Keyboard to Joystick/Mouse Program needed

[Amiga600]

I am looking for a program what can assign keyboard keys to the joystick, as I have come across some games which use keyboard keys

The idea is to assign the weird keyboard keys to the Joystick or Mouse, for example Z=Left X=Right etc, so that everyone can play the Game instantly without needing to read daft instructions on what keys do what

Please can someone suggest something, ideally a CLI program which I can run before the Game itself starts, and hopefully be able to unload it after the Game exits

Many Thanks

[Daedalus]

A couple of considerations here: First, games that shut down the OS and read the joystick or keyboard directly can't be easily remapped. The game itself needs to be patched for this. WHDLoad is the kind of system that allows this, but most patches of this nature are for supporting more buttons on the controller. It should be possible for such patches to also include keyboard controls, but that will have to be on a per-game basis.

The other thing is that some Amiga keyboards (especially the A1200) don't really play well with certain key combinations, making arbitrary remapping of keys tricky. Sometimes when a game supports an odd keyboard layout, it's because of this issue and the keys selected are the best ones to use across all Amiga models.

[Amiga600]

That is a shame, Guess I can skip over these Games then

[Photon]

Bluntly: The Amiga is not clunky like Spectrum or PC, which did not have mouse/joystick support built in. It was difficult on those platforms.

On Amiga:

• For arcade/action games, games support joystick.
• For games where you have to point and use menus, games support mouse.
• For games with 10-20 control inputs like sims, keyboard is fully supported out of necessity, and joystick and mouse may be supported on top of that.
• Analog joysticks (like for industrial machines) take years to learn to use with precision, and were never popular, even on the platforms that supported them.
• PC ports of WASD point and shooters support keyboard+mouse fully.

If you don't have a joystick or controller to play (action) games, or you need this for disability or ergonomy you can run Amiga in emulation. This allows you to remap any key to a joystick direction or button, regardless of which game you like to play.

There are solutions, I say play any game you like. There's no need to skip a game you like because you need to play with keyboard.