[Scummvm-tracker] [ScummVM :: Bugs] #16200: MOBILE: Better touch controls

[ScummVM :: Bugs]

#16200: MOBILE: Better touch controls
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Reporter:  nikocxx6464      |       Owner:  (none)
    Type:  feature request  |      Status:  new
Priority:  normal           |   Component:  GUI
 Version:                   |  Resolution:
Keywords:                   |        Game:
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Comment (by i30817):

 Replying to [comment:1 i30817]:
 > My main problem with the touch controls entwines with some other
 problems.
 >
 > Yes, they're not good for action games because they only trigger after
 touching (to appear) then moving the finger\touching the key. That's weird
 and slow, but it's not so bad because the main games scummvm has are slow
 adventure games. I understand why this was done, to make scenes and
 cutscenes pretty without extra hooking into engines that might not be
 possible.
 >
 > My problems are:
 >
 > 1. the keyremapper can't map all keyboard keys\keycodes to keys, and
 doesn't show the real keynames, turning the controller mostly useless in
 the games where you'd expect a controller to be useful (keyboard
 controlled PC games with atypical keys for the options or movement). The
 keys that exist and are shown and default for the virtual controller are
 per engine.... but almost all engines where this is useful customize the
 keys per game. Even scummvm which is the default 'available keys' has
 several games where the remapping is hell (grim fandango) or impossible
 (monkey island 4 iirc), much less AGS or AGI\early SCI games (sci was
 mostly good about keeping everything mouse driven after they ditched the
 parser). Therefore some games like all Stranga games (studio) are what I
 would consider unplayable in a tablet without connecting a real usb-c
 keyboard and even famous scummvm games (again, like grim fandango) come
 out of the box not playable in a gamepad without confusing the user with a
 remap of the game and digging out the manual to look up and trying to
 deduce what 'skip' means in the scummvm mapping menu (it's 'ESC') or how
 the fuck do you select items for Grim Fandango, just as a example of
 'trying to simplify things making them worse'.
 >
 > 2. Some games require or are much slower without a mixed keyboard\mouse
 mode (waiting for cremation studio games for instance, use the cursor as a
 shooter pointer and mouse keys as movement). Naturally, in scummvm tablets
 you would want to turn that into a mixed virtual gamepad\mouse mode (like
 if you turn on the keyboard in android scummvm and you can still move the
 game cursor and click in the background if you turned it on in the drag
 mode). The virtual keypad in scummvm makes this impossible because it
 occupies the whole screen. The left side is for arrows, the middle is for
 custom and scummvm menu button, and the right is for gamepad face buttons.
 No zone allows you to drag a cursor, much less touch to click (the 'mouse'
 mode in android) at the same time as a ScummVM virtual gamepad. You can
 try to use the virtual keyboard as a 'gamepad' but then you lose
 visibility in half the screen, or more in actual phones (although to be
 honest I think even a virtual gamepad would be unplayable in a phone for
 scummvm, so this kind of mixed gamepad\cursor mode would be preferable to
 also work with a connected real gamepad, if it has a touch pad zone or not
 - because tablet screens are touchpads too. It would be uncomfortable,
 because people don't have 3 hands, but better than nothing, generally when
 games do this they want movement in the keyboard and interaction with
 clicks so it's not so bad as all that except you can't hold that tablet
 and interact with the screen and the gamepad, so you'll be laying down the
 tablet, although yes a gamepad with a touchpad would be better like the
 PS4 one...)
 >
 > For me to solve (most of) that 2nd issue I'd just add another mode like
 the android keyboard mode but instead of a keyboard it would be a fixed
 game pad (although the custom buttons would be a problem obviously, they'd
 need to be offset to the sides or bottom).
 >
 > I already opened issues about these I'm just posting here to tell you
 (the reporter) that this lag is not nearly the only problem with gamepad
 mode\design. It's a hard problem and a thankless one if you want sane
 defaults per game.
 >
 > Also it goes without saying but a permanent on screen virtual touchpad
 mode should have the option or default to be transparent line art with
 fewer details (eg you don't need a big A or different colors at all for
 face buttons, even with lower alpha transparency, just the positions are
 more than enough to minimize noise when you want to see a cutscene or
 beautiful screen).
-- 
Ticket URL: <https://bugs.scummvm.org/ticket/16200#comment:2>
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