Controls

Welcome back to the Beige Designer! This week I'll be talking about controls.

This subject came to mind when I saw a game recently on the iPad that had a virtual analog stick and buttons. I know this isn't a bad thing, but I feel that it's a waste to develop a game where you don't take advantage of the technology of touch devices. The hardware should compliment the game and vice versa. Take a look at some popular games on touch devices such as Fruit Ninja, Angry Birds, Clash of Clans, Tiny Tower and Cut the Rope. One of the reasons they're popular, is because their controls are the same as how people operate touch devices in the first place - through tapping and swiping using their index fingers.

Now with that said however, remember that there are some game genres that doesn't work too well with some control schemes. For example, real-time strategy games is best controlled using a mouse and keyboard while fighting games are better suited on console controllers or a joystick and buttons. Of course, I'm not saying that these genres should only belong to a certain control scheme, but to develop a real-time srategy game for the console, for example, is very tricky to pull off correctly.

Of course, what you could do is design a controller best suited for your game like Nintendo did with their Nintendo 64 controller which was designed around Super Mario 64. At the time of the game's development, Nintendo needed to design a controller that allowed players to accurately control a character in a 3D environment. Thus, they decided to add an analogue stick to their controller. But anyway, let's move on.

Next, I'm going to side step a little and talk about how to properly assign actions to your controls. Now obviously, this varies since there are different types of controls, mechanics and game genres, so I'll try to just give a couple of advices.

First, your controls must be simple and natural enough that it becomes second nature for the player. The moment they need to remind themselves which button does what, or they accidentally press a button they didn't mean to, is the moment their immersion becomes broken. For example, in DotA (a popular Warcraft III mod) you control a hero with around four skills that you can activate by pressing certain keys on the keyboard (i.e. hotkeys). However, the location for these keys are different for most of the heroes. Now this could be a technical limitation but it is an example of non-immersive controls. This is why in DotA 2, they assigned the first, second, third and fourth skills onto Q, W, E and R, respectively. Any extra skills a hero had were implemented on keys near the original four keys such as D.

Second, if you have actions which can be combined with other actions, ensure that these can be easily pressed together with ease. Sometimes, it is best to separate them onto different fingers. Although our fingers are long enough that we can press two buttons simultaneously with the same finger, depending on the game, this can be uncomfortable and non-intuitive. For example, if you're designing a first-person shooter game where you move with the left analogue stick using your left thumb and look around with the right analogue stick using your right thumb, you wouldn't put the shoot action on one of the four buttons on the right hand side of the controller. Why? Because you'll need to be able to shoot while moving or looking around and since your left and right thumbs are already occupied with them, respectively, let one of your other fingers do the shooting.

I'll give you an example for the above. In Resident Evil 6 on the Playstation 3, the player is taught that if you move the left analogue stick while holding down the X-button, your character will dash (see image below and I apologize for the size). This is bad design in my opinion simply because your right thumb is already required to move the right analogue stick which moves the camera which affects the direction you're moving towards. Now I guess this would be fine if the game doesn't involve you changing directions while dashing. But there are a few events that requires you to do so. One such event requires the player to dash across a non-linear harbour while a helicopter launches missiles at you (which can result in you dying if you're not fast enough).

Resident Evil 6 - First time you're taught how to Dash (Leon)

Luckily, I didn't have to bother with holding down the X-button as I found out in the beginning that you can simply click the left analogue stick while moving it to make your character dash. But I only figured this out because this is what past shooter games that I've played did. However, with that said, don't think that that dashing by clicking the left analogue stick is the best way. I personally prefer assigning the left bumper as my dash button when possible.

Well, I think that's enough for this week's topic. I've posted links below to some interesting reads about video game controls. Enjoy and see you next week!

[Links]

20 Unusual Control Schemes
History of the Game Controller
Evolution of Game Controllers
Video Game Controller Chart