Using a remote pc as a gamepad

Question

I'm looking to play a 2-players Magicka game which requires at least one gamepad. The problem is that I don't have gamepads suitable for that game (because they lack an adeguate amount of keys/sticks) and I'm wondering if there is a program which listen for a gamepad-like-input via a wireless connection.

This way I could map keys on another pc and then control a "virtual gamepad" with another computer.

I know this is theoretically possible because there are android gamepad simulator which does this exactly but my google-fu didn't net me any valuable results.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Synergy works great for this. You can set up the first PC to play the game and run the Synergy client. Run the Synergy server on the second PC. Both keyboards and mice will then be controlling the first PC. They count as the same input device though, so you can't use the same keys for both players with this setup.

If the game requires joystick input, you'll have to look into some app that maps keyboard commands to joystick input. I don't know of any offhand, (most go the opposite way - mapping joystick buttons to keyboard buttons) but let me know if this is a requirement and I'll see if I can find any. (Edit: The only one I can find is PPJoy, which is a couple of years old. It might help, but it also might be out of date...)

Depending on the game, you might also consider getting a mouse, "gaming keypad," or a joystick that has sufficient buttons - for instance, many games can be controlled with an Xbox 360 controller, which has quite a few buttons. Wired Xbox 360 controllers are generally dirt cheap at most used gaming shops; I bought mine for less than $15 and it works in almost any Windows game that supports joysticks/controllers.