Four Months Ago, This Would Be Very Tempting.

[SirisC]

Droid gamepad makes the Droid a much more tempting option. I'd primarily be concerned with how many simultaneous keypresses its keyboard can handle.

[edit] sentence fragment

 

[Fzero]

Not bad, but no hen

 

[craigix]

It's interesting because of how it is made, it's clearly using some kind of low volume process which makes it very cheap.

I'm sort of impressed by it but also skeptical that it would give very good controls.

 

[Mofokubik]

Interesting indeed. I wonder if something like this would be possible on a touch screen? I prefer physical push buttons to touch screens anyday, i'm sure others agree.

 

[craigix]

Interesting indeed. I wonder if something like this would be possible on a touch screen? I prefer physical push buttons to touch screens anyday, i'm sure others agree.

You could just stick on a dpad made from rubber I guess. It's the sort of bodge I expected to see in those 10-in-1 iPhone kits.

You could never get analogue control on any systems using this rubber overlay though.

 

[Fzero]

what you talking about rubber dpad on a touchscreen?

this wouldnt work for the capacitive style ones though would it? eg: iphone?

I wouldnt expect that to work as you they rely on the electric static blah blah dont they?

If it COULD work, while i wait for the iControlpad, i would glue a rubber dpad/buttons onto an old pair of gloves and wear those while playing on the iphone, no joke!
I wouldnt want to ruin my iphone screen by glueing rubber controllers onto it, but the glove method i would do, anything is better than lame touchscreen no tactile style


what am i even talking about!? - that'd never work, seeing as the dpad would be attached to my thumb/glove, id have the same problem with aligning my glove thumb with the section of screen that needs to be pressed - doh!

i gotta stop getting so lean, my brain is melting...ignore this!

[but still interested if the glued rubber dpad thing would work on the iphone screen... i cant see it myself.]

[yep, i just ripped a rubber off top of a pencil and the iphone screen doesnt recognise my touch when i got the rubber bit between thumb and screen ... shame though, thought you were onto something there craig as a quick bodge job fix for my iphone for emus that i cant use the wii controller on]

 

[craigix]

what you talking about rubber dpad on a touchscreen?

this wouldnt work for the capacitive style ones though would it? eg: iphone?

I wouldnt expect that to work as you they rely on the electric static blah blah dont they?

If it COULD work, while i wait for the iControlpad, i would glue a rubber dpad/buttons onto an old pair of gloves and wear those while playing on the iphone, no joke!
I wouldnt want to ruin my iphone screen by glueing rubber controllers onto it, but the glove method i would do, anything is better than lame touchscreen no tactile style

I have no idea what material would actually work on the iPhone screen. I forgot it was a capacitive screen.

But anyway, it would be horrible even if it did work.

 

[Tom`]

I understand that meat sticks (e. g. Slim Jim?) will work as a stylus for capacitive screens. Apparently there is some debate as to whether this actually works, but I saw it here: http://kottke.org/10/02/meat-stylus-for-the-iphone

 

[WizardStan]

so it's just a rubber pad that fits over the keys on the Droid? Guess that's a cheap way of doing it.

 

[Fzero]

hmmmm, i did read a similar thing, maybe the exact same thing, where someone was using sausages as stylus lol

Im going to try later tonight, if the screen can recognise my touch through the meat.... then i will be getting the scalple out and cutting up some nice dpad arrows and a few round buttons lol - then i just need some sort of MEAT GLUE that can hold them in place on the screen. Haaa! this could actually work!

people are going to be constantly asking me though why i have bits of meat stuck on my screen.... maybe i need to paint them so they dont look so meaty.

done - im buying a peporami on my way home from work tonight

 

[stuey]

It reminds me of after market stick on keyboard for my ZX81. - that wasn't too responsive either.

 

[Mofokubik]

I understand that meat sticks (e. g. Slim Jim?) will work as a stylus for capacitive screens. Apparently there is some debate as to whether this actually works, but I saw it here: http://kottke.org/10/02/meat-stylus-for-the-iphone

That's more along the lines of what I was thinking of. It would HAVE to be multitouch to work that way. Even if it doesn't work very well, there are no electronic parts required, simply slap on rubber pad with "meatstick" contacts that touch the screen when you push the button. Crappy, but cheap.

I wouldn't get much use out of this idea though, I don't, and never have owned a cell phone. I don't plan to either.

EDIT- I didn't mean meatstick in a literal sense, more like the finger touch style pens.

 

[kagato]

I imagine this wouldn't make for brilliant game controls, but if you already own a Droid and you want to play games, it's a pretty clever and cheap addon to improve the experience.

I wouldn't take the Droid + GG as being a good combo to buy for the express purpose of playing games, though.

 

[michaeljustman]

Droid gamepad makes the Droid a much more tempting option. I'd primarily be concerned with how many simultaneous keypresses its keyboard can handle.

[edit] sentence fragment

I know my Droid handles at least three key presses on the physical keyboard simultaneously, but I've never done any testing further than that. Isn't there a SNES test cart that can test keypresses?

Honestly I'm amazed at how mature emulation is on the Android platform... SNESoid just added support for Super Mario RPG, and my GP2X couldn't even handle that. I can run full speed SNES with with no overclocking whatsoever and it's pretty smooth.

If it weren't for the buggered controls, I'd probably just stick with my phone for emulation on the go for a day to day basis and save the bigger handhelds for long trips.

EDIT: For $20 bucks including shipping, it's worth a try (already own the Droid)... they don't have any available, but they should have some available in a week or so. I've ordered one and I'll tell you what I think. I'm curious if this thing handles diagonals well or even at all.

 

[Kangal]

.... Engadget did it

I had the same idea but I thought the buttons-over-the-other-buttons would be eerie to press and gamer-unfriendly and I still think so.
Another solution is to have:
the D-pad = action buttons
E or D = Up button
F or C = Right button
X or Search = Down button
S or Z = Left button
So your giant thumb can press the directional buttons with more versatility
Combination of an Up and Right key will compute as angular* (ie D+F would be easy to press -> forward jump)
All other keyboard buttons do nothing

Configured on the emulator.
For legit games (ie for the droid), you probably wont have that luxury

ed: picture and some clarification