(NOTICE! This topic is a repost of the thread What about gaming controllers?. It was made three years ago on an old account of mine, and it was posted in Developing Scratch Extensions instead of Suggestions, so it wasn't getting the amount of exposure that other suggestions get. Also, the thread was made by 10-year-old me, so it needed improvements. The thread is now closed, and discussion has been redirected to this topic. Thank you for understanding.)


- the suggestion -
I believe that support for video game controllers (Examples include the XBox controller, DualShock, et cetera) should be added to Scratch as an extension. Some games are better played with a controller, and I would really like to see this be added into Scratch.

- solution 1: blocks -

<button [start v] pressed?::pen>//returns true if said button is currently pressed
([left v] stick [direction v]::pen)//returns the direction or strength that said stick is being tilted

- solution 2: substitution -
If a controller is currently plugged in, a menu could show under the project showing a diagram with a controller. The user could then set different buttons on the controller to act like certain keys.

- problems -
If Solution 1 is implemented, people might make “Controller-Only” projects, requiring people to own a controller (which nowadays usually cost upward of $50 USD). However, there could be something like Solution 2 added to this: a menu letting you bind keys to buttons on a controller.

- expanding on solution 1 -
Of course, not all controllers are the same. Some of them have different buttons than others. Because of this, generic easily-recognizable names would be used for buttons. I've made a diagram of theoretical names for all the buttons:


- thoughts? -

SquirreIstar wrote:

Duplicate.
Did I just “duplicate” my own topic?

um okay

To keep the conversation focused in one place, I'll be closing this topic now. Feel free to continue the discussion in the link provided above.