Post by TrixieB in Black Garden (Alpha 0.1.9b) comments

Viewing post in Black Garden (Alpha 0.1.9b) comments

Is there a reason for the change in controls from the standard RPG maker setup? It doesn't feel very intuitive.

In the standard arrows with shift, z and x you have 1 hand to move and the other sits on run, action and cancel/menu.
Alternatively you can usually use arrows with enter and shift just left of your hand(or just above on some laptops) and insert on the number pad for cancel/menu under your pinky allowing convenience for single handed play as you only ever need to move 1 finger from its default position.
This applies to both qwerty and azerty keyboards.

With your control setup wasd to move works fine with space and shift for single handed controls on a qwerty keyboard as far as action and movement is concerned (although space bars can be a bit iffy on some keyboards). Escape however requires moving your entire hand away from position to press.
Wasd with enter is fine for doing things with 2 hands but escape still requires moving 1 hand away from position.

With arrows to move enter and shift are okay to reach but you still have that escape key at the opposite corner of the keyboard.

Escape is fine as a menu key but as a cancel key it feels to me the most inconvenient key on the keyboard.

FeyRing5 years ago (3 edits)

But Esc is used as cancel in the standard RPG Maker setup too, it is both a Menu and Cancel key in a standard setup, all I did was add the use of WASD and SpaceBar because some people said they wanted those instead.

I haven't seen that many setups that used Z and X, personally, though I have tried them in an earlier version of my game and I got a lot of complaints from people claiming they had to punch every key on the keyboard until they found the "Enter" command.

TrixieB5 years ago

The full default RPG maker controls are:
Move - Arrows
Action - z, enter, space
Cancel/Menu - x, num0, escape
Run - Shift
A,S,D,Q,W have functions assigned that are rarely used and C,V,B are unassigned but available in the rebinding menu.

In ARPGs made using RPG maker you typically see A used as the attack key by default so that it sits in the z,x,c a,s,d area for ease of use while block and special if featured will be between s, d or c.

Games of all types using arrow keys usually use 2 banks from q,w,e a,s,d z,x,c for the left hand or a line of 4-5 keys.
Its the same principle as modern strategy games often using a double bank of keys like qwer+asdf as hotkeys(on a qwerty layout) as opposed to the 90s system of using the first letter. Having the keys under 1 hand provides ease of use.

Since your setup overrides the player-end key rebinding menu (F1) I don't know whether having extra key options causes issues in your setup but if there isn't an issue adding back the key alternatives that were removed would make the game more approachable or as an alternative if you wanted to build on the WASD movement adding something like E as action and Q as cancel/menu would place the keys in a more comfortable location.
Adding back numpad0 as a cancel/menu button as a minimum would at least mean you have the full right hand key access in the sphere around the arrow keys.

FeyRing5 years ago

Well there is no technical reason why I can't add those in again. So I guess I'll add them in again with the next update.

TrixieB5 years ago

The game looks beautiful by the way, its nice to see unique visuals in an rpg maker game as opposed to the standard tiles.

I did find 1 bug. If you are attacked during the loading screen while entering an area and killed it can cause the gameover screen to flash for about half a second then the map loads up and everything freezes.
I tested it several times on south east entry to the main forest path at night with a wolf and discovered the higher my cpu load with other programs the more likely it was to happen.

Even while knowing how to replicate it, it took me a while to get it to trigger a second time so unless people are running particularly old pcs it should be extremely rare for people to hit the bug.

FeyRing5 years ago

Thank you! I am quite bored of default tiles myself!

I know that bug, it is indeed rather rare, it happen when loading the game near a hostile mob too. The game initially was supposed to allow you to save only in your home or at designated save points. But since the play area is rather small still, I allowed people to save anywhere. This is only temporary though. When the play area expands, the save point feature will be fully implemented and this bug wont happen anymore on loading the game as there wont be any mobs near save points.

Also, the loading screen can be disabled in the game so for those that this continues to be an issue for can fix it that way, in the case of it freezing from entering the map near a mob.

I'll also consider moving that Wolf spawn a bit to make this less likely to happen.

deadoon5 years ago

Z and X are used by the controller scheme, which only has a limited degree of customization. The game requires external tools to use a controller due to this.

I'd just chalk this up as unintended consequences of the control scheme change. Maybe adding an option at initial startup would be a good idea. Like "custom layout" and "standard layout"

TrixieB5 years ago

The last update has Z and X control

itch.io

Viewing post in Black Garden (Alpha 0.1.9b) comments