Unity SDK for the Research Arcade

This is a small SDK to help build games targetting the Research Arcade platform. The Research Arcade platform runs games via WebGL, so please switch your project to WebGL before building. This SDK helps in two main ways:

• Providing input bindings and methods to check for player input on the arcade machines, making building interactive experiences easy.
• Offering methods to perform native navigation easy, such as returning to the arcade's main menu rather than exiting a game.

Notes before you get started

Using the SDK requires that you have at least some knowledge of Unity and how to import libraries into your project. Furthermore, if you haven't already read the development guide, please do so here. It will give you a better understanding of how the software & hardware of the arcade cabinets work.

Versions

Version	Date	Notes
v1.0.0	14/06/22	First initial release

Quick Start

To get started, download the latest release from the releases page of this repository. Then, import it directly into your project by double clicking it or using Assets > Import Package > Custom Package. Importing is that easy.

The classes within the SDK reside in the namespace ResearchArcade. When you want to use the SDK in your project, make sure that you either explicitly reference this namespace, or use the using statement to reference it like so:

//Use the SDK
using ResearchArcade;

//...

There are two main functionalities of this SDK, namely handling user input from the arcade, and providing native navigation. We'll discuss input first.

Checking for input

Input can achieved primarily through the aptly named ArcadeInput class. The class provides two static keymaps for player 1 and player 2, which can be accessed through ArcadeInput.Player1 and ArcadeInput.Player2. This makes it super easy to detect player input for each player, like so:

//Player 1 just pressed the A button:
if(ArcadeInput.Player1.A.Down)
    character.Jump();

//Player 2 just released the start button:
if(ArcadeInput.Player2.Start.Up)
    game.Start();

Each player has a total of 6 general-purpose buttons, namely the A, B, C, D, E and F buttons. Each player has a Start button they can press too, along with JoyUp, JoyDown, JoyLeft and JoyRight directional buttons for each joystick. Each of these buttons is called a Binding in the API, as it binds a joypad button to a key press.

Each binding has three fields to detect the state of input:

• Down, which internally uses Input.GetKeyDown(...), to detect if the button was just pressed.
• Up, which internally uses Input.GetKeyUp(...), to detect if the button was just released.
• HeldDown, which internally uses Input.GetKey(...), to detect if the button is being held down.

There is also ArcadeInput.Exit for the two quit buttons on the cabinet. With this in mind, you can check for any input in an abstract fashion, without having specific key presses in mind. The following is some examples of checking for input using the SDK.

Example 1: Checking directional input for Player 2

//Left held down? Move the character left
if(ArcadeInput.Player2.JoyLeft.HeldDown)
    player.MoveLeft();

//Right held down? Move the character right
else if(ArcadeInput.Player2.JoyRight.HeldDown)
    player.MoveRight();

//---

//Up held down? Move the character up
if(ArcadeInput.Player2.JoyUp.HeldDown)
    player.MoveUp();

//Down held down? Move the character down
else if(ArcadeInput.Player2.JoyDown.HeldDown)
    player.MoveDown();

Example 2: Logging A button for Player 1

if(ArcadeInput.Player1.A.Down)     Debug.Log("Player 1, A: Down");
if(ArcadeInput.Player1.A.Up)       Debug.Log("Player 1, A: Up");
if(ArcadeInput.Player1.A.HeldDown) Debug.Log("Player 1, A: HeldDown");

Arcade navigation

Another functionality of this SDK is to provide developer access to native navigation methods for the arcade. For example, when the player presses the exit button -- the game should return back to the main menu. But how would you do this from within a Unity game? The answer is to use the Navigation class to do so. It is as simple as calling the ExitGame() method, like so:

//The exit button has been pressed, exit to the main menu
if(ArcadeInput.Exit.Down)
    ResearchArcade.Navigation.ExitGame();

Notice that the full namespace is qualified in invokation here, this is to eliminate ambiguity between UnityEngine.UI.Navigation and ResearchArcade.Navigation.

A final note

As a final note, please refer to the development guide for further guidance and how to contact us if you get into trouble with the SDK. You can also raise a issue on the issues page and we will check it out. Finally, if you are looking to import the research arcade logo into your game, you can download large media assets from here.