What Way Is It Meant To Be Played?

TL;DR

This paper discusses the design of input mappings for game controllers, proposing formats and methods to ensure compatibility and usability between hardware inputs and game software actions.

Contribution

It introduces simple formats and transformation methods for mapping controller inputs to game actions, addressing compatibility constraints.

Findings

Proposed formats for input mappings

Methods to transform and verify constraints

Ensured compatibility between controllers and games

Abstract

The most commonly used interface between a video game and the human user is a handheld "game controller", "game pad", or in some occasions an "arcade stick." Directional pads, analog sticks and buttons - both digital and analog - are linked to in-game actions. One or multiple simultaneous inputs may be necessary to communicate the intentions of the user. Activating controls may be more or less convenient depending on their position and size. In order to enable the user to perform all inputs which are necessary during gameplay, it is thus imperative to find a mapping between in-game actions and buttons, analog sticks, and so on. We present simple formats for such mappings as well as for the constraints on possible inputs which are either determined by a physical game controller or required to be met for a game software, along with methods to transform said constraints via a button-action mapping and to check one constraint set against another, i.e., to check whether a button-action mapping allows a controller to be used in conjunction with a game software, while preserving all desired properties.