2.5    Interchanging Analog with Digital

Let players remap digital and analog inputs, and swap between the two.

As well as remapping digital inputs, such as the A and the Y button, allow players to remap analog inputs such as triggers and analog sticks.

Southpaw mode is an option found in some first-person games, that allows you to swap the functions of the left and right sticks. So the camera would now be controlled by the left stick instead, which some players may prefer.

Often it is best to include interchangeability between analog and digital inputs where appropriate. This might be useful for players who prefer pressing a button to moving a stick in certain directions, or vice versa.

A button might act as a direction on an analog stick, for example. As is the case in Dirt Rally 2, which lets you remap steering left and right from the horizontal axis of the left stick to two different digital inputs. Here Square will now steer the car left, and Cross is steering right.

Equally, an analog input, like a trigger or a direction on an analog stick, might act as a button. Untitled Goose Game allows mapping digital actions like Crouch and Grab to analog inputs instead. Here we’re changing Grab from A to Right on the right stick.

Multiple actions controlled by a single analog input may need to be separated to allow mapping to individual axes and directions. For example, separating out movement into each individual direction.

In Cuphead each direction of movement would normally be mapped to a direction of the left stick, but it is possible to map one or more of these directions to digital inputs instead. So here instead of pressing down on the left stick, we now press Y.

This module is a part of Action Mapping. Discover other modules in this topic on the SpecialEffect DevKit website at specialeffectdevkit.info.