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[Michaël Samyn]

I haven't played a lot of games lately. But I was wondering if there is some kind of standard for mapping actions to the buttons of a gamepad.

Like "run" is always on the bottom button, "investigate" always on the right button and "look at map" always on the top button or something.

How do most games do it?

[konjak]

What comes to me instantly thinking in the standard controller setup (using SNES as the example) is that common actions are Y and B, B often is jumping and Y attacking.

A is more for stuff like interacting. X would be that special feature you don't need to be as fluent with.

[Michaël Samyn]

A picture for reference, cause these buttons have different names on different brands of controllers.

[Farbs]

Some genres of games are getting pretty standardized on consoles.
From your reference pic, I'd suggest the following:
* B for primary action. Menu selection, context action, and often jump. This is basically your primary fire button, except in FPS games.
* A for primary cancel action. Menu action cancel. Also secondary attack. This is basically your secondary fire button, except in FPS games.
* Right trigger/horn for fire. Only true for FPS games though. Otherwise it's throttle for driving games and miscellaneous for other stuff.
* Left trigger/horn for alt fire. Again, only true for FPS. It's generally the brake in driving games.
* Select often brings up a map.
* Start nearly always pauses the game and brings up some kind of menu. I'd be surprised if this wasn't a TCR on most consoles.

[Guert]

Hmm, it all depends of the game you're designing. A scheme like Farbs explained is generic and works in many cases but it might not fit your specific needs (maybe).

When you design a control scheme, first thing you have to do is to list all the controls you have in order of priority, then understand how the controller works. In the SNES pad case, the controller is held with the left thumb on the pad, the right thumb over the Y and B button and the indexes on the triggers L and R. Following this logic, Y and B are the primary buttons, equaly important since they are easily accessed by the player and a simple twitch of the finger will activate them. The X and A buttons come after in order of importance since that accessing it implies the player has to move his thumb to the right, usualy using a slight rotation. In most cases, X is concidered easier than A to access because, usualy, the player will not really rotate his thumb but rotate his wrists slightly, wich will cause his tip of his thumb to remain close to the buttons while the bottom part will elevate slightly (making it too far to quickly access any buttons).  The L and R triggers come in third because of the fingers used to press them. Select and Start of obviously the last buttons in terms of priority because of their position on the controller. Note that it's also quite interesting to know that the Y button can easily be held down without restricting access to the B button. I suggest not to use the trigger too oftenly because not all player tend to put their fingers on the triggers and it tires the hand of the player a lot more if you use them constantly. On the other hand, trigger buttons can be easily held down with any other buttons wich can lead to some interesting possibilities. 

So, to summarize a bit...

• Y and B = buttons for actons the player will use oftenly. Y can be held down without obstructing access to B.
• X and A = buttons for secondary functions, things the player might use on a regularly basis but at a slower rate than primary actions. X can be held down without obstructing access to A. X is usualy concidered more important than A due to the thumb movement the player has to do to access it.
• L and R = third fucntions buttons for moves the player. Can be held down without obstructing access to any other buttons
• Start and Select = Fourth functions buttons for functions the player will use once in a while or functions that are not part of the gameplay, like Pause.

The PS2/Xbox360 controllers follow the same logic but they add extra buttons on top. Whatever you do about controls, allow the player to change those in an option menu. You have to make sure the controls are easy to use but you can't restrict players from changing them to their own liking. The best control is the one the player wants to have. In all cases, I hope this has been a helpful a bit since the other replies had good directions
Take care!

[Mitchard]

* Right trigger/horn for fire. Only true for FPS games though. Otherwise it's throttle for driving games and miscellaneous for other stuff.
* Left trigger/horn for alt fire. Again, only true for FPS. It's generally the brake in driving games.

For driving games this is only really relevant to Xbox/360 games.

On PS2 (and I'm assuming PS3) controllers, all face buttons are analog, so how hard you press on the x button can effect acceleration and such (this is most noticeable in Metal Gear Solid 2/3 ).

With Xbox controllers, on the other hand, only the triggers are analog and therefore are usually used for pressure sensitive actions.

[Michaël Samyn]

Thanks for the recommendations. Very helpful.

I'm not really looking for an ideal design solution though. I'm looking for what is most common. Both might be the same of course. 

[Radnom]

The ideal solution is to provide the user with a really simple user interface to totally customisable controls for everything 

I highly recommended you put the effort in to do this. Seriously. This goes out to all indy devs.

[Farbs]

With Xbox controllers, on the other hand, only the triggers are analog and therefore are usually used for pressure sensitive actions.

Fun fact: All face buttons on the xbox are also analog, they're just treated as digital in most games. The DOA Beach Volleyball had minigames that relied on the A button's analog nature.

[Radnom]

With Xbox controllers, on the other hand, only the triggers are analog and therefore are usually used for pressure sensitive actions.

Fun fact: All face buttons on the xbox are also analog, they're just treated as digital in most games. The DOA Beach Volleyball had minigames that relied on the A button's analog nature.

what about the 360 controller? I'm pretty sure that's not analogue.

[Mitchard]

Fun fact: All face buttons on the xbox are also analog, they're just treated as digital in most games. The DOA Beach Volleyball had minigames that relied on the A button's analog nature.

