Gaming Goodness On The Go

[Phawx]

I am somewhere between 700-800 in Craig's queue and still looking forward to getting my Pandora in. As it turns out, I'm kind of happy I did wait a little bit longer before taking the plunge, as I should be receiving a unit that has been field tested a bit. Hopefully the nubs come in sometime soon, but I just hacked my Epic 4G so I should be able to hold out a bit longer now.

I figured you guys might appreciate this mod. Quite simply, I just ripped up my physical keyboard and then an amazing result happened. An actual usable game pad. Still wish I had analog nubs and some shoulder buttons, but that will come when I get my Pandora in.

Check this sucker out : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2407W5bIae8

 

[dgame]

Epic. B)

 

[Kangal]

Thanks for that, I seldom thought of this and now someone has done so for my viewing. If the keys provide enough tactile feedback, the positioning/placements are sound, and the cut out buttons don't actuate... this maybe worth it for some people. I still think that mod is really rough around the edges. However, if you dig the Pandora that shouldn't be a problem

edit: I wonder what would be better gaming wise that EPIC MOD or the Milestone2 (1.2GHz OMAP3630/SGX530/512MB) with the Droid2 Game Gripper (new design supposed to be better and more durable). If they're both hackable, then I see good times ahead!

 

[Phawx]

Thanks for that, I seldom thought of this and now someone has done so for my viewing. If the keys provide enough tactile feedback, the positioning/placements are sound, and the cut out buttons don't actuate... this maybe worth it for some people. I still think that mod is really rough around the edges. However, if you dig the Pandora that shouldn't be a problem

edit: I wonder what would be better gaming wise that EPIC MOD or the Milestone2 (1.2GHz OMAP3630/SGX530/512MB) with the Droid2 Game Gripper (new design supposed to be better and more durable). If they're both hackable, then I see good times ahead!

Yea, the mod is rough around the edges. Originally I never planned on just chopping up the keys, I wanted to create a replacement keypad. But this mod works so well and effectively cost me nothing, so why would I continue work on the replacement? I do agree that it doesn't look all that great. But I do prefer it over the game gripper. I haven't used any newer design, but the old one would slip around some times, whereas this mod is fixed into place.

Also the other nice thing about this mod is that I don't have to carry around any accessories. I just slide out the controls and it's good to go.

 

[Kangal]

I think you should think of finding a peice of plastic (donor) that you can convert into a legit gamepad, and have this replace the keypad (sits on the same place). Then I think (for others who haven't modded like you) it would be ideal because they can keep their original keymat. Then they can always go home and swap between the two depending on which one they want to use the most often (qwerty vs gamer).

A quick question though, how does that MOD hold up when using PSX4droid?
Responsive? Comfortable?
If they can put two grey transparent boxes on the bottom-right and bottom-left corners on PSX4droid;
do you think those could act as the nubs (even if they do lack the tactility.

 

[Popcorn Dave]

Very nice! I couldn't mutilate a keyboard like that personally, but it's pretty cool how good it turned out to be as a gaming controller.

On a related note, I'm honestly surprised some enterprising company hasn't made an ultra-slim "credit card" style gamepad for use with smartphones. I'm sure it would be easy to do, like those thin calculators you used to see everywhere. There are plenty of miniature gamepads floating around, like those silver ones that fold in half, but those are still chunky little boxes you have to have in your pocket. And there's that iControlPad, but that thing's so damn big you can hardly call it portable at all. I think a credit card style one would be so much more convenient, since phones are already that shape... you could just slide it in next to your phone and you'd barely notice it, especially if you had a good phone holder. Maybe they could even clip it onto the bottom of the phone to make a GBA SP style layout (although if you did that then centre of gravity would start to be an issue). I mean, I can't possibly be the only one who's thought of this, so it's funny that no-one has done it when so many companies are out there making cheapo accessories.