Gamepads

Gamepad triggers allow you to bind standard gamepad input to game functions. Gamepad input offers bindings for:

• Left and right sticks (direction and clicks)
• Left and right digital pads. Right pad usually translates to the “A”, “B”, “X” and “Y” buttons on the Xbox controller and “square”, “circle”, “triangle” and “cross” buttons on the Playstation controller.
• Left and right triggers
• Left and right shoulder buttons
• Start, Back and Guide buttons

Digital buttons

Digital buttons generate pressed, released and repeated events. Example showing how to detect input for a digital button (either pressed or released):

function on_input(self, action_id, action)
    if action_id == hash("gamepad_lpad_left") then
        if action.pressed then
            -- start moving left
        elseif action.released then
            -- stop moving left
        end
    end
end

Analog sticks

Analog sticks generate continuous input events when the stick is moved outside the dead zone defined in the gamepad settings file (see below). Example showing how to detect input for an analog stick:

function on_input(self, action_id, action)
    if action_id == hash("gamepad_lstick_down") then
        -- left stick was moved down
        print(action.value) -- a value between 0.0 an -1.0
    end
end

Analog sticks also generate pressed and released events when moved in the cardinal directions above a certain threshold value. This makes it easy to also use an analog stick as digital directional input:

function on_input(self, action_id, action)
    if action_id == hash("gamepad_lstick_down") and action.pressed then
        -- left stick was moved to its extreme down position
    end
end

Multiple gamepads

Defold supports multiple gamepads through the host operating system, actions set the gamepad field of the action table to the gamepad number the input originated from:

function on_input(self, action_id, action)
    if action_id == hash("gamepad_start") then
        if action.gamepad == 0 then
          -- gamepad 0 wants to join the game
        end
    end
end

Connect and Disconnect

Gamepad input bindings also provide two separate bindings named Connected and Disconnected to detect when a gamepad is connected (even those connected from the start) or disconnected.

function on_input(self, action_id, action)
    if action_id == hash("gamepad_connected") then
        if action.gamepad == 0 then
          -- gamepad 0 was connected
        end
    elseif action_id == hash("gamepad_dicconnected") then
        if action.gamepad == 0 then
          -- gamepad 0 was dicconnected
        end
    end
end

Raw gamepads

(From Defold 1.2.183)

Gamepad input bindings also provide a separate binding named Raw to give the unfiltered (without applied deadzone) button, axis and hat input of any connected gamepad.

function on_input(self, action_id, action)
    if action_id == hash("raw") then
        pprint(action.gamepad_buttons)
        pprint(action.gamepad_axis)
        pprint(action.gamepad_hats)
    end
end

Gamepads settings file

Gamepad input setup uses a separate mapping file for each hardware gamepad type. Gamepad mappings for specific hardware gamepads are set in a gamepads file. Defold ships with a built-in gamepads file with settings for common gamepads:

If you need to create a new gamepad settings file, we have a simple tool to help:

Click to download gdc.zip.

It includes binaries for Windows, Linux and macOS. Run it from the command line:

./gdc

The tool will ask you to press different buttons on your connected controller. It will then output a new gamepads file with correct mappings for your controller. Save the new file, or merge it with your existing gamepads file, then update the setting in game.project:

Unidentified gamepads

(From Defold 1.2.186)

When a gamepad is connected and no mapping exists for the gamepad the gamepad will only generate “connected”, “disconnected” and “raw” actions. In this case you need to manually map the raw gamepad data to actions in your game.

(From Defold 1.4.8)

It is possible to check if an input action for a gamepad is from an unknown gamepad or not by reading the gamepad_unknown value from the action:

function on_input(self, action_id, action)
    if action_is == hash("connected") then
        if action.gamepad_unknown then
            print("The connected gamepad is unidentified and will only generate raw input")
        else
            print("The connected gamepad is known and will generate input actions for buttons and sticks")
        end
    end
end

Gamepads in HTML5

Gamepads are supported in HTML5 builds and generate the same input events as on other platforms. Support for gamepads is based on the Gamepad API which is supported in most browsers (refer to this support chart). If the browser doesn’t support the Gamepad API Defold will silently ignore any Gamepad triggers in your project. You can check if the browser supports the Gamepad API by checking if the getGamepads function exists on the navigator object:

local function supports_gamepads()
    return not html5 or (html5.run('typeof navigator.getGamepads === "function"') == "true")
end

if supports_gamepads() then
    print("Platform supports gamepads")
end

If your game is running from inside an iframe you must also make sure that the iframe has the gamepad permission added:

<iframe allow="gamepad"></iframe>

Standard gamepad

(From Defold 1.4.1)

If a connected gamepad is identified by the browser as a standard gamepad it will use the mapping for “Standard Gamepad” in the gamepads settings file (a Standard Gamepad mapping is included in the default.gamepads file in /builtins). A standard gamepad is defined as having 16 buttons and 2 analog sticks with a button layout similar to a PlayStation or Xbox controller (see the W3C definition and button layout for more information). If the connected gamepad is not identified as a standard gamepad Defold will look for a mapping matching the hardware gamepad type in the gamepad settings file.

Gamepads on Windows

On Windows, only XBox 360 controllers are currently supported. To hook up your 360 controller to your Windows machine, make sure it is setup correctly.

Gamepads on Android

(From Defold 1.2.183)

Gamepads are supported in Android builds and generate the same input events as on other platforms. Support for gamepads is based on the Android input system for key and motion events. The Android input events will be translated to Defold gamepad events using the same gamepad file as described above.

When adding additional gamepad bindings on Android you can use the following lookup tables to translate from the Android input events to gamepad file values:

(Android KeyEvent definitions)

(Android MotionEvent definitions)

Use this lookup table in combination with a gamepad test app from the Google Play Store to figure out which key event each button on your gamepad is mapped to.