While touchscreen tablets such as the iPad have proven themselves to be extremely popular gaming devices, games that require a directional input suffer from difficult to use and easy to lose track of onscreen touch control pads. The JOYSTICK-IT iPad Arcade Stick is a simple accessory that solves this problem by sticking over the top of the onscreen control pad to provide a physical joystick when needed.

Featuring solid milled-aluminum construction, the JOYSTICK-IT from ThinkGeek doesn’t require any wires or batteries. The device itself has no moving parts with a spherical surface on the bottom of the device allowing the joystick to be rolled around which causes the outer edge of the base to contact the screen and register input on any capacitive touchscreen. Although the JOYSTICK-IT sticks to the screen, it is easily removable and repositionable.

Although ThinkGeek says the JOYSTICK-IT will work with any device with a capacitive touchscreen, its size will make it less than ideal for mobile phones, but it looks just the thing for adding some extra precision to tablet-based gaming.

The JOYSTICK-IT costs US$24.99 (although at the time of publication it was out of stock).