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INPUT / Controls & Input

Controls & Input

Keyboard, gamepad, browser, replay, smoke, and runtime flag reference.

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Controls & Input

Super Mango accepts keyboard input everywhere, native gamepad input on desktop builds, deterministic replay input for CI, and a browser-safe keyboard path for the WebAssembly cabinet on GitHub Pages.

Player Controls

Action Keyboard Desktop gamepad Notes
Move left / right A / D or Left / Right arrows D-Pad Left / Right or left stick X The player accelerates toward the target speed instead of snapping instantly.
Run Left Shift or Right Shift Right bumper / R1 Run changes max speed and uses a lower-air-control jump arc once airborne.
Jump Space A / Cross Fresh presses are buffered briefly before landing; releasing jump early cuts the jump short.
Grab / climb up W or Up arrow D-Pad Up or left stick Up While overlapping a vine, ladder, or rope.
Climb down S or Down arrow D-Pad Down or left stick Down Only while attached to a climbable surface.
Drift while climbing A / D or Left / Right arrows D-Pad Left / Right or left stick X Uses reduced climb drift speed.
Jump off climbable Space A / Cross Leaves the climbable and starts a normal jump.

The desktop gamepad path uses SDL’s SDL_GameController mapping layer, so Xbox, DualShock, DualSense, and other mapped controllers report a consistent button layout. The analog stick uses an 8000-unit dead zone to avoid idle drift.

State Keyboard Gamepad Behaviour
Gameplay Esc Start Pause or resume.
Pause overlay Esc Back Exit the terminal overlay/run.
Game over Enter or Space Start Restart from the current level flow.
Level complete Enter or Space Start Load next_phase if configured; otherwise exit the run.
Terminal overlays Esc Back Exit without advancing.

The overlay text is snapshotted in Overlay Snapshots so docs drift checks catch stale control copy.

Browser / WebAssembly Input

The GitHub Pages cabinet uses the WebAssembly build generated by make web. Keyboard controls match the native build. Desktop gamepad polling is intentionally disabled under __EMSCRIPTEN__ because Emscripten/SDL can expose a virtual controller with noisy axes that overrides keyboard input in browsers.

The browser shell calls into the game through the WebAssembly input bridge in src/input/game_web_input.*. That bridge keeps a small key-state table synchronized with browser key events and flushes stale keys when focus changes, so a held key should not remain stuck after tab switches or canvas focus loss.

Runtime Flags for Input and CI

Flag Use
--debug Enables FPS, CPU frame time, memory, hitboxes, and event log overlay.
--sandbox Loads levels/00_sandbox_01.toml directly.
--level <path> Starts gameplay from a specific TOML file and skips the start menu.
--smoke-test-frames N Runs exactly N frames and exits for bounded CI smoke checks.
--seed N Seeds rand() for deterministic smoke and replay behaviour.
--replay-script <name> Injects out/replays-smoke/<name>.replay as deterministic SDL key events.

Replay scripts are generated by tools/run_scripted_smoke.py and consumed by src/input/game_replay.c. They are test fixtures, not a player-facing scripting API.

  • Build System — Make targets and CI smoke commands.
  • Player Module — movement, physics, animation, hitbox, and climb logic.
  • Level Design — TOML schema and per-level physics overrides.