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I designed and printed 81 custom keycaps for the GameCube Keyboard Controller, then hacked it to work with Animal Crossing
(lemmy.world)
I wanted to share this highly customized GameCube keyboard controller I built for use with Animal Crossing. Since the first AC game doesn't support keyboard input, I used a Pi Pico to listen for keypresses and send simulated analog stick movements to the game, automating typing in Animal Crossing at a tool-assisted speedrun level. It works a treat! I designed the keycaps in FreeCAD and printed them on a Bambu P1P with an AMS and two different colors of PLA. The code and design files are available for free on GitHub.
And a full build/demonstration video is available here (I ended up making it do a lot more than just typing) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw8Alf_lolA
How fast can you actually type on it before the game UI can't keep up? Are you keeping some kind of input buffer to deal with that?
Yep, it uses an input buffer. I ran some tests it seems to max out around 45wpm. If you type faster than that, the characters will still be added to the buffer and get processed, but you'll eventually have to sit and wait for the movements to play out (at about 45wpm). For reference, my best rate unassisted (using a standard GameCube controller) was about 20wpm.
I just finished the video, that was incredible! Great job. I subscribed
The Pi Pico implementation is seriously impresive - it's basicaly a full controller emulator that tricks the GameCube into thinking analog inputs are happening when they're not.
Thanks for checking it out! Glad you enjoyed it.