Top-down movement

Problem

You’re making a 2D top-down game, and you want to control a character’s movement.

Solution

For this solution, we’ll assume you have the following input actions defined:

Action Name	Key(s)
`"up"`	W,↑
`"down"`	S,↓
`"right"`	D,→
`"left"`	A,←
`"click"`	Mouse button 1

We will also assume you’re using a KinematicBody2D character.

We can solve this problem in many ways, depending on what type of behavior you’re looking for.

Option 1: 8-way movement

In this scenario, the player uses the four directional keys to move (including diagonals).

extends KinematicBody2D

var speed = 200  # speed in pixels/sec
var velocity = Vector2.ZERO

func get_input():
    velocity = Vector2.ZERO
    if Input.is_action_pressed('right'):
        velocity.x += 1
    if Input.is_action_pressed('left'):
        velocity.x -= 1
    if Input.is_action_pressed('down'):
        velocity.y += 1
    if Input.is_action_pressed('up'):
        velocity.y -= 1
    # Make sure diagonal movement isn't faster
    velocity = velocity.normalized() * speed

func _physics_process(delta):
    get_input()
    velocity = move_and_slide(velocity)

Option 2: Rotate and move

In this scenario, the left/right actions rotate the character and up/down move the character forward and back in whatever direction it’s facing. This is sometimes referred to as “Asteroids-style” movement.

extends KinematicBody2D

var speed = 200
var rotation_speed = 1.5

var velocity = Vector2.ZERO
var rotation_dir = 0

func get_input():
    rotation_dir = 0
    velocity = Vector2.ZERO
    if Input.is_action_pressed('right'):
        rotation_dir += 1
    if Input.is_action_pressed('left'):
        rotation_dir -= 1
    if Input.is_action_pressed('down'):
        velocity -= transform.x * speed
    if Input.is_action_pressed('up'):
        velocity += transform.x * speed

func _physics_process(delta):
    get_input()
    rotation += rotation_dir * rotation_speed * delta
    velocity = move_and_slide(velocity)

Option 3: Aim with mouse

Similar to option 2, but this time the character rotation is controlled with the mouse (ie the character always points towards the mouse). Forward/back movement is done with the keys as before.

extends KinematicBody2D

var speed = 200

var velocity = Vector2.ZERO

func get_input():
    velocity = Vector2.ZERO
    if Input.is_action_pressed("forward"):
        velocity += transform.x * speed
    if Input.is_action_pressed("back"):
        velocity -= transform.x * speed

func _physics_process(delta):
    look_at(get_global_mouse_position())
    get_input()
    velocity = move_and_slide(velocity)

Option 4: Click and move

In this option, the character moves to the clicked location.

extends KinematicBody2D

var speed = 200
var target = null
var velocity = Vector2.ZERO

func _input(event):
    if event.is_action_pressed('click'):
        target = event.position

func _physics_process(delta):
    if target:
        look_at(target)
        velocity = transform.x * speed
        # stop moving if we get close to the target
        if position.distance_to(target) > 5:
            velocity = move_and_slide(velocity)

Option 5: Adding friction

All of the movement methods above move and change direction instantly - there’s no acceleration or friction. What if we want to ramp our velocity up from or down to zero? Let’s add some code to interpolate or “lerp” the velocity after getting the input.

We’ll use the code from Option 1: 8-way movement movement.

extends KinematicBody2D

export var speed = 200
export var friction = 0.01
export var acceleration = 0.1

var velocity = Vector2()

func get_input():
    var input = Vector2()
    if Input.is_action_pressed('right'):
        input.x += 1
    if Input.is_action_pressed('left'):
        input.x -= 1
    if Input.is_action_pressed('down'):
        input.y += 1
    if Input.is_action_pressed('up'):
        input.y -= 1
    return input

func _physics_process(delta):
    var direction = get_input()
    if direction.length() > 0:
        velocity = lerp(velocity, direction.normalized() * speed, acceleration)
    else:
        velocity = lerp(velocity, Vector2.ZERO, friction)
    velocity = move_and_slide(velocity)

Now our input isn’t applied directly to the velocity but rather used to “push” the velocity towards the input direction. If there’s no input, we ramp down towards zero.