While testing the game recently I have been finding it quite difficult to control the character. The character was being controlled via the mouse. The character will go to where ever the mouse pointer currently is on screen. I chose to do it like this because I was planning on using either the touch pad that I made or a tablet to control the character. The reason I had chose to control the character in this way was that I wanted to try and remove the idea that the game was being played on a computer and was in fact being played completely in the sketchbook. The trouble with using those methods however is that it becomes very difficult to control.

HomeMade Touch Pad

I decided that I would try a more conventional method of controlling the character for my game. I didn’t want to use a keyboard from the computer because it was too large and completely shattered the illusion of not playing the game on in the sketchbook. So I decided to try using a control pad from a console instead.

PS3 SixAxis Controller

In order to get the controller to work I used a program called GlovePie. This program lets you assign keyboard key presses to buttons on the control pad. Once I configured the button presses the pad can then control my game.

At first I wasn’t sure that this would work very well because it did feel a little out of place with the rest of the project. However once I had set up the game and started playing using the control pad the level of control that I had over the character and the game was increased vastly and was a lot more responsive then the level of control that I had when using the mouse. By having more control over the character it also made the game a lot less frustrating and more fun to play.

I feel that the trade off here is worth it. The control pad is still small and I don’t think it intrudes too much on the idea of playing completely in the pages of the book. Using the pad also means that people won’t put their hands in the way of the projector blocking the projection of the level.

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