Why connecting a controller now gives the game more room

The game kept its old size even after touch buttons disappeared. We made it use that space and adjusted Nintendo DS screen arrangements to match the controls in use.

Connecting a controller or keyboard can hide the touch buttons. Previously, the game stayed the same size and left that space empty.

The earlier rule was to preserve the game’s size when a controller connected or disconnected. We changed that rule so the game can use more room when touch buttons are unnecessary.

The game now also uses the space allocated to hidden touch buttons: more room at the sides in landscape and below in portrait. Notch and home-indicator areas are excluded.

For Nintendo DS, the arrangement of its two screens also matters. The space between visible touch buttons differs from the room available after a controller connection hides them.

A report pointed out that the game looked too small beside the buttons in landscape side-by-side mode. Calculating the layout for an 852x393 phone viewport gave each screen a width of 168, below the original DS screen width of 256.

We first tried calculating the game width from the actual button positions. Even at the smallest button sizes, screen width rose only from 168 to 181, about 8 percent. The shoulder buttons limiting the space were not resizable. That small gain did not justify also changing the layout editor’s validation rules, so we did not adopt this approach.

We then compared phone and tablet layouts with touch buttons visible and hidden. At the sizes checked, stacking produced a larger game view with buttons visible, while side-by-side was larger with them hidden. Stacked screens were limited by height and could not grow further when buttons disappeared.

We applied those results to the existing Automatic layout and made it the landscape default for Nintendo DS. It stacks the screens when touch buttons are visible and places them side by side when hidden. An explicit stacked or side-by-side choice remains unchanged.

We chose to adapt screen arrangement to the available space instead of only shrinking buttons. Improving the existing setting reduces the need to choose a layout again whenever the control method changes.