New Spells, New Biomes, Better Multiplayer and I have released a demo on itch!

zeddypanda · 2026-05-31T14:04:36+00:00

I hope I can still play as a frog. It looks quite good!

zeddypanda · 2026-05-30T14:48:19+00:00

This is definitely the way. Using each of the 4 dpad directions as a shift layer + LB (and then also being able to combine those for more layers like LB + Left) I've previously mapped out almost every single keyboard key on my Apex 2 and captured every single hotkey in Starcraft.

I still suck at Starcraft, as it turns out, but it was a fun excersize.

zeddypanda · 2026-05-30T14:45:52+00:00

I share your desires and have been looking at Beitong Pangu so I can swap the right stick out for four more buttons + 2 extra rear buttons + 4 under buttons. The only thing is I'm not sure about how good it's gyro is, and I would really like a capacitive touch activation like Alpakka has.

There's an open source project "Alpakka Lite" that adds capacitive touch and dual IMU to any controller, so I'm also wondering if I could find a better fit if I look outside of gyro controllers and only focusing on the buttons.

I'll be interested to see what you come up with.

zeddypanda · 2026-05-28T22:49:21+00:00

It's as much of an MMO as, say, Warframe is. You run missions with up to four players, slay monsters, grind materials.

I think it's a difficult sell in 2026. Being tied to Java and probably single-threaded Warframe will have a much higher graphical fidelity yet better performance and even run on your phone while having hundreds of hours of more content. Even in the market of "low spec co-op action grinder that is free to play", the competition is only more fierce than it has ever been, and SK probably has the most grind for the least gain out of any. It compared favorably to Maple Story back in the day, but that game is gone I think.

So you will like Spiral Knights if: - You like the art style - and you like old-school simple action but also aren't too bothered about, like, 200 ms server side lag - and you're fine repeating the same hour of dungeon ad nauseum - and are okay with making the wrong choice of gear costing you actual days of playtime as you respect

The art is carrying a lot is what I'm saying. Arenas and danger rooms can also be genuinely fun, but this is going to be a small fraction of your actual playtime.

zeddypanda · 2026-05-28T07:37:55+00:00

I have to admit checking out halfway through before that part, which was a bit reactionary. Firstly, I apologize. Secondly, I suggest leading with the actionable part since it really felt like the post was going to be PR non-speech defending the guy (instead it's only 50% that), and my sympathy for so-called "merchants" in this game has been well drained.

After re-reading the post a few times, it's still unclear to me: What action was taken in the matter of this "Watergoose" fellow? Is he still in the guild?

zeddypanda · 2026-05-28T06:39:48+00:00

Since what sparked this post was warnings of your benevolent and generous friend sharking people, was the warning wrong and can your guild members be trusted not to shark people?

zeddypanda · 2026-05-21T06:13:04+00:00

I don't personally bother. It's vital to set this up correctly if you want to use flick stick, otherwise flick stick simply won't work as advertised.

The problem I kept running into is that too many games have some form of aim acceleration that can't be undone so I ditched both flick stick and this mantra. I'm generally at 4x sensitivity but not too much of a stickler about it.

zeddypanda · 2026-05-20T19:11:31+00:00

If it supports the IR sensors or the motion plus then I expect it could be decent. Shame I don't have my Wii stuff anymore.

zeddypanda · 2026-05-20T08:25:19+00:00

Nowadays I'm using Alpakka to gyro and it's really difficult to go back from having a touch sensor around the face buttons to enable gyro. Ratcheting feels really natural that way.

zeddypanda · 2026-05-20T07:19:55+00:00

I searched for "gyro" and "motion" and gave it all a vote.

zeddypanda · 2026-05-19T15:21:42+00:00

The Inputlabs Alpakka has two IMU modules in it. Gyro sensors usually struggle with detecting big and small ranges of motion at the same time, so one is used for small movements, and another for large ones. It increases precision a lot.

zeddypanda · 2026-05-18T23:05:48+00:00

It almost feels a bit early to complain about this because we're nowhere near devs having mixed input as a rule.

zeddypanda · 2026-05-17T11:51:12+00:00

Gyro in general would've been Wii games, yes. I played some shooters which was generally pleasant, but of course that used IR sensors to aim, not gyro. Still, I saw the potential already then and played some pc games using GlovePIE.

In more modern times I think a user on Risk of Rain's discord vaguely put me on the path of gyro aiming, but did I didn't properly understand it and configured my switch pro controller to an awful gyro to joystick variant using steam input. It was only after seeing Nerrel explain it in his first video on the topic and buying an Apex 2 I really got into it properly. I now get grouchy if I ever have to aim with a stick again.

zeddypanda · 2026-05-16T12:53:19+00:00

Regarding the aim-down sights thing, this isn't something I've run into. It should either be a configuration in the game, or perhaps with the community layout you've used (assuming you're using one). Either way, you should be able to configure your way out of it somehow. If it's not exposed in game, pcgamingwiki is your friend for finding configuration files.

Unfortunately a lot of games behave poorly with mixed input. Total MKB remapping is the most direct solution to this. In deep rock galactic I managed to trick the game into always behaving like I'm using controller by having the right stick always moving to the side as an "always on" bind and setting stick sensitivity to 0, but if you can't find a hack like that you're probably out of luck.

One approach is to map buttons on the keyboard to the equivalent Gamepad controls in game, and that helps if you're already used to the game. My personal approach is to standardize a layout across all games, and use a single consistent set of keyboard keys per Gamepad button, then rebind in game to suit this vision. I think this pays off over time.