You appear to be completely right and that confuses me because a bunch of Xbox games had different control schemes to their PS2 counterparts (Burnout, GTA) that kind of implied a lack of analog face buttons on the Xbox.

[Farbs]

With Xbox controllers, on the other hand, only the triggers are analog and therefore are usually used for pressure sensitive actions.

Fun fact: All face buttons on the xbox are also analog, they're just treated as digital in most games. The DOA Beach Volleyball had minigames that relied on the A button's analog nature.

what about the 360 controller? I'm pretty sure that's not analogue.

These folk seem to think it is.
http://www.msxbox-world.com/xbox360-controllers.php
It's no a definitive source though, so really I don't know.
Regardless, it's best to treat it like digital input.

[GP Lackey]

Fun fact: All face buttons on the xbox are also analog, they're just treated as digital in most games. The DOA Beach Volleyball had minigames that relied on the A button's analog nature.

You appear to be completely right and that confuses me because a bunch of Xbox games had different control schemes to their PS2 counterparts (Burnout, GTA) that kind of implied a lack of analog face buttons on the Xbox.

Maybe other racing games on the respective consoles use that kind of scheme as a standard they change it to fit?  It would make sense if they were going for console-consistency.

[Robotacon]

I just bought two NES controllers with USB-adapters (for playing my own games).

A jumps, B shoots. Select to cycle through different weapons.

It is perhaps not my favorite controller but it has got loads of charm! One cross and 2 main buttons + a start button and a select button can take you pretty far. Sometimes less is more or less more than enough.

[Mischief Maker]

While this applies more to shmups than other games, let me root for more usage of Shift and Z as the two primary buttons instead of the usual Z and X.  The reason is, lots of keyboards get grumpty when you try to press two direction arrows and two letter keys at the same time and refuse to acknowledge one of the buttons, with disasterous results for the player. 

The shift button doesn't have that problem.

[Michaël Samyn]

This is about game controllers, not keyboards. 

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Also one thing that may not have been mentioned is that the shoulder buttons (L and R on the SNES controller).

They are often used either for switching between types of functions (imagine a row of functions, each associated with a different use of the Y or B primary buttons, and using L and R switches between those.)

They are also often used for camera angles, in 3D games. If there are two pairs of shoulder buttons, often one pair is used for zooming in and out, and the other for turning the view around in a 360 angle.

On controllers with two analog joysticks, the second one is also often used for moving the camera around.

And of course 'start' and 'select' in the middle of a controller are often used for menus and pausing the game; you probably know that.

[Michaël Samyn]

I looked at a bunch of Playstation 2 3rd person 3D Action Adventure games and took notes of the actions mapped to the four main buttons.

GAME	BOTTOM	RIGHT	TOP	LEFT
GTA III	speed	attack	use	jump
Canis Canem Edit	speed	jump	use	attack
Ratchet & Clank 3	jump	attack	cancel	attack 2
Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance	attack	attack 2	jump	pick up
Devil May Cry 2	jump	investigate	attack 2	attack
Tomb Raider Anniversary	jump	crouch	investigate	action
Okami	jump	talk/investigate	attack 2	attack
Ico	let go	speed	jump	attack
Shadow of the Colossus	speed	action	jump	attack
Shadow of Memories	talk/investigate	cancel	map	inventory
Project Zero	search	mode	menu	speed
Project Zero 2	pick up/use	mode	menu	speed
Project Zero 3	pick up	special	mode	speed
Forbidden Siren	use	crouch/let go	menu	flashlight
Silent Hill 2	attack	flashlight	map	speed
Silent Hill 3	attack/investigate	flashlight	map	speed

So it's all over the place... 

This does confirm what somebody said earlier about the TOP button only being used for things that don't require instant access. Adventure-like games tend to use the TOP button for accessing a map or menu. The LEFT button is most often used for attack, followed by the BOTTOM and then the RIGHT. Jumping is done with BOTTOM or TOP, hardly ever with LEFT or RIGHT.

In general, perhaps the BOTTOM button is used for the most important action in the game. What is most important depends on the genre. In Adventure-like games, this button is used for interacting with objects and the environment. In games where running/driving is important, this button is used for acceleration. In more platform-like games, the BOTTOM button is used for jumping.

Oddly in both Silent Hill and Project Zero, acceleration is done with the LEFT button. This button is kind of awkward to push down continuously as it obscures the BOTTOM button. Perhaps this is on purpose, to add to the drama. Then again, the BOTTOM button is virtually useless when running in those games. That's interesting: holding down a button changes the play mode which may render certain buttons unnecessary. So button mapping is not absolute...

[Melly]

Isn't the bottom button (X) in Shadow of the Colossus the all-purpose Horse button? (press it while riding the horse to kick his sides, hold it to make the horse maintain speed easier, press it standing on the ground to call the horse to you, hold it standing on the ground to make the camera focus on the horse).

[ravuya]

It's worth noting that in Japanese PlayStation games*, the use of the "O" (rightmost) and "X" (bottommost) buttons are reversed. "O" accesses menu items, and "X" backs out of them in Japanese games, whereas the mapping is reversed on American games. This mapping is standardized AFAIK by the Sony licensing body.

It's possible that some of this standard may make it over to gameplay functions in a subtle fashion.

* At least on the PS2/PSP. I say this because some early American PS1 games use triangle to back out of menus, which is rather inconsistent.