Input Forge

A Godot 4.7 plugin for multi-device local + online multiplayer input.

Requires Godot 4.7+. Input Forge 0.2.0 uses the Godot 4.7-native editor dock API and is held to strict, fully typed GDScript. The last Godot 4.6 -compatible release is 0.1.0.

Input Forge turns a shared keyboard (split into key-zones) and any number of gamepads into abstract, action-keyed commands, configured from the project's regular Godot InputMap - no game-specific action names are baked into the plugin. It provides per-device polling, lobby join/leave, runtime rebinding, persistence, and a packet-loss-tolerant command codec for streaming input to an authoritative server.

The plugin itself lives in addons/input_forge/. This repository is a tiny dev project that exists only to develop and test the addon in isolation; consumers just copy the addon folder into their game.

Why it exists

Godot's action API has no device parameter, so per-player couch co-op cannot use the shared action map directly. Input Forge polls each device individually while still letting you define your controls in the normal Godot Input Map: it derives its per-device binding defaults from those actions.

Install

Requires Godot 4.7.x.

• Manual: copy the addons/input_forge/ folder into your project's addons/ folder, then enable Input Forge under Project > Project Settings > Plugins.
• Asset Library: install, then enable the plugin.

If your project treats GDScript warnings as errors, set the Godot 4.7 debug/gdscript/warnings/directory_rules so res://addons is held to the same standard (see this repo's project.godot for the exact value).

Quick start

1. Define your controls in Project > Project Settings > Input Map as usual (e.g. move_left/right/up/down, jump, dash).
2. For multiple keyboard players, bind one key per zone to each action - the Nth keyboard event of an action becomes keyboard zone N (e.g. jump = Space for zone 0 and Enter for zone 1).
3. Open the Input Forge dock, create an InputForgeActionSet, pick the four movement actions, the ordered button actions, and the join action from the dropdowns (populated from your InputMap), then Apply + Save. The dock previews the per-device bindings Input Forge derives.
4. In code:

var actions := InputForgeActionSet.new()
actions.move_left = &"move_left" ; actions.move_right = &"move_right"
actions.move_up = &"move_up" ; actions.move_down = &"move_down"
actions.buttons = [&"jump", &"dash"]
actions.join_action = &"jump"

var listener := InputForgeJoinListener.new()
listener.action_set = actions
add_child(listener)
listener.join_requested.connect(func(device, profile):
    var source := InputForgeDeviceSource.new(device, profile, actions)
    add_child(source)
    # Attach `source` to a player; call source.poll() once per physics tick:
    #   var cmd := source.poll()
    #   var move: Vector2 = cmd.move
    #   if cmd.is_pressed(&"jump"): ...
)

See addons/input_forge/README.md for the full API, the network codec details, and the device-prompt provider.

Develop / test this repo

The addon is kept to strict, typed GDScript. With Godot 4.7.x on your PATH (or set $GODOT):

./check.sh                                                   # parse + strict typing
godot --headless --path . --script res://test/network_codec.gd   # codec unit test

check.sh type-checks every addon script; the directory_rules setting plus untyped_declaration=2 and unsafe_*=2 make untyped/unsafe declarations hard errors. See CONTRIBUTING.md for the typing contract and how unavoidable Variant narrowing is quarantined.

License

MIT - see LICENSE.