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greggman / Hft Gamepad Api

Licence: bsd-3-clause
Emulates the HTML5 Gamepad API using smartphones and HappyFunTimes

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HFT-GAMEPAD-API

This script emualtes the HTML5 Gamepad API using smartphones and HappyFunTimes. This enables you to easily use HappyFunTimes with any HTML5 game engine.

It's SUPER EASY TO USE

Just put the happyfuntimes-gamepad-emu.min.js file somewhere and include it at the bottom of your HTML file

<script src="happyfuntimes-gamepad-emu.min.js"></script>

Or use it directly

<script src="http://cdn.happyfuntimes-extra.net/ctrl/0.0.7/happyfuntimes-gamepad-emu.min.js"></script>
  • Then run happyfuntimes.
  • Start your game
  • Make sure your smartphone is on the same WiFi as the computer running your game
  • On your phone's browser go to happyfuntimes.net

In a moment the phone should connect to your game and offer a dpad and 2 buttons. You can connect any number of phones up to the limit of your WiFi setup.

WARNING!!! Will not work on a Corporate Network, Hotel, Internet Cafe. Most home networks should work though. To test use a simulator on the same machine or open another browser window to http://localhost:18679

It's safe to leave the script always on your page. If HappyFunTimes is not running locally the script as no effect.

NOTE!!!! NOTE!!!! NOTE!!!! NOTE!!!! NOTE!!!! NOTE!!!!

While this will work, if your game is not designed for HappyFunTimes you're probably going to be slightly disappoinetd. By that I mean if your game is expecting an XBox 360 / PS3 controller with 2 analog sticks, a dpad, 13 buttons you're probably not going to be happy with a single DPad and 2 buttons on a touch screen. Consider designing a game specifically for HappyFunTimes.

BE CREATIVE

The point of HappyFunTimes is to make NEW EXPERIENCES. What can you do with 16 to 30 players?

What this script does do is give you an easy way to get started. You can take any HTML5 engine that supports the Gamepad API, add this script and get HappyFunTimes support. Of course it's up to you to design a game that plays well with lots of players.

Once you get started please consider getting even more creative.

Download

Options

There's few options you can specify in your script tag. For example you can set the controller to 1 of 6 types using a script tag like

<script src="happyfuntimes-gamepad-emu.js" hft-options='{controllerType:"1dpad-1button"}'></script>

Controller Types:

  • 1button

  • 2button

  • 1dpad-1button

  • 1dpad-2button

  • 1dpad

  • 2dpad

    Note: 2dpad reports the 2nd dpad on gamepad.axes[2] and gamepad.axes[3] as well as gamepad.button[16], gamepad.button[17], gamepad.button[18], gamepad.button[19]

  • 1lrpad-1button

  • 1lrpad-2button

  • 1lrpad

  • touch

    Note: touch x and y are reported in gamepad.axes[13] and gamepad.axes[14]. The values are normalized with 0.0 in the center and -1 to 1 at the edges. You probably want to choose some range smaller than that to actually use because various mobile OSes like to do things near the edge of the screen like switch apps or make various UI elements appear.

You can also set a few boolean options in the form of

<script src="happyfuntimes-gamepad-emu.js" hft-options='{option:true}'></script>

Or example setting all options might look like this

<script
   src="happyfuntimes-gamepad-emu.js"
   hft-options='{
     controllerType: "2dpad",
     dpadToAxis: false,
     axisOnly: true,
     reportMapping: true,
     maxGamepads: 16,
   }'></script>

dpadToAxis

normally dpad values show up as both buttons and axes. Settings this to false means they will only show up as buttons

axesOnly

settings this to true means dpad values will only show up as axes.

reportMapping

Gamepads have a mapping field. The spec only defines 2 values, "standard" and "". This script defaults to reporting standard even though it can't support all 14 inputs and 4 axes. Setting reportMapping to true will make the script report happyfuntimes-<controllerType>-controler so your game can check for that if you want.

maxGampads

Let's you set a maximum number of gamepads. The default is unlimited. If you set this then when more than that many phones connect those players over the limit will be put in a waiting list. If other players quit they'll be added to the game in the order they connected. Also see queue in API

provideOrientation

Set to true to provide the phone's orientation. Imagine the phone in portrait mode lying flat on a table. In that case.

gamepad.axes[4] = y rotation. eg: rotation on table. Range 0 to 360
gamepad.axes[5] = x rotation. eg: lift the phone to face you or tilt away from you. Range -180 to 180
gamepad.axes[6] = z rotation. eg: tilt the phone to the left or right. Range -90 to 90

provideAcceleration

Set to true to provide motion data from the phone. All values are in meters per second squared. Note: different phones seem to have different sensitivities. Imagine the phone in portrait mode lying flat on a table. In that case.

gamepad.axes[7] = x motion: eg moving the phone left to right
gamepad.axes[8] = y motion: eg moving the phone away from you or toward you (forward and back)
gamepad.axes[9] = z motion: eg moving the phone above / below the table

provideRotationRate

Set to true to provide rotation rate data from the phone. All values are in degrees per second. Note: different phones seem to have different sensitivities. Imagine the phone in portrait mode lying flat on a table. In that case.

gamepad.axes[10] = y rotation. eg: rotation on table.
gamepad.axes[11] = x rotation. eg: lift the phone to face you or tilt away from you.
gamepad.axes[12] = z rotation. eg: tilt the phone to the left or right.

name

Only used if more than one game is running on HappyFunTimes.

