This is awesome! Thanks Cactus!

More bug fixes today. I think I've gotten all of them now.

 Alright! I updated the title screen,I think its a little less elegant than before but its still pretty   nifty.
I don't think there will be any confusion anymore on what to do.
Update: Now its even better than before. No more regrets.

Here's a Screenshot from the game:

Space+Ctrl at the same time to continue.

I originally placed a + button to signify thus but I found taking it out really set the mood for the rest of the game. As a compromise perhaps I'll set it to show a plus after a certain number of keypresses or time has expired.

Thank you for the feedback Fyren!

After a lifetime of dreaming and twenty days of work I have finished my first game.      




Because of the nature of this game I feel I should let it speak for itself. It takes less than a minutes to download and 5 minutes to play so dim the lights, sit down and Click the link:http://jonathandaar.com/Downloads/TMATM.zip
Give it a chance, come back and tell me what you think.

Consider yourself visiting another world.


I've experimented so much with this game, most of the time has been spent revising it and polishing it, I would develop complex systems and then throw them out later when I found a more elegant solution, constantly just working to make the best game I could.
I Hope its fun, I hope its interesting, I hope it makes you think, I hope you connect with the character and realize he's not so different from you or I.

That's fair enough! But if reminds me of Vanquish, that's another wonderful example of input limitations.

I've always been a PC gamer primary, the idea of playing a shooter with a gamepad always seemed inferior, and so I would always pick up the pc version. That is until Vanquish came along, Vanquish is the first and only third person shooter that I know of that takes advantage of Console controls.

To give an example to people who haven't played the game:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xux1h-dBzro&feature=related
often times I would run with the Left analog stick, aim with the right analog stick and break into a slide with the left trigger, while firing with the right trigger!
Vanquish uses the entire Gamepad and I think the game would be impossible with a keyboard, it really makes me wonder how keyboard controls have shaped shooters more than anything else!


It took me a while to get used to the controller but once I did I found myself enjoying a wonderful game, the best third person shooting game of my life.

On the other side of the coin games like ARMA2 would also be impossible on a gamepad.


 

I never said he shouldn't have configurable controls. Most games should.

Chromeleon, why don't you have a gamepad? You can get a decent one for $10 with free shipping online!

>inspired by Radiant-Silver-Gun and Ikaruga.
Nice!
I was actually going to mention Radiant Silver Gun as a game that uses 4 button input wonderfully.

I've simplified the controls for my first game so its no longer a issue, but thats only because my target is making a game ANYONE regardless of previous experiences with games can enjoy.

But Later on I do plan on making some very intense  action games heavily inspired by Treasure Games and God Hand!
Knowing my target audience, I'm not a afraid to make a game that requires a gamepad or a high end keyboard I expect the majority of people downloading it won't have a problem.

My suggestion to you Klaim is to not try to work around it, Embrace the fact you are making a niche game for people who are serious enough about playing video games on their computer to already have a Gamepad.

Hello, my first post but problem is relevant to my current project.

Recently I've been testing key combinations that work simultaneously and it looks like keyboard quality is a big factor.

I believe you have to play safe and use 'established' keys (arrow keys, WSAD, ctrl, shift).
I noticed that on cheap keyboards space key can be problematic when pressed together with arrow keys (better to avoid it).

This probably depends on a type of game you are making but in my case it's a dynamic plane flying game so simultaneous key pressing is very important (4 pressed keys at the same time are normal).

That plane game sounds awesome! Most people have gamepads so that should be ok. How exactly do the controls work?

I once read HERE (it was fun to dig this zine up) that on some keyboards it's helpful to use as little rows of keys as possible.

That's really interesting! Thanks! It seems like the best solution is to simply allow the player to remap their keys because what will work for some won't always work with others. But that's some good advice for determining the defaults!



 

AFAIK this problem occurs only when pressing multiple character keys. CTRL, ALT, SHIFT, SPACE etc. all have their own cable/connection so the player should be able to hold up+left+SPACE without a problem.

Otherwise CTRL+ALT+DEL wouldn't work.

Perhaps my laptop is "special"  Up+Space+ (Right or down) works fine but it refuses to recognize Up+Space+Left. I'm really worried this is isn't that unusual.

could this be game engine specific?

I remember a couple time up-leftOrRight-SPACE would not work so I couldn't move diagonally and do an action

In Visual Boy Advance, this always happens, in LoZ: Link's Awakening, you can't move diagonally and swing your sword, it's worse in metroid when you wall climb, extreme annoyance

I plugged in a second keyboard and I didn't find any problems(I'm using gamemaker)

Try mapping the controls to different keys. It sounds weird, but a lot of the "broken" combinations are key-specific, not key-count-specific. At least, in my experience.

yes, but they're also keyboard-specific.

In general, and this is a PRETTY RELIABLE rule of thumb, you can't ever rely on a person ever being able to press down more than two keys at once.

That sounds like really good advice.
Its a shame, I LIKE pressing down multiple keys.

 But what if you had isometric overhead controls, you would need to hold down 2 keys to move diagonally, plus press a third action key.

Simplify your controls? I don't know why you need both up and space to jump.

Welll the character is jumping from wall to wall and I thought it would be nice to have 4 different jumps, a upwards jump(up+S), a drop(down+S) and two angled jump(left+s and up+left+space)   it seemed like a good idea.  

Tragically keyboards have a input limitation,  my laptop for example can not recognize Left, Up and Space at the same time. So If I wanted a character jump diagonally it seems like I would be out of luck.

What do you guys think about input limitations?
Do you think it has held PC Gaming back?
Is there any way you could overcome it?

I'm actually working on a game right now and I'm debating between taking diagonal jumping out
or leaving a warning when I release the game.

I found your tutorial very helpful. Thank you GZ!