Do you love it when you can pick up and play a video game and have everything feel natural to you? Don't you hate it when video game developers give players a confusing or borderline unplayable keyboard configuration without the ability to reconfigure those keys because the developers couldn't be bothered to program one of the most essential features of a video game, rebindable keys? If you said "yes" either of these question, then you've came to the right place. As it stands, Armored Hunter Gunhound EX is one of those games lacks this magical ability to turn any awkward keyboard setup into a comfortable one. However, thanks to the wonders of computer programming, we can overcome this obstacle with a little program called AutoHotkey.



The short version is that AutoHotkey is a free, open-source program for Windows that allows you to create custom scripts and commands to keystrokes that you can use with your programs which can performing tasks much quicker and easier. In the case of some PC games, it can also rebind keys by swapping keystrokes with another whenever a game doesn't natively give players the ability to reconfigure keyboard controls.

Installing AutoHotkey is quick and easy. Head to the link below, click the "Download" button on the page, and get the latest stable release of AutoHotkey. Run the installer, go through express installation if you want to install it with the recommended features or custom installation if you want to choose the features of the program. If you're new to AutoHotkey like I am, go with express installation.

Download AutoHotkey: https://www.autohotkey.com/

Once you have AutoHotkey installed, you'll need to create script files for it to use. The script files are in *ahk format, which are basically text files with commands for AutoHotkey to use, so any text editor like Notepad or Notepad++ can easily make a series of commands for the program to use. To create one of these scripts, open up your text editor, fill your text file with the commands you want it to use, then save the text file as an ".ahk" file (not ".txt" or it won't work). The tricky part is that we want to create a script for only Gunhound EX to use without the functions on your keyboard getting mixed up when you're not playing the game. I've done some digging around on the AutoHotkey forums and guides in hopes of making this part of the process easier. This is how we'll rebind the keys for Gunhound EX with these script commands.

#IfWinActive
What this syntax will do is make the commands in the scripts context-sensitive whenever a certain window or window types are active. So in order to make the remapped key binding to work only on Gunhound EX, we need to use "#IfWinActive" in the first line of text in the file, then followed this syntax with either the title displayed on the game's window (e.g. "armored hunter GUNHOUND EX"), "ahk_class" and the game's window class, or "ahk_exe" and game's process name. If you need to find out what's the game's window class or process name, you can use AutoIt3 Window Spy included with AutoHotkey (the latter can also be found with Windows Task Manager). The window class for Gunhound EX can be found further down in this guide.

ActualKeyInput::RemappedKeyInput
To give you an idea of how this works, think of this syntax as binding keys in DOSBox's Mapper. We'll use the syntax of "a::b" as an example. The keystroke on the left (the "a" key) represents the key that we want to use and on the right (the "b" key) is what the key that it will be remapped with. What will happen is that the "a" key will now type "b" instead and no longer function as "a" until it is remapped to something else. The "b" key however will still function as "b" despite that "a" using the same keystroke. Here's an idea of how it's written and laid out in Notepad, and what the file should look like:



If you need help with understanding how to use AutoHotkey effectively in remapping keys (or macros outside of playing games on your PC), here I'll post some links from the official website that gives some much better details of how to use some of these commands better than I can.

The AutoHotkey forums: https://www.autohotkey.com/boards/
How-to use #IfWinActive / #IfWinExist: https://www.autohotkey.com/docs/commands/_IfWinActive.htm
How-to use WinTitle parameter and Last Window Found: https://www.autohotkey.com/docs/misc/WinTitle.htm
Remapping Keys and Buttons: https://www.autohotkey.com/docs/misc/Remap.htm
How-to Make AutoHotkey Work in Most Games — The Basics: https://autohotkey.com/board/topic/111737-how-to-make-ahk-work-in-most-games-the-basics/

Before we get into rebinding the unbindable keys of Gunhound EX, let's go over which keys are being used for the game and the game settings in the Options menu that affects how the controls work.

Arrow Keys: Movement / Move Menu Cursor
Z Key: Jump and use boosters / Confirm
X Key: Dash (same as tapping Left or Right twice) / Cancel
A Key: Main Weapon
S Key: Sub-Weapon
Space Bar: Armor Purge
Shift Keys: Arm Anti-Air Weapons
Control Keys: Lock Aim
Enter Key: Pause




Due to how poorly the game is translated, some of the game's options aren't clear on what they're supposed to do, so I'll give you a rundown of the settings that alters the your armored hunter handles.

