Would love feedback on this control scheme

http://www.kurie.us/Games/PrototypeB/

I'm starting work on a new game. One of the many design decisions I am figuring out is the control scheme. I'm weighing the idea of a twin joystick design for a side scrolling shooter. I threw together a quick prototype game today. I'd love some feedback on the control scheme. It built around the game pad with fallback controls to the keyboard/mouse.

Just tried it with a gamepad. Works good but I would include it to fire on the A button and offer the left pad for direction as alternate control options. But that's just me. Offering both let's the player choose.

It's a bit hard to play with a gamepad because of the 8-directional movement. A lot of time I want to go left but the game register it as up-left because I angle the stick just a little bit to much up. It would be nice if the control allowed you to move in any angle instead of locking you to 45 degrees interval.

Tried with mouse and keyboard, since it's all I have here. Seems like fairly standard twin stick shooter fare, but the movement of the ship seems lacking a little - there's no inertia, it just stops and goes which feels a little weird (or perhaps it's a little slow for such direct controls).

Also, this has nothing to do with the controls, but top-down graphics on a sideways scroller just feel REALLY weird.

I tried it with the gamepad and it feels completely natural to me.

I really appreciate the feedback. I've got some things to consider. This game is a test run for some things. The feedback is immensely useful though and gave more more things to consider then I thought.

Hey mepis,

Looking good. Just gave it a quick try, the control scheme was alright (keyboard + mouse). I have to agree with Somebody through on the top down side scrolling. It would feel nicer if it was all side view.

That helps a lot! This is only a concept demo for a different game on working on. I was planning on using top-down graphics for that game as well though. I know to take a different route with that now.

With keyboard it is terrible. Return for start. Space to shoot instead of mouseclick?

You should overwork your player design. Something with turret like my hovertank.

[attachment=0:2zq98x1p][/attachment:2zq98x1p]

Background scrolling is to fast.

JamesXXXYZ I agree. The mouse button would have been a better choice but I built this prototype on my laptop. The mouse buttons is more difficult to press and move the mouse pointer. I only built this to test the mechanic and see how it feels. It's a test for another game I'm designing. I'm trying a few different mechanics and wanted to get some feedback on the appeal of the twin stick control scheme. So far everyone has given me really valuable input and I really appreciate it.

Hi mepis! I liked what you had so far but, as eliasfrost said, the 8-direction movement threw me off.

For the gamepad, I was recently given a solution to get the actual angle of the thumbstick. I used the expression for rotation, but it should work for moving at a specific angle too.

All props go to linkman2004 who came up with it.

angle(0, 0, Gamepad.Axis(0, 0), Gamepad.Axis(0, 1))[/code:2z5huxo1]
That will grab the current angle of the stick, so maybe it'll work better than using 8-direction.
I hope that helps!

the movements are really fluids keep up the good work.

ryanrybot Thanks for the suggestion. I'll play around with it and try it. The deadspot zone for the 8 way movement can be adjusted too to eliminate that floatiness.

It's a double edged sword. The 8 way movement makes creating multiple control schemes easy and the game 'feels' the same switching back and forth. But better granular control is always a plus to. Either way, I'll have to play with it and see. Maybe I'll have to make another 2 hour game demo and try the controls your way and see how it feels.

I found an example capx, left stick move and right 360° aiming

thx GeometriX