Keylistener in Javascript

Here's an update for modern browsers in 2019

let playerSpriteX = 0;

document.addEventListener('keyup', (e) => {
  if (e.code === "ArrowUp")        playerSpriteX += 10
  else if (e.code === "ArrowDown") playerSpriteX -= 10

  document.getElementById('test').innerHTML = 'playerSpriteX = ' + playerSpriteX;
});

Click on this window to focus it, and hit keys up and down
<br><br><br>
<div id="test">playerSpriteX = 0</div>

Original answer from 2013

window.onkeyup = function(e) {
   var key = e.keyCode ? e.keyCode : e.which;

   if (key == 38) {
       playerSpriteX += 10;
   }else if (key == 40) {
       playerSpriteX -= 10;
   }
}

FIDDLE

The code is

document.addEventListener('keydown', function(event){
    alert(event.keyCode);
} );

This return the ascii code of the key. If you need the key representation, use event.key (This will return 'a', 'o', 'Alt'...)

JSFIDDLE DEMO

If you don't want the event to be continuous (if you want the user to have to release the key each time), change onkeydown to onkeyup

window.onkeydown = function (e) {
    var code = e.keyCode ? e.keyCode : e.which;
    if (code === 38) { //up key
        alert('up');
    } else if (code === 40) { //down key
        alert('down');
    }
};