Controller Diagram on Loading Game Screen

Issue #2351 new
Former user created an issue

First, everyone programming LaunchBox deserves serious congratulations on evolving such a great software project. Over the last year, it's been a joy to watch grow and the community is fantastic.

It would be amazing if we could simply add another image type called "Button Diagram" or "Loading Screen" and in BigBox instead of showing the simple "Loading Game" screen you could elect to show this image type instead (maybe with some "Loading..." text at the bottom).

The problem it solves is that when I have friends over exploring my games box the #1 question people ask is "What are the controls?". I use standard XB360 controllers. I remember back in the day playing PSX demo discs that before launching each demo, the loading screen showed you a controller layout. I felt as a UX/usability thing that was fantastic. You could jump right into the game without fumbling around with the controls for a while.

I realize we don't have a strong community providing these kinds of images yet. Understandably creating a button map diagram for every single game would be incredibly tedious. But perhaps it would empower some users to have the option.

Specifically in my case I would benefit from showing the player a mapping between the platform's controller and the controller in their hand. For example consider how the N64 controller maps up to the XB360 or PS3 Controller. It isn't obvious. Even if that was an image I could specify on the Platform itself, it could show the player that image when loading any game of that Platform.

Maybe have such an image type at both levels? Platform and Game, and the game specific image could override the Platform image, or you could show them in succession. Seems like a pretty quick feature to add and might go a long way in improving the user experience.

It would be great to have a button map for each game, but I don't imagine that kind of info exists in any games database either in text or image format. But who knows if you write a frontend that can use such data, maybe the community will step up they way they have with things like EmuMovies.

Comments (2)

  1. fraganator

    It might be worth proposing the Button Diagram image type and textual controller mapping fields over at the LaunchBox Games Database issue tracker too. It's a good idea, even if it was just shown as a game image separate to a loading screen.

    The platform (N64) to physical controller (XB360) mapping might be a little trickier to implement nicely. It'd be awesome if LB could auto detect the currently plugged in controller type and show the correct mapping for the currently viewed platform, but even then that's dependent on the emulator being used, and the mapping set within. Not impossible though.

    You could always print a little flash card for the trickier platform controller mappings and leave it with the controller when your friends come over to play :) This wiki might be a good source for images.

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