Stop Unity from moving diagonally using transform translate

November 14, 2022

I have a game in which the character can only move horizontally and vertically, not diagonally.

I have tried to implement this with this code, which should check if the player is pressing down/up or left/right:

if (Input.GetKey("down"))
{
    moveHor = false;
    moveVer = true;
    if(moveVer == true)
    {
        transform.Translate(Vector3.down * Time.deltaTime * speed);
    }
}
if (Input.GetKey("up"))
{
    moveHor = false;
    moveVer = true;
    if (moveVer == true)
    {
        transform.Translate(Vector3.up * Time.deltaTime * speed);
    }
}
if (Input.GetKey("right"))
{
    moveVer = false;
    moveHor = true;
    if(moveHor == true)
    {
        transform.Translate(Vector3.right * Time.deltaTime * speed);
    }
}
if (Input.GetKey("left"))
{
    moveVer = false;
    moveHor = true;
    if (moveHor == true)
    {
        transform.Translate(Vector3.left * Time.deltaTime * speed);
    }
}

This code is ran in the Update() method.

The thing is, it’s not working and I can’t figure out why.

I hope someone knows what to do.

>Solution :

Try to use else-if to translate only in one direction per update cycle.
I’ve also removed nested if statements from your code, which were redundant and unneeded.

if (Input.GetKey("down"))
{
    moveHor = false;
    moveVer = true;

    transform.Translate(Vector3.down * Time.deltaTime * speed);
}
else if (Input.GetKey("up"))
{
    moveHor = false;
    moveVer = true;

    transform.Translate(Vector3.up * Time.deltaTime * speed);
}
else if (Input.GetKey("right"))
{
    moveVer = false;
    moveHor = true;

    transform.Translate(Vector3.right * Time.deltaTime * speed);
}
else if (Input.GetKey("left"))
{
    moveVer = false;
    moveHor = true;

    transform.Translate(Vector3.left * Time.deltaTime * speed);
}