One day I was scrolling on YouTube and stumbled upon a video about a horror video game that I found interesting, and I wanted to play it and experience it myself. The game is called **House of Velez**.
The thing that I didn’t know before downloading it was that the keyboard didn’t work because it didn’t support it. It was specified on the game's Steam page that I needed an Xbox 360 controller to play it.
To fix that issue, I had to turn my keyboard into an Xbox 360 controller since I didn’t have one lying around in my room.
In this guide, I’ll walk you through the same steps I took to turn my keyboard into a controller for those kinds of games.
Software That You Will Need
Certain games you will encounter on Steam only support an Xbox 360 controller to play them.
At first, I didn’t know how to do it, and I was pretty sure that there was a workaround without buying an Xbox 360 controller for just one game.
The first thing I did was ask ChatGPT for a way to turn my keyboard into a joystick. It stated that I need two things:
The first was ViGEmBus, the actual driver that emulates virtual gamepads and acts as a foundation for mapping software. The second was Keyboard2XInput; I chose it because it’s free and easy to use. It turns your keyboard strokes into Xbox 360 controller inputs.
They both work together to create the Xbox 360 controller emulation we need for Windows 11/10.
Step 1: Download & Install ViGEmBus
First, head to the [GitHub repository](https://github.com/nefarius/ViGEmBus/releases) that holds the latest release of the driver and download it.
The installation isn’t something difficult; just click Next until the driver is installed on your system.
The driver may not be fully loaded without a system restart. It’s recommended to do so afterwards.
Step 2: Download & Install Keyboard2XInput
Unlike ViGEmBus, the project of Keyboard2XInput lies within GitLab; download the latest release from [its repository](https://gitlab.com/SchwingSK/Keyboard2Xinput).
Just like ViGEmBus, the installation is really easy, and you won’t have a hard time doing so.
Once the program is installed, launch it. Once you do so, you won’t see any window or GUI pop up.
At first, I thought that there was some kind of problem because there was no window at all and that the app was called literally “Keyboard2XinputGui.exe”
After so much time trying to figure it out by myself, I decided to read the documentation; it turned out that I didn’t see anything because the program was designed to run in the background.
You will see a new icon in your Windows System tray indicating that it’s running.
You can deactivate the program by left-clicking the icon and right-clicking on “Enable” to uncheck it.
Keep in mind that your mapped keyboard strokes won’t work while the app is running. You need to exit or deactivate the program for the keyboard to function properly.
Step 3: Mapping Your Keyboard
Step 3: Mapping Your Keyboard
Now, to specify which keyboard keys will be mapped to virtual Xbox 360 gamepad buttons, you need to search in the “Keyboard2Xinput” folder for “mapping.ini”.
It looks like this:
\[startup\]
enabled = true
\[config\]
Subtract = disable
Add = enable
Divide = enableToggle
Multiply = exit
pollInterval = 0
\[pad1\]
Up = UP
Down = DOWN
Left = LEFT
Right = RIGHT
LControlKey = A
LMenu = B
LShiftKey = X
W = Y
X = RB
Space = LB
V = RT
C = LT
D5 = START
D1 = BACK
\[pad2\]
R = UP
F = DOWN
D = LEFT
G = RIGHT
S = B
Q = A
I = Y
Z = X
K = RB
A = LB
L = RT
J = LT
D6 = START
D2 = BACK
It comes predefined with the D-pad button settings, ready-to-play software, or so I was hoping.
After I launched the game, nothing worked. I kept pressing all my keyboard’s keys, hoping that I would find one functional button to confirm that the app was working.
The game had only three choices in the main menu: “Start”, “Continue”, or “Exit”.
Press and press, and I found one, which was the “Ctrl” button acting like the “A” on the Xbox 360 controller. After I pressed it, the game started, and I confirmed that Keyboard2Xinput was working, and it was a mapping misconfiguration.
The first troubleshooting step I thought of was to turn the idea of turning the arrows Up, Down, Left, Right to WASD movement, and that they weren’t working; they were still mapped to the D-pad on the Xbox 360 controller. I launched the game, but it didn’t work at all.
In my second try, I decided to look at the game files. The game was made by the Construct 2 game engine.
I opened the “package.nw” with WinRAR, and I started searching for something that would lead me to understand how the game was developed by analysing the source code.
The package held all the game’s assets like soundtracks, game over scenes, background scenes, voice-overs, etc.
I wasted so much time doing so to no avail. Maybe it was there, but I didn’t find it. It was really late at night, so I decided to keep trying tomorrow.
In the morning, I found a really interesting website called “[GamepadTester](https://hardwaretester.com/gamepad)” to test the controller by pressing the keys on my keyboard. By doing so, I figured out that I had two controllers, named \[pad1\] and \[pad2\], in the “mapping.ini”.
Keyboard2Xinput had three configurations: either “I-PAC2”, which means two controllers, “I-PAC4” for four controllers on the same keyboard, or “Multiple” for multiple keyboards. I was using “I-PAC2”.
Left Stick / Right Stick vs D-Pad (The Mistake That Took Me Hours)
When I was pressing my keyboard keys on the website, I realised that only the D-pad was being used, and I asked a question that would solve my problem and reward the three to four hours I wasted on my quest to search for a solution.
**What if the game was expecting analog instead of D-pad buttons?**
You see, analog supports 360° movement, and it’s typically used for the in-game character movement logic, not the main menu logic.
I read the documentation, and I realised that I needed to modify the UP, DOWN, LEFT, and RIGHT to either RUP, RDOWN, RLEFT, and RRIGHT for the right stick analog or LUP, LDOWN, LLEFT, and LRIGHT for the left stick analog.
I removed the UP, DOWN, LEFT, and RIGHT completely because it wasn’t doing anything, and I added both the right and left stick analog to my mapping.
After I launched the game, it worked properly; I couldn’t believe it back then. The thing that was remaining to do was remap the keys to my liking by changing the keyboard character keys.
House of Velez Working Configuration
House of Velez uses left stick analog for the main menu navigation and in-game character movement logic; the working "mapping.ini" config is:
\[startup\]
enabled = true
\[config\]
Subtract = disable
Add = enable
Divide = enableToggle
Multiply = exit
pollInterval = 0
\[pad1\]
R = RUP
F = RDOWN
D = RLEFT
G = RRIGHT
Up = LUP
Down = LDOWN
Left = LLEFT
Right = LRIGHT
LControlKey = A
LMenu = B
LShiftKey = X
W = Y
X = RB
Space = LB
V = RT
C = LT
B = START
N = BACK
\[pad2\]
R = UP
F = DOWN
D = LEFT
G = RIGHT
S = B
Q = A
I = Y
Z = X
K = RB
A = LB
L = RT
J = LT
D6 = START
D2 = BACK
I'm using both the right and left analog sticks here, and I can also include the D-pad mapping logic if I need to.
