Custom Nintendo Switch-duino controller

I recently took up playing animal crossing to relax, and surprisingly it worked, normally games are not a healthy distraction from my studies, but this game genuinely does relax me, or it did. One of the major issues and great stresses of animal crossing is the lack of a “craft multiple items” feature when crafting items. Everything gets crafted 1 at a time, with an individual long animation between each instance, fortunately there is a “craft again” dialogue that pops up afterwards so you just have to mash the “A” button, but its annoying and time consuming, though if you seriously mash the “A” button repeatedly the animation speed doubles which is good.

Anyway, you might see this feature pop up in memes, people really wanted it added, it is good for making money (every day a random craftable item like furniture) becomes very valuable to sell, its quite useful early on in the game for making some capital, and later in the game making fish bait is still annoying to make to the extent many people dont even bother anymore. There are other games that run into similar problems, and im sure some people could find creative applications if they could run macros or repeaters, which has brought on my newest project.

~terminology note: A “macro” is in this context an automated replay of button presses and other input signals played in sequence or in a loop, such as simulating a repeated pressing of a button.

I am going to build a custom nintendo switch controller. I have done absolutely zero research on the subject so i dont know yet if anyone has overcome the connectivity hurdle, but i can manage that too. The objective of the project is to produce a controller with 2 primary functions;

  1. make a controller with pre-set/programmable macro functions, such as, a macro record/loop playback button that can be dynamically used to repeat a recorded pattern, executing manually programmed macros and augmenting the gyro functions, e.g, a button to reset or pause the gyro so its not in a weird position when you return to the original normal position/posture.
  2. produce a switch controller with replaceable buttons and analog sticks that can come from ANY source, using on-board calibration.

There are limitless potential applicatons for when you have free control over your controller. Here are some examples;
You can set the response of analog sticks from linear (when a game doesnt do it automatically) to exponential based on either how far out you move it, or how fast you move it there, i.e if you quickly go from middle to outer most really fast then it will output a higher signal much sooner (if the game supports such a thing, or utilizing extreme sensitivity to enable a different kind of profile).
You can create a button which halves the output value of the analog stick allowing you to do precision slow walking when you press or hold down a custom button.
You can tie certain button events or augment the value or direction of the analog stick by the input from the gyro/accelerometer to improve gameplay in high intensity combat situations.
You can make gesture activated procedures for games that dont actively use the gyros at all or where they arent important.

You have an infinite number of opportunities to change the operations of the controller. Although note that this will amount to a sort of custom switch pro controller.

I do intend to make this into a product i will sell, if that is legally possible, but regardless its going to be open source so anyone and everyone can use it. if possible, the first objective will be the creation of a simple macro-box. essentially, a 2nd controller which is mimicking the currently connected switch controller, so you have 2 simultaneous inputs, and it will be a pre-programmed key-masher, because as i said, the immediate use i desire is to just let it repeatedly press A at high speed to craft multiple items while i dont do anything.

The hardware used will be a simple arduino plus a suitable transmitter, i expect normal bluetooth or regular 2.4Ghz will be used, and it may just be a matter of determining protocol though i doubt nintendo will use any fancy encryption or protection. for stage 1 at least making a seperate macrobox also wont require anything at all since it need only repeat a signal in exactly the same way the real controller does.

For anyone interested in getting on board with this project or even just chatting about it, hop onto my discord server: https://discord.gg/T2bVWHr
This link (it opens in new tab) should grant you temporary membership so you dont have to sign in if you dont have a discord account.

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