If I m going to be dull and reductive about it, playing videogames works like this: we tell a game something through an input device say, a gamepad, motion contoller, touch screen or keyboard and get a response back in the form of images or sound. It s like a conversation, but it s shaped by the devices we use to talk. Without the Wiimote, there is no Wii Sports. Without the touch screen, there is no Fingle or Bloop.

If I don t own the relevant controller, then I can t play these games. But what if the controller doesn t even exist? Many games are impossible to conceive of because we don t have the hardware to act as muse. Are we living on a junk diet of gamepads and mice or a rich land of controller plenty?

Let s have a chat with a few developers and see wot what they think.

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It is a fine week for PC game releases. As well as Bit.Trip Runner we have Trion’s glossy MMO Rift arriving today, and at last the chaotic local multiplayer minigame collection B.U.T.T.O.N. (Brutally Unfair Tactics Totally OK Now) is also available for download. Described as a party game, it’s also very close to a literal fighting game. I witnessed a collective of RPS contributors warring over it at the EG expo last year, which resulted in the likes of Kieron, Quinns and LewieP quickly devolving from curious onlookers to a mass of flailing limbs, crushed spectacles and guttural screaming. The video below demonstrates how it goes, but picture it with ungainly bespectacled men and you’ll have some sense of the true wonder/horror of this keyboard-mangler.
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