Game controls

Game controls (Home + X)

Game controls lets every app — and every game inside an emulator — have its own buttons. Turn a button into another button, a keyboard key, a mouse click or a Wayfinder action. Make a stick move the mouse. Aim with the gyro. Record macros.

Game controls needs the input layer (Controller → More options → Input layer — where it runs; see The controller). If it's off for this app, the page shows a red banner: "The input layer is off for app, so these changes do nothing right now." — press Turn it on for app.

With Only games I set up, the layer starts in a game as soon as you change something for it here.

Your changes only apply while that app (or game) has the controller. Other apps are not affected.

Open and close it

While playing: press Home + X.

• The page opens on the screen where Wayfinder's Hub lives (the top screen by default — see Appearance), and the controller goes there.
• It opens the controls of the game you're playing. Inside an emulator, that's the game's own controls, not the whole emulator's (see "Which game?" below).
• If there's no game on the controller's screen, you see "Game controls: start a game on this screen first".

To go back to the game: press Home + X again, or B, or the Back to game button. The controller goes back to the game. (Over an app that isn't a game, the button says Back to app, and the line under the name says "Not this app? Switch".)

Other ways in:

• The Game controls tile in the Quick panel.
• Wayfinder → Games → the app → Open Game controls ›. Games inside that app with their own controls are listed at the bottom of its window, each one press away.

The page

The middle of the page is a drawing of the Thor's controller.

Button	What it does on this page
D-pad	Move between the controls on the drawing (you can also touch them)
A	Open the selected control
Y	Reset the selected control
X	Switch the face buttons (Nintendo / Xbox) for this app
B	Close a popup, or leave the page

• Changed controls are coloured and show what they do now.
• Home and Back stay with Wayfinder — they can't be changed here.
• L1 L2 · R1 R2 are on the back edge of the Thor.

At the top:

• GAME CONTROLS and the app or game name with ▾ — press it to switch to another app or game ("Which game?", below).
• Performance › — this app's or game's performance, fan, refresh rate, bottom screen, frame-rate counter and stick lights.
• Nintendo | Xbox — the face buttons for this app only. It says "Face buttons: following all apps" until you change it.

At the bottom:

• Change a button — then press a button on the controller ("Press the control you want…"): the drawing jumps to it (a D-pad direction opens its choices at once). Press A to open it. While it waits, the pill says Cancel.
• N changes › — only when you changed something: a list of everything you changed, each with Remove.
• More › — chords, presets, sharing, the input layer for this app, whether the controller goes with this game when you move it (Usual / Goes with it / Stays), the Shift button and Reset all.

Change a button

1. Move to the button on the drawing and press A. A popup opens: "X becomes".
2. Use L1 / R1 to pick a tab:

Tab	What you can choose
Controller	Another button. Press Listen for a button, then press the button it should become. Or pick it from the grid: any button, a D-pad direction (↑ Up, ↓ Down, ← Left, → Right), Android Back or Nothing. Turn on Several at once to press up to 4 buttons together (for example Select + Start).
Keyboard	Up to 6 keyboard keys, Together or One after another. Two pages (switch with L2 / R2): Main keyboard and Arrows, nav & numpad (also media and web keys).
Mouse	Left click, Right click, Middle click, Wheel up or Wheel down — for PC games (GameNative) and apps with a cursor.
Actions	A Wayfinder action (for example Screenshot, Close this app, Gyro on / off, Louder, Top screen brighter, Home on both screens). Also Swipe up / down / left / right: a finger swipe across the middle of the controller's screen — handy in apps made for touch.
Macro	A recorded sequence of presses (see below).

3. At the bottom, choose How it fires:

Choice	What it means
Normal	one press
Turbo	rapid presses
Toggle	press once = on, press again = off
Long press	a quick press does one thing, a hold (400 ms) does a 2nd action
Double press	a single press does one thing, two quick presses do a 2nd action

For Long press and Double press, two choices appear at the top of the popup: Press → … and Long press → … (or Double press → …). Select one, then pick what it does with the tabs.

