Hacker News Reader

Comment by simias | Hacker News Reader

It's very cool, however I have yet to find an html5 game that will let me change the keybindings. Think of the people who don't use QWERTY!

View on HN

For Ubuntu (and probably most of the other distros) theres a keyboard layout switcher. I'm sure there's something similar for windows and almost every browser. You can use those extensions to rapidly switch to qwerty layout when needed.

Of course, but why should I need to? Most "real" games let me remap the controls however I like. Is there a technical limitation of html5 that prevents that or is just that nobody bothers to implement it?

Personally, it usually doesn't cross my mind to remap the keys when I make simple games, because I'm so busy thinking about all the logic to actually make the game work. If the game is particularly simple, it's not worth my time to make a settings page anyway.

And if you think about it, mario is usually played on a device where you only have a limited number of buttons. There's no reason to remap the keys if there's only 6 buttons to use.

It's certainly possibly, it's just generally a waste of time for games made for fun..

Well here you go: http://blocks.solitairey.com

It's a Tetris clone and very much a work in progress: Only "Standard" mode (and the controls menu) is implemented at all. There's also a simplistic AI and it saves your replays, but none of that is actually integrated into the game interface-wise yet :\

Check out Robots Are People Too: http://raptjs.com. You can click the pictures showing the keys to enter new controls.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com