Super Meat Boy co-creator Tommy Refenes says that the prototype Steam Controller he tried is off to a great start, but he prefers the Xbox 360 controller due to its familiarity.

In a post on his official blog, Refenes outlined how picky he is with controllers, but said he would be happily use Steam’s hardware.

“If you were to ask me if I would play games with the Steam Controller… I would say yes,” wrote Refenes.

“I’m excited to see what final hardware feels like because I think with the upcoming iterations of the controller we’ll see something that is different, but still feels good.”

However, Refenes added that the Steam Controller – which is about the size and weight of its Xbox counterpart – did need some improvements, and was “strange”.

“The big problem with touch pads/touch screens is you never know when you are actually over a button or pressing it,” he wrote.

“Valve has tried to rectify this by having some adjustable haptic feedback fire when you press one of the circle pads.

“Throughout my play session the haptic feedback helped with the problem, but wasn’t enough to solve it.”

Setting the controller so its buttons only reacted to a press rather than a touch solved its most glaring input problem, wrote Refenes.

“Once this happened the controller felt like a controller.

“Pressing directional buttons made sense and I felt a greater sense of control.”

However, some physical indication of which button was being pressed was required, Refenes added.

“One drawback to undefined physical buttons is that your thumbs need tactile contact in order to accurately know what button you are pressing.

“As the engineers and I were talking about this, the idea of little nubs being on the controller that would be noticeable enough where your thumbs would find them, but not so abrasive that the circle pads couldn’t comfortably used in mouse/trackpad mode came about.”

The controller worked well in both Super Meat Boy and Spelunky, said Refenes.

“I was able to play Meat Boy the way Meat Boy can be played on an advanced level (and I’m rusty at it),” he wrote.

“I played through Spelunky and the controller worked great.

“The nubs I mentioned above would have solidified the platforming experience better, but again, those might get thrown in as they approach final hardware.”

Valve announced the Steam Controller on Saturday.