Code of the Ninja: Joy to the World

If you haven't already, read the Code of the Ninja: Introduction

Welcome to your first lesson, my esteemed Code Ninjas in training! You have come here seeking knowledge of the Code in order to create your own video games. This is a worthy goal. It is my hope that I can teach you valuable lessons that will allow you to fulfill your dreams more quickly and capably. Armed with the secrets I shall reveal, you will be able to make your game engines more professional and - dare I say it - more fun. I do not mean to illude you - in no way can I make the path you have chosen easy. Game design is hard work. But I can make it easier.

Today's tutorial is about handling the player's input. Almost everyone playing your game will have a keyboard, but the keyboard is not the ideal input device for classic games of the type we want to make. Mario, Sonic, Metroid, Zelda, Final Fantasy, Klonoa - all these games are designed for joypads. So, ideally, for players who have access to PC compatible joypads, they should have the choice to use either their joypads or keyboards.

But it can be somewhat tricky to programme your game to either query both, or decide which one to query depending on the player's choice. Furthermore, Game Maker doesn't natively have very complete joypad functions.

These things are what I aim to teach you to overcome.

First, create a new object. We'll call it Joypad. It should be set to persistent, so that it is always present, even when the player moves between rooms. It shouldn't be visible, or have a sprite. Then you should place an instance of Joypad in your initial room, the one that your game starts in.

Make a script - we'll call it joy_init, and put it in the create event of Joypad.

Let's start writing joy_init:

joy_init()

globalvar JoyCurrent, JoyPrevious, JoyPast, Key, Joy, AnalogCount, AnalogDeadzone;

AnalogCount = joystick_axes(1) div 2;
AnalogDeadzone = 0.25;

What we're doing here is setting up a few global variables that can be referenced easily by every object in your game. The variable AnalogCount is set to the number of analog sticks the player's joypad has. We determine this by returning the number of axes and dividing by 2. Then we set up the variable AnalogDeadzone. A dead zone is essential when an analog stick is concerned. Neutral is 0, full on is 1. But due to the sensitivity of most controllers, the stick is never exactly at neutral, but fluctuates around .1 or even .2. A lot of driver software lets people set up dead zones for their joypads automatically, but we can't always bet on that. It's better to have your game take them into account. You can supply any value you think is reasonable (I've used .25 here), but it's even better if you include some option for the player to adjust the dead zone values manually - perhaps even independently for each stick.

Next, we add this to joy_init:

joy_init()

Joy[0]=3;
Key[0]=97;
Joy[1]=10;
Key[1]=13;
Joy[2]=13;
Key[2]=38;
Joy[3]=15;
Key[3]=40;
Joy[4]=16;
Key[4]=37;
Joy[5]=14;
Key[5]=39;

These are the joypad buttons numbers (Joy[]), and the keyboard keycodes (Key[]) we'll be using later to check for input. I've only done 6 buttons here, 0-5, because that's all a classic Sonic game really needs, but you can include as many as you'll be needing in your game. Any more than 16, though, is probably not a good idea, since most joypads won't have that many buttons. I've also entered the keycodes as raw numbers, but you can use the vk_... constants, or the ord() function as well.

Alternatively, you can read values into Joy[] and Key[] from an ini file, or even include an interface for the player to change them manually, which is best. Control configuration interfaces would be a tutorial in their own right, though.

Now that we know which buttons and keys we'll need to be checking for, we need to give them names. This is just a convenience for the programmer. I suggest using constants, and naming them after buttons on a console controller, such as A, START, LEFT, etc.

For example:

Code:

A = 0;
START = 1;
UP = 2;
//etc...

If you did the above, then you could type Joy[A] or Joy[START] instead of Joy[0] or Joy[1]. This is useful, especially for the direction buttons, since remembering which number corresponds to each of the four can be difficult.

But, actually, we're going to be doing something just a little more complicated than just making A = 0 and START = 1. We're going to be using some binary shifting, and you'll see why a little later.

Instead of setting A to 0 (or whichever number you want to call "A"), we'll be setting it to 1 left-shifted by 0. START will be set to 1 left-shifted by 1, and so on. This is what the code should look like:

Code:

A = 1<<0;
START = 1<<1;
UP = 1<<2;
//etc...

That means, in binary, A = 1, START = 10, and UP = 100.

