When the YouTuber Tech Yesterday 📺 hacked a gamepad joystick into a half keyboard, I knew he was on to something. He then proceeded to develop a fully custom 3D printed keyboard/joystick controller hybrid and then refined it even further with a second version. Tech Yesterday even released the 3D models so that we can build it ourselves (please see his video description for the download link).  It will definitely require some skill and hours of work, but the end product is worth it.

Why Use a Joystick Keyboard?

The golden standard in PC gaming has been the keyboard and mouse for decades. However, using WASD for movement in first person shooters (FPS) -- Forward, Strafe Left, Backward, Strafe Right -- has the huge disadvantage of requiring two or three fingers, which can get quite awkward when trying to perform other actions at the same time ("finger gymnastics").

Meanwhile, an analog joystick has been the norm for moving your character in the console space for over 20 years. This is typically controlled with the player's left thumb, freeing up the hand's four other fingers for other actions! However, typical hand-held controllers only have 2, 3, or maybe 4 buttons to press while moving.

This project aims to combine the best of both worlds, by using an analog joystick for movement (thumb) and then giving a wide variety of buttons to be pressed by the remaining four fingers, many of which can even be pressed at the same time easily.

What proceeds here is a full guide and information on what you'll need, how to build your own version of this amazing device, and even customize it yourself.   For the history of how we got here, I highly recommend first  watching the three YouTube videos linked in the first paragraph.