As you know, I am adding gamepad support in 2.1. This is to allow multiple players to play the game on a single device.
This of course works best on a PC, but a fast 10″ tablet is quite playable too if you prop it against something and have two bluetooth gamepads paired with it. Or better mirror the screen to a large TV.
Anyway, here’s the gamepad controls in Survivalcraft 2.1:
Left Trigger + A is equivalent to Shift + Click on an inventory item. It will automatically move the item to a suitable slot in the other inventory (e.g. chest).
iOS gamepads do not have thumbstick buttons or start/back buttons (they only have a single pause button in the middle of the controller), that’s why these functions are duplicated to D-Pad up and down.
In general I found that the quality of bluetooth gamepads for phones/tablets is pretty dire. I have two of them that I use for testing: ipega 9021 (for Android) and MadCatz Micro (for iOS).
Ipega 9021 for Android. Horrible, horrible deadzone implementation. You need to move the sticks almost half the way to the edge before any movement is registered. Then it suddenly reaches 100% way before the stick is actually at the edge. Avoid.
Mad Catz Micro for iOS. Slightly better deadzone than Ipega, but buttons frequently skip clicks, so you have to mash them hard to be sure they will register. Avoid.
On the other hand, Xbox 360 gamepads that I use on Windows (you can also pair them to Android device if you have an OTG cable, but they will sadly not work in iOS) are brilliant. Playing with them is almost as nice as using mouse and keyboard.
Xbox 360 controller. A fantastic piece of kit. Precise thumbsticks, perfectly working buttons. Puts all the bluetooth garbage gamepads to shame.
I suspect Playstation or nVidia Shield gamepads are just as good as Xbox ones.
Anyway, I don’t know what to recommend to you. Maybe other bluetooth controllers are better than Ipega or Mad Catz. Although I suspect they are all dodgy.