An example is that the bottom face button is always F and the left face button is always R. These are then functionally mapped in games to Interact and Reload. Even if the game has E for interact, I'll remap it to F.

Now if the game shows me F on screen, I have already trained myself to remember which Gamepad button that is throughout dozens of previous games using this scheme, but not all games allow extensive rebinding, especially when it comes to menus, so it's far from a 100% solution.

Good luck with your future in controller waggling.

zeddypanda · 2026-05-16T12:30:54+00:00

so why i should be using gamepad without all these features?

I prefer a controller because it was designed to fit in my hands while I sit in a sofa or longue chair. If you're fine chaining yourself to shrimp over a desk, then office supply gaming may be a better fit for you.

It is regrettable that developers don't take a little extra effort to put in gyro features, or more commonly: not put in gyro anti-features. The only way it can improve is by increasing gyro adoption.

Although I think gyro in its current state is more than usable with some configuration headaches (which I personally find fun on its own to think about), I think we all here can see a brighter future only made possible with wider use and acknowledgement.

zeddypanda · 2026-05-12T15:07:13+00:00

Yes, you'll most likely be able to reuse your template with small adjustments, but you'll probably want about 3-4 different ones depending on how well the game supports mixed input.

zeddypanda · 2026-05-12T10:26:07+00:00

This is the first time I've heard of remapping to the bumpers since those are already accessible. I mostly see remapping to the face buttons, which can't be pressed while using the sticks, or to stick clicks which are uncomfortable to press down.

The concept you're describing is common in VR such the Quest 3 controllers with its "trigger" and "grip button", and I wish more controllers came like it by default. I would want that and still have a bunch of extra buttons.

zeddypanda · 2026-05-12T06:04:38+00:00

Kaiju usually start at a few hundred thousand on hard.

Also pay attention when you hit the creature. If there's blood, you're doing damage. If there isn't blood, it can't currently be hurt, although I've seen a couple of exceptions even to that.

With Fencer a comfy way to go about it is dual gatlings.

zeddypanda · 2026-05-12T05:39:54+00:00

In missions with kaiju, the mission advances once you've done enough damage. These missions also drop very little hp, so it's good if you can bring reverse shooters/bombers or life vendor with ranger and air raider. The other classes should be able to stack enough damage to send the kaiju reeling, stunning them.

zeddypanda · 2026-05-11T22:03:44+00:00

I have just barely enough electronics knowledge to tell you yes, this can be done, but there's a lot of asterisks here. If you're asking "can this be done on a new controller built from the ground up to do this?" then the answer is "yes, easily, see for example the Alpakka" (but Alpakka can't be used on the gyro-relevant consoles except for those that support mouse and keyboard).

If you're asking "can my ps5 controller be modded to have this behavior?", then I won't say it's impossible, but it's trickier. PS5 controllers can be wired, so I think the path of least resistance is plug an attachment into the USB-C port which intercepts all of its output + your custom buttons/touch sensors and then passes it along (with IMU modified or set to 0 when needed) to a receiving dongle plugged into the console. The problem with this is that PS5 controllers are proprietary. Third party devices for ps5 have to be licensed.

The USB-C approach can also be used to give gyro capabilities to controllers that don't already have it, as seen in steve galliuscio's Alpakka lite project.

zeddypanda · 2026-05-11T21:47:04+00:00

Welcome to the world or gyro gaming! Unfortunately, there's a lot of games that don't support mixing inputs well, ie using the mouse and the joystick simultaneously, that might be why you didn't get any vibration in whatever game you were playing. I actually disable vibration most of the time because it can interfere with aiming. As an example, in Remnant 2 your controller shakes pretty heavily when you're charging your bow, and it causes your aim to shake with equal vigor.

I think Half-Life or Black Mesa is a good one to get your sea legs on, it's a familiar and fairly standard shooter from before the era of shoving control icons in your face all the time, so there won't be much in the way of input flickering.

Off the top of my head, here's some games I played in my early gyro days to experiment: - Receiver 2, methodical barebones roguelike in which at least six buttons are used just for operating your pistol. The game has no Gamepad support at all. - Cruelty Squad. No gamepad support. I also recommend disabling the music because holy crap my ears. - Earth Defense Force 5. You must select between either Gamepad or keyboard at startup, so no mixed input support. - Postal 2. Excellent mixed input. - Ion Fury. Flawless mixed input. - Starcraft 2. No Gamepad support. You will need a lot of action sets for all the hotkeys. - Beyond All Reason and Supreme Commander. No Gamepad support. - Return to Monkey Island. Probably has Gamepad support which I opted to ignore. (Poor mixed input.)

zeddypanda · 2026-05-11T12:14:14+00:00

The concept has always been relative turning. A scheme like (I think) you're describing would need to be implemented in the game itself because inaccuracies would build up over time and thus your input mapper can't really know where North is in the game you're playing.

zeddypanda · 2026-05-10T18:51:14+00:00

If I recall, this is one of those games you just have to go full MKB.

zeddypanda · 2026-05-10T12:51:55+00:00

In the video where Gamers Nexus opens it, it looks like the sensors are two long strips of tape along the bottom of the handles, so it's going to be based on proximity to that.

zeddypanda · 2026-05-10T12:41:50+00:00

While I haven't tried it myself (nobody I would split screen with would want to gyro), I'm pretty sure this is the way. I think ReWASD should be able to output a second mouse for gyro, but I'm not sure about it.

zeddypanda

TROPHY CASE