Gamecontroller.js is a small layer on top of HID to interact with any USB game controller, like Sony PlayStation, XBOX, SNES, ... with node.js, depending on a small config for each controller only.

Installation

Installing node-gamecontroller is as easy as cloning this repo or use npmjs:

npm install gamecontroller

Usage

Plug in your game controller and run the following code:

const Gamecontroller = require('gamecontroller');
const ctrl = new Gamecontroller('ps2');

ctrl.connect(function() {
    console.log('Game On!');
});

ctrl.on('X:press', function() {
    console.log('X was pressed');
});

ctrl.on('X:release', function() {
    console.log('X was released');
});

To get the full parsed HID data stream, you can run

ctrl.on('data', function(data) {
    console.log(data);
});

Supported Events

Data

• data- Get parsed data as it comes in

Buttons

• {type}:press - Button with given type was pressed
• {type}:release - Button with given type was released

Joysticks

• {type}:move - Joystick with given type was moved in either x or y direction. Object with positions gets passed

Status

• {type}:change - The status of a measure like battery changed

Misc

• error - An error has occurred
• close - The connection was closed successfully

Supported Controllers

At the moment, the following controllers are supported:

• Playstation 2 Ripoff ("ps2")
• XBOX 360 ("xbox360")
• Tomee SNES Controller ("snes-tomee")
• Retrolink SNES Controller ("snes-retrolink")

If you've connected a supported controller, you can run the following to find the name of it:

var Gamecontroller = require('gamecontroller');

var dev = Gamecontroller.getDevices();

console.log(dev);

Add a new controllers

If your controller isn't supported yet, add the the config to the lib/vendor.js file and send a pull request or file a bug ticket. To get all the information follow the following simple steps. Run the following snippet, locate your controller and note the vendorId and productId.:

var HID = require('node-hid');
console.log(HID.devices());

Using the vendorId and productId you can run the following snippet, press all the keys on your controller and get the array position of what key changes what array index.

var hid = new HID.HID(vendorId, productId);
hid.on("data", function(data) {
    console.log(data);
});

Copyright and licensing

Copyright (c) 2017, Robert Eisele Dual licensed under the MIT or GPL Version 2 licenses.