KernelPlay-JS v0.5.0 Is Here: A New Unified Input System for JavaScript Games

njoyedu — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 10:59:43 +0000

🚀 KernelPlay-JS v0.5.0 is now released!

This release is a pretty important milestone for the project. We’ve been working on improving how games handle input, and v0.5.0 introduces a new Unified Input Manager for keyboard, mouse, gamepad, and touch input.

The idea is simple: game code shouldn’t need to care where an input came from.

🎮 One API for Game Input

With the new Input API, common gameplay code can stay clean and device-independent:

import { Input } from "kernelplay-js";

update(dt) {
    const x = Input.getAxis("horizontal");
    const y = Input.getAxis("vertical");

    this.rb.addForce(800 * x, 800 * y);

    if (Input.wasPressed("jump")) {
        this.jump();
    }

    if (Input.isPressed("attack")) {
        this.attack();
    }
}

Instead of checking individual keyboard keys, mouse buttons, gamepad buttons, or touch events throughout your game code, you can work with actions and axes.

That makes gameplay systems much easier to maintain.

⚙️ Two Ways to Configure Input

v0.5.0 supports both programmatic input registration and declarative JSON configuration.

For code-driven projects:

Input.registerAction("shoot", {
    keys: [KeyCode.Z, KeyCode.X],
    buttons: [GamepadButton.X, GamepadButton.RB]
});

For projects that need external configuration or runtime rebinding:

{
    "actions": {
        "jump": {
            "keys": ["Space", "ArrowUp"],
            "buttons": ["A", "B"]
        },
        "go": {
            "keys": ["x", "z"],
            "buttons": ["DPadRight"]
        }
    }
}

This gives developers more flexibility when building configurable control schemes, key-binding systems, or different control profiles.

🕹️ Why This Matters

Input handling is one of those systems that can start simple and quickly become messy as a game grows.

You might begin with:

if (keyboard.isDown("ArrowRight")) {
    // move
}

Then later you need keyboard support, controllers, touch controls, remapping, multiple control schemes, and so on.

The Unified Input Manager provides a common layer between those devices and your gameplay code.

The goal is to let gameplay systems think in terms of actions like jump, attack, and move, rather than individual physical inputs.