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[Core Xii]

We've discovered an annoying issue on some keyboards with the up cursor key and the space bar. They seem to cancel each other's signal

Yea it's a common characteristic on most keyboards that they don't register many keys pressed at once - And which keys mask which other keys is dependent on the keyboard in question.

Simply, keyboards were never designed for gaming. When you type, you don't need to hit many buttons at once.

If you want to get around this you have to buy a keyboard with so-called anti-ghosting technology.

[Xion]

I used to hate using arrow keys, only liked wasd+jkl. When I first played a game with arrows+zxc I was all wtf is this shit. Now, though, it's my preferred setup. I absolutely abhor the use of ctrl, shift, alt, etc. in games, though. Space is kind of neutral. Just as long as it's not for any often-used action like shooting or jumping or anything, I can deal.

[skyy]

I don't mind but if I can choose I tend to map actions to A,S,D... I'm a retard, mapping them down to Z,X,C to me seems strange and I don't like it. All though many indie games are made with that mapping and I play them happily. Tough luck for me, I suppose?

[alspal]

The perfect controls for arcade styled games is of course a nice joystick, not a keyboard.

Customizable controls are a must, but I have my joysticks mapped to Arrow keys and ZXCASD since they're fairly common.

[psy_wombats]

Anything but numpad. It's rather annoying to play anything like that on a laptop. It's fun to try and play with the top keyboard row as if it were 9-dir though.

[TooMuchSpareTime]

In the days of DOS, I was all about the CTRL/ALT/Space control keys in games. Then Windows took over and turned everything into a shortkey for something! 
Now I reconfigure old games' control keys to asdzxc.

[Radnom]

I'm super used to arrow keys and ShiftAltCtrl from old windows arcade games like Keen and Duke.

But with the advent of the windows key and weird keyboards, I now prefer ZXCASD.
WASD is good for mousing but not much else. I have seen WASD + JKL;, but it's unusual.

I'm in the same boat as TooMuchSpareTime and Hangedman - I used to use the arrows and Ctrl/Shift/Alt etc. but after getting used to indie games that all seem to use ZXC I've gotten used to the scheme.

Haha, when I was little I used to think it was more intuitive to use the space bar for firing, because it's the biggest button!

[N. Crayon]

I like ZXC and Arrow Keys, because it's nice and easy to explain, and it gives you plenty of space between your fingers.

I also like ASD and Arrow Keys for movement, for the same reason.

WASD and mouse is ok, but if I'm playing an MMO I always change it to ESDF, so I can get more hotkeys, and I think it's a little more convenient anyways.

[gimymblert]

AZERTY    Configurable
               










I could not play some indie game until glove pie, heck even commercial game. I miss so many things on amstrad CPC because of this 

[slembcke]

Heh. As a dvorak user I'm often annoyed by this as well. It's usually not an issue as you can switch the layout with a keystroke, but sometimes games seem to continue using the incorrect layout and you need to restart the game with the layout set beforehand. Using arrow and modifier keys is nice because they never get remapped, but being right handed, I'd rather have the action keys and not the movement keys on the hand with better reflexes.

Also, maybe I'm a bit weird, but I actually like using SDFE over WASD. I've met a couple other people that do this too.

[Jonathan Whiting]

It's worth noting that whilst nicely configurable keys are ideal:

• Choosing good default settings is still very important.
• It is possible to bind arrow keys + wsad + z/x/c + ctrl/alt/delete without overlapping.  If you're making something small that you want people to be able to just pick up and play it's a good option.

[Derakon]

Heh. As a dvorak user I'm often annoyed by this as well. It's usually not an issue as you can switch the layout with a keystroke, but sometimes games seem to continue using the incorrect layout and you need to restart the game with the layout set beforehand.

This. Computers can be really bad sometimes about handling different default keyboard layouts. I've had some games that end up binding the same letter to multiple keys, which renders other letters inaccessible! Bizarre. And while you can switch back to QWERTY easily enough, it's still jarring switching back and forth.

Using arrow and modifier keys is nice because they never get remapped, but being right handed, I'd rather have the action keys and not the movement keys on the hand with better reflexes.

Odd, I prefer to have movement on the right hand for the same reason. And yes, using arrow keys and meta keys is good, not just because they don't get remapped, but also because you're much less likely to run into the "key limit" with meta keys, since they're designed with the assumption that many of them may be held down at the same time.