Joysticker Pro

Most modern games that can feasibly be played with a gamepad now offer controller support, but this is not the case with older titles. Moreover, some gamers like to try to play everything with a gamepad, even games that aren’t really suitable for such a device and, therefore, lack controller support.

To get around these limitations, you can try a program like Joysticker Pro. It allows you to map gamepad buttons and triggers to keyboard actions using Lua scripts, making it possible to play pretty much any game with a controller.

The application should support most XInput and DirectInput gamepads, such as Xbox and DualShock controllers. Once you have connected a device, it will be detected automatically, and multiple gamepads can be used at the same time.

When buttons are pressed, they will be highlighted in the main window. If one of them isn’t mapped to any keyboard function, a message will be displayed in the log.

It’s important to note that Joysticker Pro relies on users creating their own scripts for the various games they want to play. Thankfully, a template is available in the program folder, and the process isn’t as difficult as you might imagine.

Essentially, you just need to open the template in a text editor and specify which keyboard action every button and trigger should initiate. You can find the key definitions in the keys.txt file, which is located in the docs folder.

Joysticker Pro may not be the most novice-friendly tool of its kind, as it uses Lua scripts that must be created for each game you want to play, but it is still quite simple to use once you get the hang of things. It is also highly versatile, as it supports numerous devices and any game that accepts keyboard input.