Diagonal moves: to enable or not to enable?

[Nop90]

In one of the games I'm developing I have to decide if to enable diagonal moves or not.

 

In some lynxes the directional pad doesn't allow diagonal moves, others do, like do emulators and probably the Evercade. Enabling diagonal moves the game experience could be different on different models of Lynx, and can't decide if this is good or bad.

 

In the game I'm developing diaginal moves make easier to gain more points, but it's unlikely that there will ever be an highscore list for homebrews. 

 

I'd like to read here some different opinions before I decide the way I want to follow.

[+karri]

The diagonal moves also work on the Lynx units that have a cross-shaped joypad. I have 8 directions in most of my games.

[42bs]

I always found diagonal moves extremely unreliable. Not only on the Lynx, but also there.

[+karri]

One problem in detecting diagonal moves is that two keys are almost never pressed at the same time. You need some kind of delay to turn a straight direction to diagonal.

[LordKraken]

Need to check the ones on the lynx but I can't imagine a shooter without diagonal moves, that would be a terrible experience... so for me it's a no brainer. I didnt even know that some lynx do not allow diagonal moves... like rly!?

Edited November 13, 2020 by LordKraken

[+bhall408]

On 11/12/2020 at 3:58 PM, Nop90 said:

In some lynxes the directional pad doesn't allow diagonal moves, others do, like do emulators and probably the Evercade.

FWIW, we support diagonal input in Argon...

 

There are some games that I think are better off with just 4 directions (pac-man type for example).

 

[SlidellMan]

The model 2 I owned had diagonal input.

[agradeneu]

Playing Rampart requires diagonal moves. I'm quite sure all Lynx models support that, because no diagonal movement for a pad would be poor.

[agradeneu]

On 11/13/2020 at 7:43 AM, LordKraken said:

Need to check the ones on the lynx but I can't imagine a shooter without diagonal moves, that would be a terrible experience... so for me it's a no brainer. I didnt even know that some lynx do not allow diagonal moves... like rly!?

Dito. I have 4 units, all are fine allowing 8 way movement. Certain games would play very poorly without diagonals, e.g. Robotron.