Using controllers on browser games

[loretod]

Greetings-

This is a cross-post from the forum related to the functionality of controllers to play games on the browser. We plan to host an adaptive gaming event on 1/20/24 and use Arcade to create more customizable games for players just getting into adaptive gaming.

We will build an analog joystick and connect it to a switch interface (both designed by Makers Making Change). The switch interface can emulate a gamepad and I have been successful with testing this on a standard webpage running a JS library. See video. For some reason, the same setup on Makecode does not respond to the gamepad but I was able to successfully use my Bluetooth xBox controller (see video). The odd thing is that the simulator shows the controllers and button events but the sprite never responds. And eventually the game crashes.

I reached out to the lead engineer at MMC who tried it on his old xBox 360 controller and got the same issue. He also let me know that the firmware for the switch interface uses DirectInput. I welcome any ideas on how we could get this to work. I'm not very clear on how controllers are being responded to. I'm guessing it uses the Gamepad API and looking through the documentation I don't see anything glaring.

In the meantime, we are thinking of creating an alternative version of the switch interface firmware that will read the joystick analog value and generate keypress events. But ideally, we would like to keep the original firmware.

Thanks!