arduino as a computer joystick/gamepad?

i love playing rts games like age of empires, command & conquer etc. and i would like to play that on my joystick from my chair (like a captain's chair) but my joystick has only a few buttons, so i thought i could use the arduino to create 2 joysticks and many buttons on my chair.

my idea is to let the arduino read 2 joysticks (4 analog ports) and like 20 buttons (with multiplexing or something) and the arduino writes the analog value of the joysticks and the state of the buttons to the pc over a virtual serial port.

but here it comes, i don't know anything about writing applications on the pc so is there an piece of software that creates an virtual joystick and accepts serial commands?

edit;
like these joysticks Thumb Joystick - COM-09032 - SparkFun Electronics
and a lot of these buttons Mini Pushbutton Switch - COM-00097 - SparkFun Electronics

i would either use the CUIduino, that can simulate a full blown USB HDI (huan device interface) and should not need a usb driver at all, or you do it via bluetooth, but i don't know too much about BT.

CUIduino:
http://www.create.ucsb.edu/~dano/CUI/
(scroll down)

interesting, but i found this website

and there is more info about HID devices, any suggestions are welcome

edit;
i found the application ppjoy, a virtual joystick driver. i've started reading a book from my bookshelf "C++ for dummies" so, my plan is to create an application that reads analog values coming from the arduino and translates that in something what ppjoy can understand.

Your could look at integrating Arduino and AVRUSB.

Although it has (solvable) issues with 0015.

--Phil.

i'm continuing in another (older) post
http://www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1210699098
please help me there