Left-handed friendly control panels

[jan25th]

I am working on my control panel and looking for some advice from veteran lefties. My cabinet is for classic vertical games and will have 2 buttons and a single joystick. I was originally planning on having 2 buttons to left and 2 buttons to the right of the joystick. My thinking was this would make it more leftie friendly as 3 of the 4 people in my house are left-handed, I am the only rightie. If I do go with 4 buttons how should I configure which of the pairs of buttons is 1 and which is 2? Should the left most be 1 or should inside button be 1? Am I overthinking this? (The answer to the last question is probably yes)

[pbj]

Do a mirror image like this:


3   2   1  Joystick   1   2  3

[elvis]

I've thought about this from time to time.  I built a Moon Patrol cabinet about a year or so back, and it had dual handed controls.  Was an interesting experience, and got me thinking.

Speaking as a long time right-handed Street Fighter player, I've seen players play "crossed over" so their right hand is on the joystick, due to the complex inputs required for that game.  I used to struggle with it in my early years, but over time my left hand just got more co-ordinated with practice.

Should we make control panels different for lefties?  I dunno.  You could argue it will mess them up if they go and play games somewhere else.  You could also argue that almost every game console and arcade in the world is pretty much designed for righties, and that's not fair.

I'm more inclined to say - stick with the standard, so that they get used to it, and can play arcades easily elsewhere.   With that said, if they're likely to never play a real arcade machine outside of home, then I guess it doesn't matter so much.

[lilshawn]

do the lefties complain about having to move a player on a console game such as an xbox or playstation with their left hand while jumping and whatnot with their right?

If not, a standard layout will suffice.

if so, tell them to suck it up and play a normal layout.


I don't see a real need to have a backwards layout for left handed people. every machine in existence would have a regular left side joystick and right side buttons layout. To switch it around, would make playing games in an arcade more difficult because they would be used to the backwards layout.

[Titchgamer]

do the lefties complain about having to move a player on a console game such as an xbox or playstation with their left hand while jumping and whatnot with their right?

If not, a standard layout will suffice.

if so, tell them to suck it up and play a normal layout.


I don't see a real need to have a backwards layout for left handed people. every machine in existence would have a regular left side joystick and right side buttons layout. To switch it around, would make playing games in an arcade more difficult because they would be used to the backwards layout.

^ what he said.

Left side directional and right side action buttons has been the standard since day dot.

Its not really a case of lefty or righty.

It just is.

[wp34]

Do a mirror image like this:


3   2   1  Joystick   1   2  3

Do that.  You won't need more than three buttons for the classics anyway and it looks symmetrical.

do the lefties complain about having to move a player on a console game such as an xbox or playstation with their left hand while jumping and whatnot with their right?

If not, a standard layout will suffice.

if so, tell them to suck it up and play a normal layout.


I don't see a real need to have a backwards layout for left handed people. every machine in existence would have a regular left side joystick and right side buttons layout. To switch it around, would make playing games in an arcade more difficult because they would be used to the backwards layout.

^ what he said.

Left side directional and right side action buttons has been the standard since day dot.

Its not really a case of lefty or righty.

It just is.

The original joystick (Atari) was right-hand directional and left-hand action.

[lilshawn]

The button on the initial release CX10 series joysticks was kind an an afterthought. in fact after release, atari had to change the stick (CX40) to feature a "TOP" label on the stick because people were trying (unsuccessfully) to use the joystick rotated so the button was in the top right or bottom right side.

you'll notice at that time, a pile of 3rd party controllers feature buttons on both sides... and on the stick...and on the base... and.... to fix this issue.

[JDFan]

As others mentioned - if they grew up playing in the arcades in the US - they got used to using the right handed setups and adapted just fine (IIRC europe may have been setup the opposite by default ) -- If you needed to have the joystick in your other hand you normally just crossed the one hand over the top of the one on the buttons. 

[PL1]

Do a mirror image like this:


3   2   1  Joystick   1   2  3

The only downside to this setup is if you are playing a game like Lode Runner where P1B1 digs on the left and P1B2 digs on the right.

This is why I put the button-swap rocker switch on the back of KADESTICK.

Since you have plenty of spare encoder inputs, might be better to change the layout to:

F   E   D  Joystick  A   B   C

And change the MAME defaults so that P1B1 = A or D, P1B2 = B or E, and P1B3 = C or F.

Then you can go into the few exceptions like Lode Runner and set P1B1 = A or E and P1B2 = B or D.


Scott

[pbj]

"I want to play Lode Runner," said no one ever.

[yotsuya]

BUT WHAT ABOUT OMEGA RACE???!!

[PL1]

"I want to play Lode Runner," said no one ever.

I'm not a fan of the arcade version, either.   

As the unclean abomination of High Score Competition #124 Lode Runner (I keed, I keed ) draws to a close, here's a palate cleansing build for those of us who prefer playing the best version of this game the way it was designed to be played -- on an Apple with a Kraft Premium analog joystick . . . or on M.E.S.S. with an updated version of the stick.   

Maybe Xybots would be a more compellng reason.   


Scott

[jeremymtc]

There were a number of US domestic cabs I played back when which had mirrored button setups like pbj and Scott mention, most notably Strider. That's the way that I would go. Even as a rightie I'd often make use of the left-side button bank for real button hammering.

[jan25th]

I am leaning towards the mirrored button layout as I remember that existing on a number of games. I know I would favour the action button on the left for some games and on the right for others.

I was thinking that if I didn't go mirrored I might just throw a trackball on there for some centipede goodness. Or I could just build a trackball cabinet. Make that cabinets, one vertical and one horizontal. As if ....

[jan25th]

Nice troll with the Omega Race Yots. 

[paigeoliver]

Ambidextrous controls are totally unneeded, the industry gave up on them about 30 years ago once they figured out that left handed people were already well adapted to a right handed world. As far as I can tell you can't even buy a left handed gamepad for any console. If that is something that isn't even available with any console I can't imagine it would be something your mame cabinet just has to have.

Putting the buttons on both sides of the stick are fine, if and only if the game has one stick. Some early Jamma titles had 2 player ambidextrous controls, but they were a mistake and easily resulted in players getting in each others way if one of them actually tried to go lefty.

I personally maintain the same left to right button ordering, I do not invert it.

Atari 2600 put the button in the left hand because it was designed before they knew any better, and because 2600 games generally had the stick as the fine control and the button as the dumber control.

[Scassidy24]

I'm a lefty.  Never even considered "left handed" controls


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[jan25th]

F u all 

I just sent this in for printing. If they don't get used I will have wasted 2 buttons. You may have to look closely for the 4 button drilling marks but they are there.

[keilmillerjr]

F u all 

I just sent this in for printing. If they don't get used I will have wasted 2 buttons. You may have to look closely for the 4 button drilling marks but they are there.

Do it up!