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I'm currently doing a kind of training project in Unity (still a beginner). It's supposed to be somewhat like Breakout, but instead of just going left and right I want the paddle to circle around the center point. This is all fine and dandy, but the problem I have is: how do you control this with a keyboard or gamepad? For touch and mouse control I could work around the problem by letting the paddle follow the cursor/finger, but with the other control methods I'm a bit stumped.

With a keyboard for example, I could either make it so that the Left arrow always moves the paddle clockwise (it starts at the bottom of the circle), or I could link it to the actual direction - meaning that if the paddle is at the bottom, it goes left and up along the circle or, if it's in the upper hemisphere, it moves left and down, both times toward the outer left point of the circle.

Both feel kind of weird. With the first one, it can be counter intuitive to press Left to move the paddle right when it's in the upper area, while in the second method you'd need to constantly switch buttons to keep moving.

So, long story short: is there any kind of existing standard, convention or accepted example for this type of movement and the corresponding controls? I didn't really know what to google for (control conventions for circular movement was one of the searches I tried, but it didn't give me much), and I also didn't really find anything about this on here. If there is a Question that I simply didn't see, please excuse the duplicate.

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    \$\begingroup\$ Usually the player remembers the direction each keys gives regardless of the position. Because of that exact moment of use. It's not an issue if each key just gives one direction. You should play test it. There is no convention for this. Let your friends play both inputs and request feedback. \$\endgroup\$
    – Sidar
    Sep 6, 2012 at 8:05
  • \$\begingroup\$ Thanks, that was what I thought. I just wanted to make sure that I don't do the equivalent of binding jump to the left mouse button in an FPS. I'd upvote your comment, but my meager 1 reputation point prevents me from doing so, it seems. \$\endgroup\$
    – Christian
    Sep 6, 2012 at 8:42
  • \$\begingroup\$ I'll post it as an answer then. \$\endgroup\$
    – Sidar
    Sep 6, 2012 at 10:03

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Usually the player remembers the direction each keys gives regardless of the position. Because of that exact moment of use. It's not an issue if each key just gives one direction.But do not take my word for it; You should play test it. There is no convention for this. Let your friends play both inputs and request feedback.

Play testing is fundamental to understand your game-design and the players better.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Thanks, I'll keep that in mind and test the hell out of it :) \$\endgroup\$
    – Christian
    Sep 6, 2012 at 10:05

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