Arcade (action) games with keyboard controls

[ChaosLord]

Mousetrap!

p.s. Buy a joystick. :razz:

[ChaosLord]

True. I don't know why it was so hard to map the keyboard controls in addition to joystick ones. After doing the heavy coding for engine, AI, graphics and sound, those keyboard controls seem like a 5 min work.

The gamecoders u r speaking of refused to use the OS.

This crippled their ability to use the keyboard.

They also did not understand that there are 13 different QWERTY keyboard layouts.

When a French guy bangs the keyboard he gets different keycodes for the same keys than a German or American gets. etc.  A lot of keycodes are identical but 1 or 2 or 3 have moved position.

This is why so many games that have keyboard controls didn't work like the instruction manual said.  If the game used one of those special keys that is in a different location then the game would not appear to work.  Though it would work if you just pressed every key on the keyboard to work out what key it was expecting.

When using the Awesome AmigaOS it will take care of all the remappings for you so can concentrate on your game.

[ChaosLord]

I think back in those days everyone just assumed that all QWERTY keyboards were the same.  There was no internet.

Back then I just assumed that all keyboards had the same keys in the same place.

I have no idea why France and Germany each moved letters around.  They each use the same letters, they just randomly swapped some keys around.  Who decides this stuff?  It makes keyboards cost a lot more money than they should.

[ChaosLord]

Magyarian has a lot of Zs too.  I wonder if they use QWERTZ?

[ChaosLord]

This makes me wonder...

How come Commodore and software developers didn't get smart by the post 8-bit era and start designing sticks and games with at least 2 buttons in mind?

I having to play games like Myth and have to keep reaching down to press the Space Bar to do things.

Grrrr!!!

The mouse came with 2 buttons.  That was good.

But the OS and mouse hardware fully supported 3 buttons.  So why didn't they use it?!?

I support all 3 mousebuttons in my games (and keyboard controls too, u can play 99% of the game with keyboard only.)

Anywayz, there were dozens of action games that did, in fact, support 2 button joysticks.  I wish Turrican would have done so.  Do any WHDLoad versions of games add 2 button support to Turrican 1 and Turrican 2?

[ChaosLord]

@Lord_AGA
Don't ever throw ur sick A600 away.  u can always donate to someone else for spare parts.

In particular Commodore keycaps are normally made using expensive state-of-the-art technology and will last a good solid 200 years longer than the keycaps you get on a so-called "modern" PC computer.

[ChaosLord]

Hungarian = Magyar

I dream of a world where we all use COLEMAK layout.

[ChaosLord]

Colemak is designed so that the most frequent letters are the easiest to type.

And it leaves several letters right where they have always been in QWERTY so its way easier to learn than Dvorak.  Dvorak completely rearranges everything.

Colemak is friendly because it leaves zxcv where they have always been so that your cut/copy/paste shortcuts still work as always.

If u r one of those ppl looking to increase typing speed and avoid RSI, Tendonitis, Carpal Tunnel Syndrome etc. then it is great and a lot of ppl use it.

More and more keyboards are coming out that have built in support for Colemak that way u can use Colemak even on some weird computer that does not let you adjust your keyboard layout.

I'm in tooooo much pain to learn a new layout.  But if I was going to learn a new layout I would NOT do Dvorak.  I would use Colemak.

[ChaosLord]

IMHO, the solution isn't a new layout but a new typing technique.

The solution is to use a proper keyboard.  That is 10000x more important than the layout.

But no keyboard company on Earth wants to make a proper keyboard.  Their attitude is to screw over the customer as much as possible.  It is totally ridiculous the level of corruption in the keyboard industry.  Its like the camera industry.

[ChaosLord]

But what's a proper keyboard? Examples please!

A proper keyboard is one with a nice long spring.  So that you never have to smash a piece of hard plastic into another piece of hard plastic or into a steel plate ever.

There is no excuse for requiring impacts on your nerves and tendons just to type.  There is no reason for it!

You should just press down on a spring 2mm to trigger the keypress then allow another 10mm of travel.  As the spring compresses it will resist more and more and give you plenty of help to stop and plenty of time to stop.  And no impacts!

Impact typing is why there is such a rash of ppl with hand problems these days.

If you abuse your hands all day long, day after day, year after year, eventually you will ruin your hands.