net - UK (2020-03)

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Side project

Tell us what your side project does.

GameController.JS (https://netm.ag/2FuWCsj) is a

JavaScript library that enables developers to manage

gamepads in all modern browsers. Its goal is to

remove the initial complexity of the original web API.

Why did you create it?

While searching for a web API to integrate in a

different project, I was surprised to find that there

was a standard Gamepad API. I enjoy playing games

and it had this cool factor that made it fun to learn.

After getting the first snippets working from

scratch, I realised that every step in the process

required many repetitive tasks and, although not

excessively complex, it was going to be difficult to

maintain. Building a library to simplify the interface

was a natural move and it almost happened without

even realising.

What were you hoping to achieve?

At the beginning, developing the library was more of

a personal and learning challenge but soon I came to

the realisation that I not only wanted to be the

developer of the library but also one of the users. And

after seeing how repetitive and tedious some of the

steps were, the goal in mind soon became simplicity.

The simpler and easier to use that the library was, the

better it would be for other developers (and myself) to

build interesting projects with it.

What technologies were used in building it?

The core of the library is the Gamepad API and its

extensions (like the game controller vibration). It was

built using Vanilla JS in an attempt to keep it free of

other libraries or plugin dependencies and also as

light as possible (the current version is around 6KB).

How has it been received?

The first people that tried the library – and gave the

thumbs up – were my four-year-old and two-year-

old children. They are still too little to play games like

Guitar Hero or Dance Dance Revolution but they enjoy

pretending to play with the drums and guitars. They

were excited when I used the library to build simple

versions of those games they could play with the

controllers connected to the browser.

Received warmly by the developer community,

GameController.JS is fairly recent but already several

projects started linking it as a dependency to build

web games with gamepad support.

What do you think you’ll do next with it?

The Gamepad API is an actively evolving document,

which means that GameController.JS has to be

updated often to keep up with the new changes. The

library needs some polishing, expanding it to include

more functionality and extensions and adding custom

JavaScript events.

As mentioned before, the next step would be for me

to become a user of the library and build a version of

a game like DDR with open and accessible features to

make it available for everyone.

SIDE PROJECT OF THE MONTH

ALVARO

MONTORO

Montoro is a software

engineer passionate

about web technologies

in general and HTML and

CSS in particular.

w: alvaromontoro.com

t: @alvaro_montoro

INFO

GAMECONTROLLER.JS

Alvaro Montoro on his library for putting

gamepad functionality in the hands of developers