Should I Have M&K Support (During The Prototype Phase) For A Controller-Based Game?

Kind of a counterpart to the other thread in this subforum. I have a game I've been working a bit on. It's a third-person action/platformer, like the older 3D Sonic the Hedgehog games. For the moment I'm planning some stuff that really works best on a controller, like defining in-air movement based on IF and WHERE the player is pushing an analog stick . The normal keyboard equivalent is WASD, which only has 8 possible directions--far less than an analog stick, and some of the stuff I'm doing needs to be really precise (you have a homing attack, and the enemy you go towards is based on where you point the analog stick). I intend to have proper M&K support eventually, but right now I'm most interested in getting the controller-based controls optimized.

I was thinking about putting it up for a Feedback Friday sometime, but I'm not sure if it's fair to say there "you need to play this game with a controller." What do you guys think? Should I work on getting M&K stuff in before I put it up there?

 

Is it ever heading to Steam? Best to get the mouse and keyboard controls ready early, because there are people who will complain about it missing even if it's the worst option

 

It's a long, long, long ways off from anything like that. As I mentioned I'm still just prototyping movement. I feel like I want to focus on controller-based movement for now, but if I put it in a Feedback Friday thread can I really say something like "play this with a controller before giving me your feedback"?

 

Is it, like, early alpha or pre-alpha? You can probably get away with nearly anything at that point.

 

I think Feedback Friday is the only place where it's ok to say "you need a controller for this". Worst case you'll get no feedback, no real harm done.
But for your design, you'll want to find out asap if it can be played properly with mouse and keyboard, because on PC people expect support for that, and second rate support for it won't do it either. Only on consoles can you rely on people actually using a gamepad. But if you think you can make something that'd get accepted on a console store, why not? Just be aware it might be a more high-risk strategy because they still curate more aggressively than steam.

 

I usually set up controller support as one of the first things I do. but then again, its fairly important imho.
but when its set up, I can ignore if for the rest of the game unless I want to test controller functionality with new jumping physics or whatever.
so... yes, I would. for peace of mind that its compatible whenever I need it, and peace of mind that its officially part of the game(as I feel my games need)

whats that old infomercial where he trained the audience to keep saying "set it and forget it"?

 

Controls and camera are my first priorities too. Get them out of the way so you never have to think about it again. The trick is to not be lazy and hardcode the keys.

 

Literally nothing but a cube on an open plain, with some "enemies" that are moving spheres who can spawn "bullets." But I have animation curves for movement and jumps, and as implied I plan for some in-air stuff too, so nailing those things are what I'm focused on right now.

True. If I remember correctly the standard Unity inputs can be changed to different keys (in the launcher, which tells me it's possible somehow in code, though I'll have to look that up), so that shouldn't be a problem.

 

The built-in stuff doesn't have direct ways to change in-game. It's best to use some other solution, or the new input system if you dare (it's experimental, pre-beta). The new system gives you frame rate-independent input handling though, which can be quite a boon to action games.

 

Thanks for the info. I'll look into the new system. I doubt I'll have anything meaningful for quite a while, so hopefully it'll be available by then.

 

My thoughts....a PC game should support mouse and keyboard first, as those are the only (basically) guaranteed inputs you will have available. I also think you should also always support any and all game controllers you can, and allow things to be custom configured to the taste of the player on any of those devices. The only exceptions might be with certain games not supporting gamepads...like your typical RTS, which is really unwieldy using a gamepad(though possible). FPS games might also be an exception unless you like lots of auto-aim.