Arcade Berg aka. "Learning Game Design with Arcade Berg"

Just a random controller?

This is a repost of a post by me from AboutGameDesign.com on the Topic:

Designing Controller Input

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It's fantastic how well the N64-controller suited Mario 64 and Zelda: Ocarina of Time. And the triggers on the 360-controller works really well for shooting in FPS and for stepping on the gas driving games.

It's by no means a coincidence and you can always look at a controller and see how it's meant to be used.

But what if that wasn't the case?

A while back I was at the release party for Dark Nebula for the iPhone and I and its designer (Anders Hejdenberg) started discussing what would happen if you gave the developers a seemingly random controller to work with.

I can't imagine how much research and surveys there's behind each and every controller Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo release on the market. There's a thought behind each button and stick, of course.

"This would be great for this kind of input. These will be great when using both sticks. Let's make this one analogue." etc. etc.

Even with the Wii Remote there's just as much "this is how it's thought to work", especially with the Nun-chuck add-on.

And some games even bring their own hardware along, like the recent Tony Hawk Ride which seems to be an utter failure. We also have my personal favorite, even though I unfortunately haven't played it. Steel Battalion with their huge kick-ass controllers.

Tony Hawk Ride's board thingy

Seriously, how can one not want to play around with equipment taking up your entire table?

User friendliness is overrated!

Anyway, my point is that there's always a plan of how the hardware is to be used. A convention most developers abide by and make games that fit that grand scheme. Most FPS are controlled the same. Most Driving games are controlled the same, and so on.

But as mentioned, what if you gave the developers a seemingly random input device? Imagine a sphere with buttons all over? Or just a lump of clay which the computer can use to determine the pressure and current form. Wouldn't that be awesome? But what would happen? Would we start getting new kinds of games or just new ways of mapping "old" ones?

Personally, I have no idea. But I'd love to see it happen.

Clay 360