. I picked up a cheap plastic handle case for the Switch that puts some grips on the sides, and that made Nintendo's little game console infinitely more comfortable to play, so why not do something similar to this Moto Mod?
That's where this weird idea was born. I used Nintendo Switch accessories for it, too.
At first I thought about just buying something off of Amazon that put grips on the sides of phones and just attaching that to the edges of the Moto Mod Gamepad. It was an okay idea, but most of those are really designed around extra triggers and bumpers that tap the touch screen. Since the controller already had all the buttons I'd need, that wasn't really a great option. They also typically don't stretch out far enough to fit how wide the Moto Mod is, so it wouldn't work, anyway.
But something like an iPad might make sense, right? So I checked out some grips for bigger devices, like Apple's iPad, and the sizing made more sense, but I still had the issue with extra buttons and things getting in the way. These probably would have worked, but not without some annoying compromises.
Okay, so everything on Amazon is a no go. I could write up how I also checked other websites and Etsy and eBay and whatever else, but the tl;dr is that I decided to put something together myself instead of buying something premade.
The grips of Nintendo's default JoyCon grip that comes with the Nintendo Switch actually seemed liked it'd make sense. It's the little controller shell that you drop the JoyCons into to create a single, bigger controller. But of course there's a bunch of extra plastic and connectors in the middle that don't come apart, so a Moto Mod Gamepad isn't going to fit in there.
Adding grips to the Moto Mod Gamepad
So what's the solution? Took a dremel to it, and literally sawed the plastic in half.
Sounds crazy, but it did work. It was a little rough around the edges, but a small amount of sanding made it decent and ready to get attached.
With the middle piece out of the way, I took the two grip pieces, and stuck them to the sides of the Moto Mod. This part honestly ended up being pretty janky, and I'm sure someone a little more mechanically engineered than me and my dad on a Saturday afternoon probably could've done a better job, but using some plastic epoxy solution got the zombie JoyCon grips very effectively glued to the side of the controller. And voila, check out this brand new portable gaming device.
It took about 24 hours to fully set, and it smelled like burnt plastic the whole time, but those edges are 100% stuck on the Moto Mod and not coming off. A solution like fingernail polish remove might be enough to detach them, but the point is that they're stuck together well enough to handle being played and moved around. Barring any crazy crash to the floor, it's not going to break. And a fall that could detach these is probably going to destroy more than just my homemade grips.
Was all of this worth the effort? Honestly, yeah. It transformed the experience from “oh, this is kind of cool” to “I literally want to replay a library of games with this thing.” The buttons are still just okay, and the bumpers and shoulder buttons could stand to be a little better, but the simple act of slapping some grips on the side made this Moto Mod 10x better.
Playing Donkey Kong Country in RetroArch didn't cramp my hands up after 15 minutes. Racing games and gryoscopic steering felt significantly more natural. Blasting off zombie heads in Dead Trigger rivaled a mini home console experience, instead of just feeling like a cheap knockoff arcade game. And the Moto Z3 Play's spacious screen legitimately makes this whole setup feel like the Nintendo Switch's little sibling, although without the library of heavy hitters.
But if you're into emulation, you've got a very capable Android device that can handle quite a few retro (and semi-modern) gaming systems, and playing things that rely on triggers and analog sticks was totally fine. You could argue that you'd have a better experience getting a controller clip and an Xbox One controller, and yeah, sure, that's a good argument. But it's not as sleek and integrated as this is, and even if I had to do a little unofficial, warranty-voiding modding myself, this is probably one of my favorite phone accessories that I've ever owned.
I'm not saying you should go out and do this yourself, but it's not a bad Saturday project.
Got any cool phone hardware mods you've done on your own? Drop a comment and let us know!
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