Post by Alexander Karenovics in The Ruins of Calaworm comments

Viewing post in The Ruins of Calaworm comments

Alexander Karenovics211 days ago (4 edits) (+1)(-1)

Hey pavementz,

Thanks so much for checking out my game, and the kind words! <3

It's a roguelike featuring diagonal movement, so NumPad is kinda really the optimal way to play, but you can absolutely customize keybindings to something more of your liking!

Mouse Controls, however, will unfortunately never be a thing ...

Full game will of course have a convenient menu - for now you'll have to "hack" the "customControls.ini"-file, which the game automatically creates for you on startup. It's just a textfile, and actually pretty easy and straightforward to edit: just copy the respective commands from the list next to the action you want to customize. Spaces do not matter, however, absolutely keep the order of things!

Maybe sth. like QWE ASD YXC (ZXC for non-german layouts) might work for you. Or use Arrow Keys for orthogonal movement, and sth. like QW AS for diagonal directions?

Some default keys will always work in certain occasions, like Arrow Keys, Return or ESCAPE.

Hope that was helpful! <3

loopernow23 days ago(+1)

Just chiming in…maybe in the full release, although of course full key customization is nice/great, you could have the jk/hl/yu/bn keyset offered as a secondary option right off the bat. This is the classic Rogue movement keys set, and it's pretty easy to get used to, particularly if you use Gmail keyboard shortcuts (j and k to go up and down a list of messages) or Vim (the old keyboard-centric text editor), which both use j and k to move down and up--or if the player is familiar with this movement set from roguelikes.

In my experience, other keysets that try to emulate the numpad layout don't really work because unfortunately the letter keys on a keyboard are not lined up perfectly vertically like numberpad keys are. So muscle memory does not work. IMHO, the Rogue keyset is much easier to pick up and is more ergonomic.

(See: https://www.roguebasin.com/index.php/Preferred_Key_Controls)

Alexander Karenovics23 days ago (5 edits)

Thanks, great idea!

Kinda heard about VI-keys before, but never gave them much thought. Providing an additional preset to select in the menu would be easy to implement, though.

I'm from germany, working with QWERTZ layout instead of the english QWERTY. Gotta keep that in mind, lol.

For a friend, who didn't have NumPad either, I once suggested Arrow Keys for orthogonal navigation, and something like UI/JK for diagonal (operated with the other hand), which - after a short training period -worked out surprisingly well ...

The [5]-Key isn't really used in tactical navigation, since there's no option to wait in spot. You're always on the move - however, it is used for other actions, like a Stealth-option, or in some Minigames.

itch.io

Viewing post in The Ruins of Calaworm comments