Now that we've got our constants named, it's time to make a new script - let's call it joy_step - and put it in the begin step event of Joypad.

joy_step()

JoyPast = JoyPrevious;
JoyPrevious = JoyCurrent;
JoyCurrent = 0;

for (t=0;t<6;t+=1)
  {
  if joystick_check_button(1,Joy[t])
  or keyboard_check(Key[t])
  JoyCurrent |= 1<<t;
  }

What the for loop does is set up a binary variable, JoyCurrent, where each bit corresponds to one of the buttons being active. It checks both the joypad and the keyboard, so either one the player uses will work.

So, by default, both the joypad and keyboard are detected by the game and no setup or choice between the two is necessary. Although, it's very easy to rewrite the loop to not check for one or the other, if for instance you wanted to let the player choose which mode they'd rather use. Some people may not have a joypad at all and there's no reason to do extra checks.

So, if either the joypad button or the keyboard key (or both) is detected for button 0, JoyCurrent becomes a value of 1. If no other button is detected, it remains a value of 1. But if another button is detected, the new value is or-ed together. If both buttons 0 and 1 are detected, for instance, JoyCurrent becomes a (binary) value of 11. In this way, with only one variable, you can store which buttons are being detected during this step.

Of course, before the loop runs, we dump the value of JoyCurrent into a buffer value called JoyPrevious (and, one step further, dump JoyPrevious into JoyPast). This is going to be used to detect pressing and releasing the buttons, akin to the keyboard_check_pressed() and keyboard_check_released() functions. We could probably get by with only two values, JoyCurrent and JoyPrevious, but some joypads are subject to signal noise, and the addition of JoyPast will improve things in those cases. For instance, the device I use to convert my Nintendo Gamecube to be compatible with a PC stops detecting some buttons for an instant while others are rapidly pressed. This makes performing the spindash in Sonic 2 nearly impossible, because the Down button stops registering when the A button is tapped, causing Sonic to launch early.

Now we write another script, just called joy.

joy()

return (JoyCurrent&argument0);

Now, as long as the Joypad object is present in the room, any object can call the joy script to test for buttons. For example:

Code:

if joy(A)
  {
  //make the player jump
  }

if joy(B)
  {
  //make the player attack
  }

if joy(LEFT)
  {
  //move the player left
  }
else
if joy(RIGHT)
  {
  //move the player right
  }

Now, what about presses and releases? If you used something like the code above, the character would continually jump as you held down the A button. What we need is another script - joy_pressed.

joy_pressed()

return (JoyCurrent&argument0) and !(JoyPrevious&argument0) and !(JoyPast&argument0);

This will only return true when the button is active in this step, but not in the previous step, or the one before that.

And now for joy_released.

joy_released()

return !(JoyCurrent&argument0) and !(JoyPrevious&argument0) and (JoyPast&argument0);

This script only returns true if the button is not active during this step or the one previous, but was active in the step before that.

And there you have it. A very simple way of having robust joypad and keyboard support for your game, that's fully customisable to boot. If you don't feel like including an interface for mapping keys and buttons in your game, at least include an ini settings file. Nothing is more annoying than actually having joypad support in a game, but then finding that the buttons are all mapped wrong!

And finally, if you want to use an analog stick to emulate the directional buttons, you can add this code to the joy_step script we made.

joy_step()

if !AnalogCount exit;
if joystick_xpos(1) < -AnalogDeadzone JoyCurrent |= LEFT;
if joystick_xpos(1) > AnalogDeadzone JoyCurrent |= RIGHT;
if joystick_ypos(1) < -AnalogDeadzone JoyCurrent |= UP;
if joystick_ypos(1) > AnalogDeadzone JoyCurrent |= DOWN;

You can check as many axes as you want, of course. You can even use code like this to make the right-hand analog stick emulate the X, Y, and Z buttons like in The Legend of Zelda - Ocarina of Time (Nintendo Gamecube version). The great thing is, since the values are or-ed together, either the buttons or tilting the stick both work.

nd that's it! You've got a complete joypad system that takes input from either the joypad or keyboard, and is incredibly easy to use.

Download the GML scripts and a GMK example of this lesson here.

Until next time, happy coding, fellow Code Ninjas!

If you use my code or scripts in your game or engine, no credit is necessary. But I'd love to hear about your project if you do! Just drop me a comment below, or e-mail me at us.mercurysilver@gmail.com