What a controller can do in your game: rebinding every action, menu navigation, and the button symbols players see.
Gamepad: Rebinding & Menus
A player with a controller can play your whole game without touching the keyboard. They can rebind every action to a controller button, and the pad drives every open window.
Where you'll find it#
| What | Where |
|---|---|
| Your world's default controller buttons | World → Player Controls → Actions (press the controller button while an action is waiting for input) |
| Deadzone, look inversion, vibration, on/off | World → Player Controls → Gamepad |
| Letting players change buttons | World → Player Controls → Movement → Allow player-side overrides |
| A player's own buttons | In the game: Settings → Controls (each action has a keyboard box and a controller box) |
Setting up the defaults#
- Open World → Player Controls and pick the Actions tab.
- Click an action, then press a button on your controller. The button is added next to the keyboard keys.
- On the Gamepad tab, make sure Enable Gamepad API input is on and set the Deadzone you want.
- Turn on Allow player-side overrides if players should be able to change buttons.
- Save the world.
What players can do#
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Controller box on an action | Click it, then press any button, trigger or stick direction on the controller |
| Tap B (Circle) while waiting | Cancels |
| Hold B (Circle) while waiting | Binds B (Circle) itself |
| Esc while waiting | Cancels |
| Backspace while waiting | Clears that action's controller buttons |
| Reset gamepad | Puts every controller button back to your world's defaults and keeps the player's keyboard changes |
| Reset to defaults | Puts everything, keyboard and controller, back to your defaults |
A button that another action already uses is not taken silently. The player is asked, and Replace moves it. Attack and Interact may share the bottom button (A or Cross) as they always have.
Moving around menus with the controller#
While a window is open (Inventory, Character, shops, dialogue choices, Settings, the control bindings and so on), the controller drives the window instead of the character:
| Button | What it does |
|---|---|
| D-pad or left stick | Moves the highlight to the nearest control in that direction. Hold to keep moving |
| A (Cross) | Presses the highlighted control. On a dropdown it picks the next choice |
| D-pad or stick left and right on a slider or dropdown | Changes its value |
| B (Circle) or Menu | Backs out, the same as Esc |
| LB / RB (L1 / R1) | Switches to the previous or next tab |
The highlight is a thick ring that follows your High contrast setting. It appears when the controller is used and goes away as soon as the mouse or keyboard is. The character stands still while a window has the controller, and gameplay buttons work again the moment the last window closes.
Button symbols#
The game reads the controller's name and shows the symbols printed on it: A, B, X, Y on Xbox pads, Cross, Circle, Square, Triangle symbols on PlayStation pads, and the Nintendo letters on Switch pads. They appear in the control bindings and in prompts such as the action bar badges and the NPC interact prompt.
Gotchas#
- Controllers are never required to be set up by you. The default controller buttons ship with every preset; you only change them if your game needs a different layout.
- Players' controller choices are kept when you turn Allow player-side overrides off, and come back when you turn it on again.
- A window you add that uses ordinary buttons and tabs works with the controller automatically. Custom artwork that is not a button (a plain image you click) can't be highlighted.
- Some browsers only see a controller after a button is pressed once. If a player says it isn't detected, ask them to press any button.
- The controller can't type. Text boxes need the keyboard or the on-screen keyboard of the device.