API

There's an extra hft property on gamepad objects provided by this script. It has some properties/functions you can use to interact with HappyFunTimes and the controller.

color

color is a CSS color. By default the script tries to give each controller a unique color. You can look at this field in the game if you'd like to match the color of the player's avatar to the color of the controller. Conversely you can set this value to a valid CSS color value and the contoller will change color to match. (eg, "red", or "#37EF4D", or "rgb(25,17,123)", etc.)

name

Name is the name the user set on their phone when they started playing. If they change the name it will be updated

netPlayer

This is the HappyFunTimes NetPlayer object. You'd probably be better off making a custom HappyFunTimes controller if you want to do anything um, custom? A few things you could without a custom contoller are for example register a handler to be notified if the user changes their name or if they're busy in the system menu.

queue

A function you can call to remove this gamepad from the active gamepads and put them in the queue of waiting players. If you set a maxGamepads setting then any players over the limit are in a queue of waiting players. Calling queue on a gamepad takes an active player's gamepad and puts it on the waiting list letting the longest waiting player into the game. If there no players waiting this is a no-op.

2 use cases come to mind. One, you have a life based game. Each time a player dies you call gamepad.hft.queue() on that player's gamepad letting the next player play. Another is you have a round based game. At the end of a round you call gamepad.hft.queue() on all gamepads to get a fresh set of players.

setOptions

Let's you change a controller's controller type. These options are the same as the options listed above but they are per controller. The only valid per controller options are controllerType, provideOrientation, provideAcceleration, provideRotationRate.

GET INVOLVED!!!

Make some awesome games with HappyFunTimes!! If you have suggestions, ideas feel free to add them or make a pull request!

Building

If you want to change something about this or make a new controller, well first off you can make controllers for HappyFunTimes games without any of this. See HappyFunTimes. But if you want to fix something or make a cool edition a brief explaination.

Setup

  • Install node.js.

  • Open a node command prompt and type npm install -g http-server (you might need a sudo in front)

  • Run these commands

    git clone git://github.com/greggman/hft-gamepad-api.git
    cd hft-gamepad-api
    npm install
    

Building

Just type

grunt

Running

  • Run HappyFunTimes

  • open a shell/terminal/command prompt with node.js

    cd path/to/repo
    http-server -p 8081
    
  • Open a browser window to `http://localhost/8081/test/test.html" (This runs a test)

  • Open another browser window to http://localhost:18679 (this opens a controller on HappyFunTimes)

  • Open an iOS simulator. Start Safari and go to http://localhost:18679

  • Pull out your phone, Start Safari or Chrome and go to http://happyfuntimes.net (your phone must be on the same router as your computer).

What's happening? HappyFunTimes is a web server. For this particular case it serves web pages to the the phone/simulator/controller windows. Your game (represented by test.html) runs whereever you're currently hosting it. For this case that's the web server we started with http-server. The script in the game will connect HappyFunTimes running on the same machine. It will give the controller files to HappyFunTimes. HappyFunTimes will then direct any controller that connects to it to load those files. The game and the controllers pass messages to each other through HappyFunTimes.

Code

The script has 3 main parts.

  1. src/hft-connect.js is code to try to connect to HappyFunTimes.

  2. controller is a set of files that implements a standard HappyFunTimes controller.

  3. src/controller-support.js is code that uses a GameServer to talk to HappyFunTimes to receive messages from phones and to emulate the HTML5 Gamepad API. It also sends files the controller files from #2 to HappyFunTimes to serve to the phones. Those files bundled into strings as part of the grunt build process.

The build pulls all of this into one easy to use script

Docs

You should probably read the HappyFunTimes docs.

Dev Tips

  • Use the Safari or Chrome remote debugging to see what's happening on the phone. Google it.

  • In controller/scripts/controller.js you can use client.log and client.error to send log messages from the controllers to the game. That can be useful for debugging. Just remember to remove them before you ship as they'll be eating up your bandwidth.

  • If you use console.log or console.error anywhere you'll get an error by the eslint when you build. add // eslint-disable-line to work around that

    console.log("foobar");  // eslint-disable-line
    

    Yea, a little annoying. Sorry about that.

  • Make sure you have a good connection to your router from both your computer and your phone. Bad connections suck.

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