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dont use Z and X for your games- PLEASE

markp0rter's picture
Sat, 03/10/2012 - 16:22 — markp0rter

for the love of god it's really annoying. what's wrong with good ol' knp shift and ctrl or use x and c

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Sat, 03/10/2012 - 16:39 — snapman
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A & S

Wouldn't A & S be a better compromise?

edit: oh, you mentioned X & C. That works too. Now I'm really curious about overlapping keyboard mappings...

Sat, 03/10/2012 - 22:09 — Danni
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IMHO I think the standard

IMHO I think the standard keyboard mapping should be Shift, A, S, D, Space. It's a really good fit for the left hand. It uses keys that are on the home row so it feels less awkward than Z, X, and it takes advantage of the large keys Shift and Space.

/me shakes fist at Windows Accessibility defaults.

Sun, 03/11/2012 - 05:02 — radix
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A/S is horrible cause

A/S is horrible cause they're un-home-able since tab/q/w and caps/a/s feel very similar. Personally I find them less comfortable too since they force me to hover my hand over the keyboard and not rest it on anything.

I always either use Z/X/C in my games where Z/C have the same function, or I make Z & Y do the same thing. Or both.

Shift, Ctrl, Alt, Space etc. are all fine and seem natural if you've been playing games since forever or klik stuff in particular, but for other people they can be weird/problematic/unintuitive. For accessibility we should be moving away from shift/crtl in particular, for the sake of accessibility.

Thu, 03/15/2012 - 23:14 — Danni
Danni's picture

"Un-home-able"? Eh? They're

"Un-home-able"? Eh? They're on the home row. What more do you need for something to be "home-able"? I'm confused.

To me, Tab/Q/W and Caps/A/S are almost night and day. Also, A, S, D is similar to the hand position you're probably using for normal typing.

The problem with Alt as a game key is that for some programs it triggers the Menubar. It's also right next to the Windowskey and unlike the Ctrl key it doesn't have the advantage of being in the corner of the keyboard so you might accidentally trigger the Start menu.

I'm also confused as to when (and why) we transitioned from keys like Ctrl and Space to exclusively using letter keys. Perhaps someone knows the history behind this one?

Sat, 03/10/2012 - 16:49 — hugs
hugs's picture

it's never occurred to me

it's never occurred to me when making games that people might use different keyboard layouts.

and now i must pay for my crimes.

Sat, 03/10/2012 - 17:25 — markp0rter
markp0rter's picture

its just funny that the german keyboard is pretty much

the same as the english keyboard. the only thing that is different is the location of Z and Y (and a few other tiny things) so its REALLY ironic that indie games started to use Z and Y controls at some point in time. i am wondering about the origin of that. we have so many cool keys on our keyboard:
space, shift, alt or ctrl

who ever thought using LETTERS and the arrow keys was a cool idea in the first place? it's certainly a MODERN trend because we didn't have it back in the day- we didn't need it "back in the day" so seriously I am wondering who declared ITS TIME FOR A CHANGE and why

Sat, 03/10/2012 - 17:30 — Zecks
Zecks's picture

i'm a ctrl-alt fan too.

i'm a ctrl-alt fan too. unfortunately there's a button between those that fucks up everything

Sat, 03/10/2012 - 18:02 — Noyb
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Shift tends to trigger

Shift tends to trigger sticky keys. Not too hard to turn off, but it's something that most non-klikers haven't experienced before.

Sat, 03/10/2012 - 18:52 — markp0rter
markp0rter's picture

true thats a good point

i once had sticky keys turned ON just to see what it does and ive to admit im kind of too stupid to really find any use for sticky keys besides annoying the crap out of me when playing click games. also i guess everyone who ISN'T a klikker (or at least most people) have sticky keys turned on just because they never needed it.

Sat, 03/10/2012 - 21:23 — Noyb
Noyb's picture

It's more like every time

It's more like every time you repeatedly tap Shift, Windows asks if you'd like to turn on sticky keys, and the way to disable this default prompting behavior is not entirely intuitive.

I believe sticky keys is an accessibility feature for individuals who have difficulty holding two keys at the same time? Not something the average user would need, but helpful for users with muscular difficulties.

Sat, 03/10/2012 - 21:36 — sergiocornaga
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I'm aware of this issue and

I'm aware of this issue and always attempt to compensate for alternative keyboard layouts in my games. However, the trend is not likely to stop, so just use AutoHotKey or similar to remap keys when you're playing games that use Z and X.

Sun, 03/11/2012 - 11:17 — thesycophant
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This is a really great thing

This is a really great thing to know about. Thanks for bringing this up!

Sun, 03/11/2012 - 06:55 — leilei
leilei's picture

I should probably mention

I should probably mention the standard Z and X binding originates from Japan. Right hand arrows, left hand z x is very common there, it's a coincidence they're default keys in most console emulators too

YOU DONT EVEN HAVE A CTARL KEY

Sun, 03/11/2012 - 11:17 — thesycophant
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Thanks for bringing my

Thanks for bringing my attention to this. I'll probably add Y as an alternate for the X key in my future games. Looking at some other keyboard layouts though (like France) makes the search for an internationally acceptable standard of alphabet keys look kind of impossible. I've been using ZXC despite being raised on games that used the function keys because that's where the trend in independent PC games seems to have gone. I"ll probably keep doing it. I prefer the way alphabet keys tend to feel on keyboards, actually.

Wed, 03/14/2012 - 19:53 — AnimeFuckHead
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well, or all people who make

well, or all people who make games that use keys, could give the option to map controls to whatever letters they want?

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Thu, 03/15/2012 - 15:58 — radix
radix's picture

That's not likely in games

That's not likely in games squirted out in two hours or less.

Fri, 03/16/2012 - 08:49 — zaratustra

I believe changing your

I believe changing your language preferences in Windows reassigns the keys as well?

Sat, 03/17/2012 - 13:14 — AnimeFuckHead
AnimeFuckHead's picture

well, i this case it for

well, i this case it for games when i wat to play with my left hand i oftem map action keys to QER instead of zxc

for right handed id map them to the right shift, rigth control arrow keys and /.';\
why dot people make right had games anyways the alt control and shift are less likely to be near the windows key although som are, but it gives a comfrotable range of 11 non letter keys for me plus the arrow keys, although i often prefer mapping arrows to awsd when using this layout because soly relying on one finger can be annoying

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