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Recommended key bindings

A topic by David Durham created Sep 14, 2023 Views: 366 Replies: 8
Viewing posts 1 to 6
Submitted (1 edit)

Hello,

I was wondering if anybody had any recommendations for good keys to use for the different buttons - particularly for the Start and Select buttons.

Are there any conventions or things people might expect?

(+1)

Personally I like to use arrow keys for movement, z and x for the A and B buttons. Enter for start, shift for select

Jam HostSubmitted(+1)

I agree with this 95%, except I prefer X & C over Z & X. This is because I've had people mention to me that X & C is better for the relatively common AZERTY layout (which would obviously put Z up on the top row. X & C stay where they are, however.)

That's fair! They are pretty close, so it's not far off. I just find many games like to use z and x (especially pico-8, tic80 fantasy consoles, etc), so they are always the first two buttons I try when playing a game.

Submitted(+1)

Thanks for the responses. 

I also see that some GB emulators use Enter for Start and Backspace for Select - which is another idea.

(To be clear,  I'm not saying I would make a game that runs on an emulator, just that those controls work for a certain community of GB gamers.)

Submitted (1 edit)

I was thinking of this earlier today. I came up with WASD and numeric keypad  - + for A B, / for select, * for start.

Then there is the possibility holding the keyboard and playing only with thumbs :-D

I love cursor keys for DOS games, but Gameboy has the d-pad to the left...
So when using cursor keys, the other buttons must be placed to the right. There is only the numeric keypad as option, or am I seeing it wrong?

Granted, not suitable for laptops...

(+1)

I normally include 2 common keybinds + gamepad support:

Arrows + Z + X
WASD + J + K

(The way I implement WASD works fine for non-query keyboards too)

Submitted

Maybe make it mappable?  I tried a few of the past games and had a very hard time with the keys they chose so the games were hard to play.  :(  

Only issue with making it mappable is that it takes away from time spent on making your game and you'd likely need to do it in the limited pixels.

(+1)

It's definitely something to keep in mind. For optional stuff like that I'd wait until the game is finished, and if you have time then add it in. It's worth having binding options if you can fit it in.