Docs · Make it a game

Input

Actions, not keys

held(action)

True on every step the action is held down. See held.

pressed(action)

True only on the step it goes down: one press, however long the key stays down. See pressed.

direction(action)

Where an action made of four keys points, as a Vec2. See Four keys, one direction and direction.

Your own controls

1. Choose View → Input map…. The Input window opens on its Bindings tab. For a project that has never saved controls it lists the six actions above, and says No input.ron yet: these are the default actions. Save writes them to input.ron.
2. Under Actions, select left and press Remove. Remove right and up the same way: the move action you add next reads their keys as one direction.
3. Type move into the New action box and press Add. With move selected, press Add composite and choose WASD, then Add composite again and choose Arrow keys. move, jump and down turn red: jump still has W and Up, down still has S and Down, and under the list the window says which keys each pair shares.
4. Select jump. Press the cross beside W, then the one beside Up, so that it keeps only Space.
5. Select down, and press the crosses beside Down and S. Then press Record a control and press C. The next key you press is the one bound; Esc gives up instead. S and Down belong to move now, and recording one of them here would cost move a whole composite: see A key already in use, below.
6. Leave action as it is, on E and Enter. No action is red now.
7. Press Save. The window writes input.ron beside project.rengy, and the editor’s Play uses the new controls at once. A character carrying drop_down.rgs now drops through a one-way ledge on C. One the keys drive follows your jump and down too: it jumps on Space alone, and drops on C held with Space. Your controls have no left or right, so it still walks on A and D or the arrows.

An action’s name

Click it to see its keys on the right. Double-click it, or press Rename, to rename it; Remove takes it away with its keys. Scripts find it by this name, spelled exactly.

A key’s row

Record swaps the key for the next one you press, and the cross beside it unbinds it.

A key already in use

Record a key another action has and the window says so, for example Space already runs jump. Keep it where it is gives up. Take it anyway moves the key to this action, and if the other action had it in a composite, the other action loses that whole composite.

Red rows

Two actions that share a key, which composites can do. Under the list the window says which key they share. It is only a warning: both actions answer that key. The six actions a project starts with share W and Up between up and jump on purpose, and the window says so in grey instead: a body standing on the ground jumps on them, and a floating one goes up.

Reload

Reads input.ron again and throws away changes you have not saved. While there are some, the window’s title ends in *.

Four keys, one direction

/// Walks the node in eight directions with the move action.
component Walker {
    /// How fast it walks, in world units per second.
    #[range(0.0..400.0)]
    #[suffix("u/s")]
    speed: f32 = 120.0,

    fn loop(dt: f32) {
        let way = direction("move");
        let length = way.length();
        let step = speed * dt;
        if length > 1.0 {
            // A diagonal is longer than 1: shorten it, so walking
            // diagonally is no faster than walking straight.
            translate(vec2(way.x / length * step, way.y / length * step));
        } else {
            translate(vec2(way.x * step, way.y * step));
        }
    }
}

A press and a hold

1. In the Input window, add an action called lantern, record L for it, and press Save.
2. Make the script below as lantern, and put it on a node with a Light, such as the lamp from Lighting and shadows.
3. Press F5, then L. The lamp goes out, and L again lights it.

/// Switches the Light on this node on and off with the lantern action.
component Lantern {
    /// Whether it starts lit.
    lit: bool = true,

    fn loop() {
        if pressed("lantern") {
            lit = !lit;
            set_flag("LightComponent", "enabled", lit);
        }
    }
}

What reaches a game yet

Keys

Answer in the editor’s Play and in an exported game.

Mouse buttons

Answer in the editor’s Play, but not yet in an exported game.

Gamepad buttons and sticks

Answer in the editor’s Play and in an exported game, from a gamepad plugged into a Windows or Linux computer. A phone reads no gamepad.

Interaction

Leave it on Press. Hold, Tap, Slow tap and Multi-tap are stored, not applied yet: a binding set to one of them never counts as pressed, although held still answers it.

Processors and Stick deadzone

Stored, not applied yet to anything a script reads.