Im pretty new here, so i don''t know if this has been brought up, but after watching shows like Gundam Wing, and Zoids, their mechs are piloted by 2 joysticks, push both forward, the mech goes forward, pull one back and one forward the mech rotates, I think this would be awesome to implement in a mechwarrior type game

but not everybody got 2 joisticks at home!

so, built a game with support for one or two

quote: so, built a game with support for one or two

No! Just make sure the buyer knows that in order to play your game, he needs to acquire two joysticks. How cheap is the cheapest joystick?

If you design with two joysticks in mind, it''ll become nearly impossible to create an option for a one-joystick mode. And if you design with both modes in mind, your two joystick mode will never be as deep as it could''ve been if you''d just dropped the one-joystick mode from the get-go.

A quick observation, I don''t really remember those being joysticks. Maybe I''m not watching the same shows you''re watching, but I always thought they were one-dimensional controls, like throttles. What would the joysticks do if you pushed them sideways? Just make you run sideways? I guess that makes sense, but if that''s the case, then a one-stick mode wouldn''t bee too hard. Just make "jink right" and "jink left" keyboard commands. No sweat.

I''m assuming that by "mech" you mean the kind that walk on the ground, not the kind that fly in space, where controls get all screwy.

Your right this game would have to be land based, sideways could be strafe

also, if you have a hat switch on each, they could control weapons for each and, imagine firing at independent targets from two weapons, Starseige set up their joystick control this way, the hat switch controlled the reticle,

this piloting system would be complicated to get used to, but once you did you could pul some awesome moves that are pracitcally impossible to do using wasd + mouse

I have played two different arcade game that use two sticks to control the mechs.
One was a fighting game, and you could push forward with both to move forward, back with both to move backward, and turn around by moving one forward and the other backward, or slow turns by keeping one centered while moving the other one, etc.
It also allowed you to push both sticks to the outside to do a special attack, and push both to the inside to jump...or else it was the other way, but still.

Another game wasn''t really mechs so much but futuristic tanks. Similar controls, without the jump and special attacks. I had a blast in both.

Now to require a dual joystick configuration would be unfair to those who don''t want to spend an extra $15-$80 on another joystick AFTER paying for the game.

On the other hand, I always wished that the computer had support for dual mice, because sometimes two player games would be cool, but only one person can use the mouse (like pong, or something similar) so the player with the keyboard is out of luck in terms of speed.

Anyway, don''t most joysticks have a hat switch anyway? I know it is not the same functionality, but it is similar. Still, I agree that a game that made use of two joysticks might be fun. They would be primarily for mech and tank games unlike other joysticks, which are more versatile (flight sims, etc). Perhaps a hardware manufacturer might try to actually get some software support for such a device, and it might become big.

heh, In the 486 era, the Hat was added to act as a second joystick... (the joystick was for movement, the hat was for looking / aiming)

I beleive you could prolly design a game with a joystick, hat, and throttle control. That is usually what mechwarrior uses, and its a pretty good system...

If you were to design a game which was more like Smash TV which allowed users to attack with one joystick, and move with another, in a 2d(since keeping track of targets in 3d would be too hard)...

Another concideration is Technology. Can you grab and use two joysticks at the same time. In dos, this was trival, but I''m unsure how it will work in Windows...

Correct me if I''m wrong, but SEGA''s "Virtual On" used two joystick in the arcade. It was about two robots fighting in an arena.

You even had two machines connected together to play one against the other.

They had it for the Dreamcast, and you could buy the arcade stick with two controler.

It was a good game by the way.

How about this for a game. 2 Mice! Unplug that keyboard and plug in a 2nd mouse and your good to go. LOL. Now that would be a hard game to play.