Original Armor Purge Command ("Purge Command")
This one absolutely does nothing to explain what it does, which is why I'm here. Since Gunhound EX was on the PlayStation Portable first before it got ported back to PC, the way you had to jettison your armor was done by pressing the Lock Aim and Anti-Air Weapons buttons together twice, which are mapped to L and R on the PSP or LB/L1 and RB/R1 in the PC version by default. Turning this option "ON" will bring this back the function back in the PC version if desired.

Lock Firing Angle ("Arm angle when firing")
Kind of self-explanatory. If this setting is set to "ON", the position of your armored hunter's arm will be locked when firing your weapons, similar to holding down the Lock Aim button. Turning this "OFF" will allow you to move your arms while firing your weapons.

Lock Attack Facing ("Direction while attacking")
When this setting is "ON", moving left or right won't change which direction your armored hunter is facing while firing your weapons, again, similar to the Lock Aim button. Turning this "OFF" will let change which way you're facing while firing your weapons.

Anti-Air Controls
This will toggle whether you want you want hold down the Anti-Air Weapons button to arm your anti-air weapons when "ON", or press it once to switch between weapons when "OFF".

Here I'll provide a few examples of scripts that can be used with Gunhound EX to play the game with a keyboard, as well as recommended control settings for the Gameplay Options, and how to use.

If you want to try these script commands out, copy and paste what's inside the box in an empty text file and make sure to save them as ".ahk" file to use them in AutoHotkey. You can change how they work by modifying the remapping syntax (the "ActualKeyInput::RemappedKeyInput" part) if you like but make that the #IfWinActive syntax is using one of the parameters to link AutoHotkey to Gunhound EX.

NOTE: When you're rebinding the letter keys with the script you want to use in a game, make absolutely sure the letter keys on the left of the syntax are lower-cased since the scripts are case-sensitive. If you were to use something like "A::x", you would have to hold down the Shift key or use Caps Lock in order for the rebound key to register.

Arrow Key Set-Up

This set-up mimics something similar to what I use in Gigantic Army. The fire buttons are placed in the same row as the Z (Jump/Confirm) key, while the S key used to switch weapons, A is used to dash, and D is used to lock your aim but it's mainly used if you want to use the original armor purge command setting. This set-up mainly uses the double-tap method to perform a dash, and although you can still reach the left Ctrl key with your pinky finger, you can turn the Lock Firing Angle and Lock Attack Facing setting on if you want the game to control similarly to Gigantic Army. I recommend setting the arming method for anti-air weapons to toggle (or "OFF") in the gameplay options.

WASD Set-Up

With this set-up, you can play the game using the WASD keys to move, Space to jump, J and K are used main and sub-weapons, L to dash, I to switch weapons, Shift to lock aim, and V to jettison armor. This gives you a bit more flexibility in game settings since the keys to use the lock aim and dash are easy to reach, but like arrow key set-up above, setting anti-air weapon arming method to toggle is recommended.

Alternate WASD Set-Up

A slightly different variation of the WASD set-up above. Here the Shift key is used to dash and the L key is used to lock aim. Here the original armor purge command is easier to do since you can reach the L and I keys easily.

Of course, if none of the example aren't to your liking, you can use them to guide you into making your own configuration.

Now that you have a script for AutoHotkey to use, you can use that script to play Gunhound on a keyboard with remapped keys. To use the AutoHotkey script you created, right-click the script file and click "Run as administrator" or else it will not work. When the script is running, you should see an icon of a green box with an "H" in the lower-right hand corner of your taskbar or inside your system notification tray.

If it's working to your liking: congrats, you've cheated the system and now playing with your new keyboard controls! If not, then something went wrong. If you need to stop the script, look for the green icon mentioned earlier, right-click it and click "Exit" to end it, then look in the *ahk file again to see what went wrong with the script. Your script needs the #IfWinActive syntax to be the first line of text and it's using either the game's window title, ahk_class dqLib9 or ahk_exe GunHoundEx.exe as shown in the examples so AutoHotkey works with Gunhound EX instead of everything else outside of the game. Also, make sure you're using one script at a time or you'll might conflict the keybindings with another script.

As much I like helping others out, personally, we shouldn't have to resort to using to a third-party program to do something such as changing the keyboard configuration when it should be already be a standard in any video game. As a PC game, Gunhound EX deserves more than a bare-bones port and lackluster localization effort. I can kind of understand that making games on PC isn't exactly a forte for Japanese game developers, whether they're independent or mainstream, but there are other PC games out there that understands that not everybody will be able to play their games with the keyboard configuration they're presenting to players and give them the ability to reconfigure them however they like.

I want to thank the team of programmers responsible for AutoHotkey for making this wonderful little tool to make not only our gaming experience better, but also making day-to-day tasks on Windows much more quicker and easier. I also want to thank tndStudios on YouTube for making a very helpful guide for those looking to learn how to use AutoHotkey.