I’ve been playing first person shooter games for many years. I’ve never been very good at them and they aren’t my favorite game genre but it is nice to play in a game world from a first person perspective once in a while.
Movement in games is done traditionally by using the WASD keys for forward back and side to side. While the movement keys work pretty well I’ve always found it a little awkward to keep up a smooth movement while trying to perform other functions by pressing keys with the same hand. Crouch, jump, use, punch, reload, grenade, run, and often other functions as well. In the heat of the battle, trying to press special keys makes me lose my position in movement and I end up spun around and disoriented.
I got to thinking that it would make sense to use your feet for movement. Forward back and side to side. That would better align with your neural pathways so should be more intuitive and natural to use your feet to control movement in a game.
So I started looking for existing foot powered game controllers. Found a couple controllers that were made in just the past few years that were more specifically designed for VR environments. Rock forward and back and side to side. That is what I’m thinking of but they are kind of expensive. Also, why did it take VR before people started using foot controllers for game movement? Shouldn’t foot control have been an obvious solution for game movement all along?
Found some single click foot pedals. You can map one key or a set of macro keys to the foot pedal but it only does one function when you step on it. Did find different manufacturers that bundle foot pedals into banks of two, three or four (for both feet). Some people even say they use them for game functions but not for movement. Of course there are accelerator pedals for driving games and rudder controls for flight simulators but not much popularity in using your feet for walking in games. There do seem to be some individuals that have made their own foot powered controllers but no commercial products at all for foot game movement, other than the very recent and expensive VR controls.
Then decided if I want a foot controller maybe I can make one myself. I’m not a handy man and not great at DYI projects but starting with an existing game controller and maybe adding some adaptations to give it a foot platform might not be too hard of a project.
First I thought about D-pads. They are four directional and are often used in game controllers for the four directional movement.
Just figured you’d have to attach some sort of cross post to the d-pad so you could make a foot platform that would be large enough to use for feet instead of hands. Maybe even the buttons could be adapted for feet for functions like crouch, jump and run that are also natural leg activities along with movement. But foot controlled movement is the base goal I am trying to achieve, if the feet can do other functions as well those are nice to haves but not necessary.
Then as I researched a little more started realizing that a game pad joystick might even be more natural movement for the feet than a d-pad. Just slide forward and back and side to side. Joysticks typically have eight movement directions instead of four but game pads generally are recognized already by your system and either the left joystick or d-pad is already going to be mapped to movement in game.
I currently have a Logitech game controller that has two thumb joysticks (and a d-pad as well). I couldn’t really use the d-pad with my feet without attaching some sort of larger platform to it but the joystick can be controlled with my foot just by sliding it around. So without any modification, for a test I just propped the game pad on a cushion at the bottom of my computer desk and tried it out as a foot control.
I was just doing a quick proof of concept test. I expected it to be awkward and not a great test because the controller is just loose, not fastened down and prone to slide and move, and the tiny joystick is a little small for a foot. I was pleasantly surprised that it worked quite well. Sure a little getting used to not using the keyboard for movement as I’ve been doing that for years and occasionally bumping the other controls. But started out being able to move around without problems and after a couple hours of game play I was actually playing better with my hokey foot set up than I do with the keyboard.
Very promising. If I get a controller well mounted so that it is fixed in a location comfortable for the feet and attach some sort of larger cap to the joystick (a foot platform) then I should have a very good foot controller for game movement.
I don’t want to ruin my existing game pad so I ordered a cheap one to play with mounting and gluing on attachments to make it better as a foot pad. (lots of off brand models very cheap). I even had a game controller that had broken keys that I got rid of last year. Now I wish that I had saved it as something that I could play with adapting for foot control use. I’m going to start with joysticks and that seems like a good idea but I think d-pads could also be easily adapted as foot controls. I think this is going to improve my game play and will also situate me if I do get into VR some time in the future.