Since the Stonehearth team is working on making controls configurable, now would be a great time to consider adding SCAPI support. What this does is allow players using Steam to bind game actions directly to inputs, allowing anyone to use any controller with the game. This also offloads the need to make the game controller-friendly for those wishing to play on the couch, since Steam’s own configurator will automatically load up a controller profile for the user’s specific controller. Players using a Dualshock 4 controller could use the touchpad to access shortcuts and the gyro to move the mouse, for example, while players using a 360 pad might hold down a shoulder button to access a radial menu.
Without SCAPI support, it’s rather difficult to bind many actions like Loot or Pasture to the controller. SCAPI support can also do stuff like automatically change the control scheme based on what menu the game’s in, or when the game is waiting for you to type something in it could automatically pause the game speed and bring up Steam’s on-screen keyboard if the user is using a controller.
It would also be a nice touch to include some Stonehearth graphics for menu icons, so that users can easily see at a glance what each command in a Touch Menu does.
For those of you that aren’t familiar with Steam’s configurator, this is what SCAPI support in a game looks like:
Notice that it doesn’t bind any keyboard or gamepad buttons, it’s binding game actions directly; this is super helpful for Stonehearth for a number of reasons such as ignoring Windows mouse sensitivity (so those playing with high DPI mice and low Windows sensitivity can actually use the mouse on a controller) or easily binding controls that would otherwise require activator trickery (such as the Loot shortcut). It works with all sorts of controllers too, not just Steam Controllers; any Xinput gamepad, 360 or Xbone controller, or PS4 controller can be used like this and take advantage of SCAPI support.
This video gives an overview of why exactly the SCAPI is beneficial from a developer’s POV; if nothing else, it would make controller support a breeze and would likely qualify Stonehearth to be featured in a future Steam Controller bundle.