altctrls-info

Didactic and very detailed guide for building with cardboard. Made by

Very practical guide about constructing things with PVC pipes: a lightweight and affordable material. Made by

You can use these to create soft surfaces and malleable circuits for your games. Made by

A guide on safety procedures and how to use Worbla. Made by Worbla. Price: Free.

This is a thermoplastic used often for making costumes and cosplay props. It can be hand-molded when heated and is easy to prime and finish. Made by Worbla. Price: 29 USD for a small sheet.

A website with textbooks, video lectures and a variety of materials about electronics. Made by EETech. Price: Free.

A versatile board that has a good balance between number of connections, simplicity, and tons of libraries, examples, and compatible platforms. Made by

A wireless (Bluetooth) board for creating HID (human-interaction devices, like mouse, joysticks and keyboards). Made by

A small Arduino-compatible board that can simulate joysticks, mouse, keyboard, MIDI and other input devices. It is an affordable option for making controllers for games when you cannot change the game's original programming. Made by

A board that turns low-current connections into keypresses and mouse events, without changing any software. Great for turning bananas into keyboards. Made by

A small board with built-in accelerometers, compass and radio. It features a block-based visual programming system and can connect via USB and Bluetooth. Made by BBC. Price: 27 CAD.

A series of videos [alt.ctrl] is a series of videos about alternative controller game and playful installation making. Made by

A series of interviews with altctrl creators, hosted by Alistair Aitcheson and Tatiana Vilela dos Santos, on the IndieCade Twitch channel. Made by

A series of very thoughtful videos by TIm Hunkin, where he shares his knowledge and experience on a variety of mechanical, electric and electronic components. Great examples from his electromechanical arcade machines. Made by

A plugin for using Android sensors with Unity (versions before 2019.1) beyond the ones exposed by the engine. The new Unity's input system makes this much easier on versions after 2019.1. Made by

An easy-to-use and setup serial port plugin for Unity. Made by

A plugin for sending and receiving serial port messages in the Godot game engine. Made by

A well-written and detailed tutorial that includes easy to adapt examples. Made by

A small library for receiving and sending MIDI messages in Unity. Made by

A small library for receiving and sending OSC messages in Unity. Made by

A JavaScript library for detecting markers and using them in tangible interfaces and alternative controllers. Made by Peter Gyory and ATLAS Institute.

A JavaScript library for accessing boards and sensors. Made by

A JavaScript library for the p5.js system. This companion library facilitates the creation of quick tangible interfaces with marker-tracking and computer vision. Made by

A detailed explanation with examples on how to use gamepads in browsers using Javascript. Made by

A workshop on quickly creating three custom controllers out of affordable and easily available materials. Made by

A blog about alternative controller games and playful installations design. Made by

An article about the creative process and possibilities of making alternative game controllers. Made by

A great article about different challenges and factors involved in designing a custom cabinet for a game. Made by

A guide on making coin-operated machines. Made by

A great article on how controls are key to changing the hegemonic status quo of mainstream game design, from a queer perspective together with critical design. Made by

A small OSX program to map controller inputs to keyboard and mouse events. Made by

A web page that displays gamepad information in compatible browsers. Helpful when creating custom gamepads or debugging. Made by

A desktop software that converts inputs from gamepads and joysticks to keyboard and mouse. Made by

An Android application that sends data from the phones' sensors to any device via WiFi and OSC messages. Made by

A software that emulates a XBox 360 controller on Windows, letting other devices be usable in games that only support that controller. Made by