4. Press B to close. Y resets this button.

Each D-pad direction

Select the D-pad on the drawing and press A. The page is laid out like a D-pad.

• Press a direction on the D-pad (or touch it) to change what that direction does — the same choices as for a button.
• The directions you leave alone stay the D-pad.
• Swap with the left stick (press X) — for old games that only read one of them.
• Put all four back — undo your D-pad changes.

The sticks: mouse, scroll wheel or four keys

Select a stick (Left stick (L3) or Right stick (R3)) and press A.

What the stick does:

• Stick — as usual.
• Mouse — moves the pointer (set Pointer speed, 1 to 10).
• Scroll — the mouse wheel (set Scroll speed, 1 to 10).
• 4 keys — Arrow keys or W A S D (for PC games).

When a stick is the mouse, the wheel or keys, the game doesn't see that stick any more. A stick at rest — or one that drifts — never moves or scrolls anything.

Also on the stick's page:

• Invert up / down, Invert left / right, Swap with the other stick.
• Deadzone — hides drift (a stick that moves on its own). Usual = the deadzone for every game, set in Test the controller.
• Full at — for a stick that never quite reaches the edge.
• Response — Linear, Precise centre or Fast.
• Its click (L3) becomes — what clicking the stick does.

The triggers (L2 / R2)

On the L2 or R2 page, under Triggers:

• All-or-nothing (no half press) — the trigger acts like a button.
• Otherwise: Starts at (a light touch does nothing) and Full at (a short pull is enough).

Gyro: aim by moving the Thor

Select the Gyro pill in the middle of the drawing and press A.

What it moves:

• Off — the game reads the gyro itself, or nothing (default).
• Mouse — camera in PC games, a cursor.
• Right stick — camera in games without a mouse.
• Left stick — steering: left / right only.

When it works: Always (default), While holding, Toggle with, Off while holding, Full trigger pull, Half trigger pull, While touching a screen. For the button modes, pick the button (L2 by default); for the trigger modes, L2 or R2.

While touching a screen — the gyro aims only while a finger rests on either screen. For example, rest a thumb on the bottom screen to aim, and lift it to stop.

How it feels: Speed, Up / down speed, Invert up / down, Left / right comes from (Turn + tilt — recommended, Turn, Tilt), Steadiness (hand shake) (Off, Light, Strong), and for the stick modes Game's stick deadzone.

Calibrate: if the aim drifts, put the Thor down on a table and press Calibrate. Wayfinder also calibrates by itself when the Thor lies still for a moment.

Pause the gyro: the action Gyro on / off turns the game's gyro off and back on. Use it from a combo, the AYN button, a button's Long press, or the Gyro tile of the Quick panel. The Keyboard & mouse deck also shows a Gyro on / Gyro off tab for a game with gyro.

Macros

A macro plays several presses for you, with their timing.

1. Open a button, go to the Macro tab.
2. Press Record with the controller, then press the buttons. Timing is kept. Home stops the recording.
3. Edit the steps: select one to change Held and Then wait, move it with ◀ Earlier / Later ▶, or Remove step.
4. Add more with + Key, + Left click, + Right click. Clear all removes everything (press twice).
5. Choose Once per press (plays to the end) or Repeats while held (stops when released).

A macro can have up to 20 steps. Home or Back stops a macro that is playing.

Macros can break online games' rules — keep them for offline play.

A macro that came from a shared file arrives switched off. Check its steps, then press Turn it on.

Chords: two buttons together

More › → Chords › (at the top of More) — press two buttons at once to get something else (for example L3 + R3 → Select).

1. Press + New chord: press two buttons, then press the two buttons.
2. Pick what they do: a button, a D-pad direction, or Or a Wayfinder action.

Those two buttons wait a moment (60 ms) before reaching the game; the others don't. You can have up to 4 chords.

‹ Back (or B) goes back to More.

The Shift button (hold to give every button a second job)

More › → Shift button — Off by default. Pick Select, Start, L3 or R3.

While you hold the Shift button, nothing reaches the game, and every button can do a second job. Each button's page then has a third choice: With Select held → …. Pressed alone, the Shift button still reaches the game (a moment late).

Presets

More › → Presets › — ready-made setups:

• Xbox face buttons (A at the bottom)
• Swap the sticks
• Triggers all-or-nothing
• Web browsing and apps with a cursor — left stick: mouse · right stick: scroll · A: click · X: right click · B: back.
• RetroArch hotkeys (RetroArch only) — Hold Select + R1: save · + L1: load · + R2: fast-forward · + Start: menu. These use RetroArch's own default keys: nothing to set up in RetroArch.
• Emulator menu (PPSSPP, Dolphin, melonDS, Azahar / Citra / Lime3DS, Lemuroid) — Hold Select + Start: the emulator's menu.
• Copy from another app — copy the controls of an app you already set up.

‹ Back (or B) goes back to More.

One game, its own controls ("Which game?")

Inside an emulator, each game can have its own controls (for example Mario Kart and Zelda in the same Dolphin).

How to give a game its own controls

1. Start the game.
2. Press Home + X.

That's all. When Wayfinder knows which game is running, Home + X opens that game's own controls: the page shows "app · this game only". They start as a copy of the emulator's controls. If you close the page without changing anything, the copy is dropped again.

If the game was just started and isn't known yet, the page opens on the emulator's controls, and switches to the game if Wayfinder finds it within about 3 seconds.

You can also do it by hand: press the name at the top (▾) to open Which game?, then + Controls just for game (playing now — starts as a copy).

The game's own controls are used while that game runs; otherwise the app's controls are used.

In Which game? you also see "app — all its games", the games that already have their own controls (each with Delete), the apps on the screens, and All apps….

Wayfinder finds the running game by itself: RetroArch, GameNative, the game file an emulator has open, and Cocoon.

Performance & lights for one app or game

Performance › (top of the page) — for this app, or for this game only:

• Performance — Usual / Standard / Medium / High. With ClusterTune or Pulse installed, this panel says so and leaves performance (and with Pulse, fan and refresh rate) to them — see ClusterTune, Pulse and other apps.
• Fan — Usual / Off / Quiet / Smart / Sports / Custom
• Refresh rate — Usual / 60 Hz / 120 Hz
• Bottom screen while … is on top — Usual / Keep on / Off
• Frame-rate counter — Usual / Shown / Hidden
• Stick lights — Usual / Off / Colour / Breathing / Spectrum / Screen / AYN default

For a game, Usual means what its app uses. Your own settings come back when you stop playing.

The input layer for this app

More › → Input layer for app — Automatic, On or Off:

• Automatic — what the Controller page says (Everywhere, Only games I set up or Nowhere).
• On — the layer runs for this app, whatever the setting for other apps.
• Off — this app gets the Thor's own controller. For games that don't react to the copy. These controls then do nothing there.

The same choice is on the Games page. See The controller → The input layer.

Share and import controls

Share: More › → Share these controls › → Save to Download / Wayfinder or Send with another app…. Only the controller mapping goes in the file — never Wayfinder's combos.

Import: Wayfinder → Games → Import controls, then pick the file. You see what it contains before anything is saved; press Use these controls.

For safety, shared files only carry controller mappings: Wayfinder actions and system keys are removed, and macros arrive switched off until you turn them on.

Reset

• Y on a control resets that control.
• More › → Reset all resets everything for this app or game (press A again to confirm).

Good to know

• While Wayfinder's keyboard is open, the controller types: the app's Game controls pause until it closes.
• Face buttons for all apps are on the Controller page, under More options (see The controller).

See also

• The Games page — the other per-app settings.
• Keyboard & mouse — keys and a trackpad on the other screen.