Convincing a game we have a controller
October 23, 2020 2:52 PM Subscribe
We are trying to play the co-op version of Pikuniku, which requires you to attach an external controller. We don't own a gaming-specific controller. What can we do instead? We did find ControllerMate but don't know if it will work for us.
Mr Nat and I have really enjoyed the puzzle aspect of Pikuniku, a lovely little platformer puzzle game. We've only played solo though, with one of us controlling the keyboard inputs and the other giving backseat driver advice.
That's fun, but now we'd like to try the co-op section. However Pikuniku requires that you attach an external controller, e.g. a joystick, to do so. We have tried attaching an external keyboard (via USB and a different one via bluetooth) but both ways the input just read to the program as if it was coming from the original laptop keyboard, so it didn't think anything new had been attached.
We like the game, but not enough to leave the house to buy an actual external controller. Additionally, it seems unnecessary; the game is totally playable with the approximately 8 key inputs required (arrow keys plus a few letters). If we could map the second player input to different keys, and convince the game it was a different input device, we could even use the same keyboard.
We have a significant variety of technology in the house (Macbook Pro c. 2014, Macbook Air c. 2016, Lenovo Thinkpad c. 2009, several mac desktops with age ranging from 3 to 20 years old, an external trackpad, three external trackball mice (both USB and bluetooth), at least three external keyboards (again both USB and bluetooth), an external microphone, two iPads, several iPhones again with wide age range, an Android tablet, an old Kindle, and probably several other peripherals from the last 20 years, but no actual joysticks!). Can we rig something up with these things?
We also did a little googling and found ControllerMate, which seems to be able to build a virtual controller that will look to the game like an attached joystick; but I am loathe to download it since I'm unfamiliar with its safety and I also don't actually know that it will solve our problem. If you've used ControllerMate, or other similar software, do you think it will work for this problem?
Mr Nat and I have really enjoyed the puzzle aspect of Pikuniku, a lovely little platformer puzzle game. We've only played solo though, with one of us controlling the keyboard inputs and the other giving backseat driver advice.
That's fun, but now we'd like to try the co-op section. However Pikuniku requires that you attach an external controller, e.g. a joystick, to do so. We have tried attaching an external keyboard (via USB and a different one via bluetooth) but both ways the input just read to the program as if it was coming from the original laptop keyboard, so it didn't think anything new had been attached.
We like the game, but not enough to leave the house to buy an actual external controller. Additionally, it seems unnecessary; the game is totally playable with the approximately 8 key inputs required (arrow keys plus a few letters). If we could map the second player input to different keys, and convince the game it was a different input device, we could even use the same keyboard.
We have a significant variety of technology in the house (Macbook Pro c. 2014, Macbook Air c. 2016, Lenovo Thinkpad c. 2009, several mac desktops with age ranging from 3 to 20 years old, an external trackpad, three external trackball mice (both USB and bluetooth), at least three external keyboards (again both USB and bluetooth), an external microphone, two iPads, several iPhones again with wide age range, an Android tablet, an old Kindle, and probably several other peripherals from the last 20 years, but no actual joysticks!). Can we rig something up with these things?
We also did a little googling and found ControllerMate, which seems to be able to build a virtual controller that will look to the game like an attached joystick; but I am loathe to download it since I'm unfamiliar with its safety and I also don't actually know that it will solve our problem. If you've used ControllerMate, or other similar software, do you think it will work for this problem?
I think you might be able to make this work with vjoy and ucr. I'm not sure if this can simulate what you need, but it can simulate a generic USB Game Controller.
posted by Alterscape at 4:12 PM on October 23, 2020
posted by Alterscape at 4:12 PM on October 23, 2020
I’ve used ControllerMate for quite a while with no problems, but just for weird key remapping.
posted by zamboni at 4:52 PM on October 23, 2020
posted by zamboni at 4:52 PM on October 23, 2020
Response by poster: So, on Steam, we did follow the steam instructions to try Remote Play together, but it wasn't working; Mr Nat did not get any sort of notification to join.
I also noted that I had to install some drivers in Steam to even get to send Remote play invites. And it turns out this is a known issue with Macs, see steam community discussion here.
After following the instructions on that steam community discussion, we did manage to get some of the drivers installed on his machine, by trying to have him invite me to another game (one he owns on steam) for remote play, but it hasn't yet gotten them all, or there's some other issue.
Currently, when either of us tries to invite the other to Remote Play Together (for Pikuniku or for Wizard of Legend, although I doubt it matters), the invitee can now successfully accept the invite to play on Steam, but when the game starts loading, instead an error message appears, something like:
Assertion Failed
Assertion failure at SDL_UpdateYUVTexture_REAL (/Users/buildbot/buildslave/sdl_osx/build/dev/src/render/SDL_render.c:1643), triggered 1 time: ' texture && texture -> magic == &texture_magic'
Needless to say, there's a definite lack of magic here.
posted by nat at 11:48 PM on October 23, 2020
I also noted that I had to install some drivers in Steam to even get to send Remote play invites. And it turns out this is a known issue with Macs, see steam community discussion here.
After following the instructions on that steam community discussion, we did manage to get some of the drivers installed on his machine, by trying to have him invite me to another game (one he owns on steam) for remote play, but it hasn't yet gotten them all, or there's some other issue.
Currently, when either of us tries to invite the other to Remote Play Together (for Pikuniku or for Wizard of Legend, although I doubt it matters), the invitee can now successfully accept the invite to play on Steam, but when the game starts loading, instead an error message appears, something like:
Assertion Failed
Assertion failure at SDL_UpdateYUVTexture_REAL (/Users/buildbot/buildslave/sdl_osx/build/dev/src/render/SDL_render.c:1643), triggered 1 time: ' texture && texture -> magic == &texture_magic'
Needless to say, there's a definite lack of magic here.
posted by nat at 11:48 PM on October 23, 2020
Response by poster: Also, vjoy is windows-only, as far as I could tell- if that's wrong, please do let us know!
posted by nat at 11:49 PM on October 23, 2020
posted by nat at 11:49 PM on October 23, 2020
I missed that you were on a Mac, my error! Maybe try Enjoyable? .. nevermind, that goes the other way (gamepad to keystrokes)
posted by Alterscape at 3:40 AM on October 25, 2020
posted by Alterscape at 3:40 AM on October 25, 2020
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That's how we did it!
posted by euphoria066 at 3:30 PM on October 23, 2020