I added ASCII Keyboard Controller support to Animal Crossing!

[hunterirving]

Hey everyone!

Long time lurker, first time poster.

I recently dusted off my copy of Animal Crossing for the GameCube, but quickly grew tired of the game's clunky on-screen keyboard. Unwilling to accept this subpar experience, I used a Raspberry Pi Pico to add rudimentary support for the ASCII GameCube keyboard controller to the game!

The Pi listens for keypresses from the keyboard, then sends simulated analog stick movements and button presses to the GameCube at a tool-assisted speedrun level, making typing much less of a chore.

From there, I automated town tune entry, Nook Codes, custom designs, and even...

Spoiler: ending of video linked above

implemented a playable version of Snake within the game's pattern editor.

I may have gotten just a little bit carried away

All the code and design files for the project are available for free on GitHub if you'd like to try building one for yourself.

Thanks for checking out the project!

 

[Ltoo]

Really impressive work!!!

I fully expected the whole video to be about the keyboard automation, that it would be so neat to have the keyboard just work in game without modifying it in any way...
But then it hit me with the custom keycaps for custom commands... And then the town tunes... And then the Nook Codes... Gosh you really did everything that could be done with custom commands, huh?

Again, amazing work!

 

[hunterirving]

Thank you!! Yeah, after I got typing working, the intrusive thoughts started, and I kept thinking of more and more features to add.
By the end, I was like "Ok... That's probably a good stopping point."

Thanks again for watching!