Force Feedback

[Harry Sunderland]

Hello Matt,

I had a realization this morning, very few indie games that I have played bother to include rumble-type features in their game. Honestly, I didn't even know my 360 controller "could" rumble with PC games until I played Retro/Grade .

Is there any plan to include any rumbling into NN? I know the Ouya controller doesn't even have force feedback stuff, so I'm guessing the answer is no, but I was just curious.

On a related note:

I've never played a horror game that really took advantage of rumbling. Rumbling almost always seems to accompany visual or audio scares...but imagine if you took them in a whole new direction. Perhaps some kind of spirit that you can't see or hear, but can only detect it's presence by the degree of rumble.

I'm rambling at this point, but I was just curious as to your stance of rumbling. You did some awesome rumbling things with Retro/Grade, and was wondering if we may see Adam literally shake with fear as his controller does.

[RightClickSaveAs]

Good idea, I'm also all for it if it's possible. How much effort is it to include force feedback into a game?

I'm with you, Harry, in that I forget that my controller even does that, until I stumble on the odd game that uses it. It seems really sparsely used in a lot of PC games for sure.

[matt]

We'll support rumbling on platforms that support it. I'm not sure what we'll do exactly with it though. I always do rumble at the end, so I have time to figure out what I'm going to do.

The problem with having ghosts that can only be detectible with rumble is then we need to figure out something else to do for keyboards and game controllers that don't support rumble. That's one nice thing about being platform exclusive - you can design around the strengths of that hardware. However, for an indie dev, making something that can work on a wide variery of platforms can be a real win. We shot ourselves in the foot with respect to that on Retro/Grade.

I'm really stumped about what to do for the haptics on the Steam Controller. Basically, I'm using one trackpad as an analog stick and the other as a big button. Honestly, I don't really "get" the haptics thing. Valve says it makes it feel better than trackpad, but it seems kind of weird to me.

[gagaplex]

It would certainly make sense for the Baby Monsters for instance, in tune with their audible footsteps and the like.
I dunno about extending it beyond such things, though. The idea of a "rumbling monster" is cool, but as matt said, there's a risk of excluding people who don't have that option. So it should only be additional sensory input rather than the exclusive one, I'd say...

[RightClickSaveAs]

Hah, I was playing Orion: Dino Beatdown this weekend because it was free on Steam, and started noticing that my desk was vibrating. Turns out that game uses force feedback, making it the only PC-exclusive game I know of with that option. That was really surprising.

Yeah for force feedback, it seems that making something that just enhances the sounds and everything that are already in the game is the way to go, that way people without controllers don't miss anything major. I'm a pretty die hard mouse and keyboard gamer, I only got a controller for basically one game because it was almost unplayable without one (Dark Souls, I feel like I've talked about that game nonstop lately...)

[matt]

Do you play Neverending Nightmares with a keyboard? Do you have any suggestions for keyboard controls?

Personally, I think Neverending Nightmares feels kinda crappy with a keyboard, but it may be because I'm more of a controller guy, and I miss my joystick. What does everyone else think?

Thanks!

Oh and back on topic, yeah I think timing it with the audio is probably the way to go. Maybe do something cool when you get captured by the baby monster. The controller shaking like crazy there would be pretty neat I think.

[RightClickSaveAs]

I usually do play with a keyboard, but I've tried out the controller too. The keyboard controls are simple and intuitive, I can't think of anything to change for those. I use WASD to move around out of habit, so I'm glad those keys are bound. Maybe bind "E" to use as well, as another option?

One nice thing about the controller is you can walk at different speeds, I don't know what that's called, but that's the only downside to using a keyboard in my mind.

[matt]

What do other games do with "speed" control on keyboard controls? I think that's a real advantage to analog sticks.

Is E common for use? Right now we support "space" and "enter" for use. At present, we support 2 key bindings per use. I suppose I could bump it to 3, but that might get a bit complex for when we eventually have a keyboard customization screen. Is E a better choice than Enter?

Thanks!

[gagaplex]

A lot of games use shift to toggle (or hold) running speed, so that you can use it with one finger while having the rest surrounding WASD or the arrow keys.

[RightClickSaveAs]

What do other games do with "speed" control on keyboard controls? I think that's a real advantage to analog sticks.

Is E common for use? Right now we support "space" and "enter" for use. At present, we support 2 key bindings per use. I suppose I could bump it to 3, but that might get a bit complex for when we eventually have a keyboard customization screen. Is E a better choice than Enter?

Thanks!

Actually yeah I don't think E for use is very common outside of FPS games. I forgot about Enter being bound, that and Space make more sense and are much more common. No need to complicate things unnecessarily to change it, especially since the controls are so streamlined and simple as they are. And if the game will have key remapping, then people like me can just map Use to whatever weird button they want, but it's really a minor issue and I think Space and Enter make perfect sense.

And I can't think of any games that have different speed settings for keyboards. It's either moving at a set speed or holding down/toggling the run key if the game has one. I guess in Half-Life you could hold down "Alt" or something to walk, but I don't think it was used much.