With our Gamepad Update now live on Steam, we have finally entered into the second part of the “Making our Tutorial” phase… actually making the tutorial. Implementing gamepad support was an exciting, but necessary, detour, as adding it was always one of our biggest desires and the tutorial was always something we were gonna save for last. During our time in Early Access, we have really come to grasp how badly our game needs a playable tutorial. The video we have that plays when you first load up the game asks the player to take in a lot of information before they’ve even touched the game and right now, our quick overview of gamepad controls, may be too ambiguous. These were never meant to be permanent. While they could exist in some forms later, they will most likely be removed once we have finished building the playable tutorial. After all, when it comes to video games, the best teacher is actual experience. In the meantime, we ask that you continue to be patient with us and use this article as another resource for learning how to play with the gamepad!
Probably the most essential part of playing with the gamepad is learning to associate which button goes with which system.
•Weapons: A (on Xbox) / Cross (on PlayStation)
•Shields: X / Square
•Engines: Y / Triangle
•Auxiliary: B / Circle
•Space Jump: Right Shoulder
When pressing any of these buttons alone, you will begin repairing that system if it is broken. If your Space Jump Drive is fully charged, pressing the right shoulder button will send you to the next area. Otherwise, pressing these buttons on their own won’t do anything.
One of the most important mechanics in The Chaser’s Voyage is the ability to reallocate power from one system to another quickly and effectively to fit your preference and the current situation. The right and left triggers take the place of the right and left button on your computer’s mouse. Only this time, you hold down a trigger and press one of the system buttons to change the power. Left trigger to take power away and add it to your reserves and right trigger to put power in from your reserves.
We had a lot of discussion of how to properly convey this when making the controller image above, but we were worried it might be to vague. For example, one way I thought of transcribing it was:
•Increase Power to Weapons: RT(Hold) + A.
•Increase Power to Weapons: LT(Hold) + A
But Cameron was worried that this would imply that you had to do both at the exact same time… which you don’t have to. So I thought about writing it like:
•Increase Power to Weapons: RT(Hold), A
But it was by that point that I remembered that this is why I never got into fighting games besides Super Smash Bros. as a kid. We concluded it was best to just use plain language and wait until we can make the players do this in a tutorial.
I think our other buttons are much more straight forward. We have many of the ship’s other functions set to the D-Pad but opted to move Activate Communications to the left shoulder button simply because in the heat of a thrilling battle, that button is more accessible.
To be honest, I wasn’t sure how The Chaser’s Voyage was going to play on gamepad, which is why I didn’t want to focus too much on it during early development. It was something Cameron really fought for to add in before proper work on the tutorial would begin. Now, playing on gamepad is the only way I play The Chaser’s Voyage and I’m kicking myself for not pushing to get it down much earlier in production. Consider this lesson learned!
You can also follow us on Twitter and join our Discord for more news and to give feedback! If you wish to play The Chaser’s Voyage, you can buy it while we’re in Early Access on Steam: