Inputs
When playing games in Delta, there will be three primary ways to control the games:
- Touch screen
- MFi Controllers
- Xbox One S or PlayStation Dual Shock 4 (iOS 13+)
- Hardware Keyboards
Delta will support customizable controller skins, which will handle touches and convert them to game inputs. By default, Delta will include standard controller skins for each supported game system, beautifully designed by talented Caroline Moore, that mimic the look and feel of that system’s controls, such as this controller skin for SNES games:
However, you are not limited to these standard controller skins. Additional controller skins can be easily created by others and downloaded from Safari, allowing anyone to design and share their own controller skins with the world. The tutorial can be found here.
While controller skins serve as a beautiful way to play games, some games require more complex control schemes that cannot be easily performed on a touch screen. Apple realized this too, and with iOS 7 brought official support for MFi-certified game controllers. Of course, Delta supports all MFi controllers, allowing you to use real physical buttons when playing games.
Starting with iOS 13, Apple extended support to both Xbox One S controllers and PlayStation Dual Shock 4 controllers. Unfortunately, devices running iOS 12 will be unable to utilize the Xbox or PlayStation controller inputs, but for those running iOS 13 or greater, Delta will support them!
However, the buttons on controllers don't always match up with Delta's emulated systems. For instance, GBC games have A, B, Start and Select buttons, whereas MFi controllers have A, B, X, Y buttons, but no Start and Select. To compensate for this, Delta will have a default input mapping for each system that we felt was as convenient as possible (such as in this case, mapping the MFi controllers X and Y buttons to GBC's Select and Start inputs, respectively).
Of course, these default input mappings may not work well for you or the games you're playing, so you are able to create your own input mappings to change any controller input to the game input of your choice. Additionally, you'll even be able to map controller inputs to certain Delta features such as Fast Forwarding or Save States for even more convenience!
Finally, Delta also supports using external keyboards as game controllers, which includes both bluetooth keyboards and those connected via iPad Pro’s Smart Connector. Naturally, this is especially convenient for iPads with a connected Smart Keyboard, since the keyboard is always with you!
Just like with MFi Controllers, Delta will define a default mapping of keyboard keys to game inputs for each system, which of course will also be able to be fully customized, including mapping keys to Delta-specific features as well.
Delta will ship with these three forms of input, however we hope to add additional forms in the future, such as using other nearby iOS devices. (Ever thought of using your iPhone to game on your iPad?) Until then, these input methods should be more than sufficient for practically any type of game imaginable, even those tricky combos.