Keyboard shortcuts?

Since we’re doing a update in the next few weeks/month, are there any UI/keyboard/mouse changes you’d like to see? Nothing major, just small stuff to make playing easier.

Currently on the list is…

  • 1-6 for selecting dialog options.
  • Slamming your fist on the keyboard autosolves a puzzle.

The first person that says “Do a coin interface” gets banned from the forums.

“Yes sir, permanently.”
“Yes sir, violently.”

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I’ve tried it several times, but it seem it didn’t work. Maybe a bug?

Anyway, I’d like a shortcut (or an option in the menu) to make the dashboard disappear and become mouse-sensitive

He said it’s currently on the list–he didn’t say it’s implemented yet.

As for a coin interface, hasn’t that been implemented already? How would anyone interact with the nickel and dime in the game without it?

For an actual more-or-less serious suggestion, would any sort of drag-and-drop functionality be possible? Mainly I’m thinking of this in terms of giving inventory items from one character to another, to limit mouse travel distance and extra clicks for something that may be done multiple times in quick succession.

An alternate idea might be to have the ability to interact with the character icons in the corner, to be able to give another character items without having to have both characters be on the same screen. Day of the Tentacle had similar functionality for passing objects through time between characters. The point in this is mainly to have to avoid running a character across several screens just to hand some important off to another character. Items transfers can be especially annoying in cases where one character has to use the hotel elevator to reach the other character.

I’m not in favor of stuff like this, How is Ray getting the item if she is 10 screens away? Feels too magical. It would also break a few puzzles. Using the map is a little magical, but you can imagine that the scene where the character ran out of the mansion was just “not shown”.

There is a point with optimizing game play, where it’s all power-user commands, to the point that you start to wonder, why do I even need to walk anywhere? Shouldn’t I just be able to chose the room I want to go to from a list? That might be OK when you’re doing you 10th play through, but your sense of the world would be destroyed.

Do you fast forward through movies, only stopping at stuff that looks interesting. Travel in game is much like that, especially games were the environment is an important character. You need to get to know the word, and that can’t happen if you’re teleporting around.

Anyway, my design 2 cents.

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Ctrl+W - auto win (show credits only without reboot)

For configuring custom controls/controllers following would be nice:

  • NextCharacter and PreviousCharacter (as option is enough, no default binding necessary)
  • Scrolling and selecting inventory via hotkeys (as option is enough, no default binding necessary)
  • Option to disable controller support (allowing using custom configuration when using a supported controller)

It’s not implemented yet!

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@Nor_Treblig: Those should be easy. I’ll add them to the bug list.

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I also would like the old CTRL+W command implemented in the same way it was in MI. I’m proposing this change fully aware that it would just puzzle a lot of people.

I see. I thought it was a matter of force. I tried progressively hitting the keyboard harder and harder, but nothing. Thanks for your warning.

That’s understandable. I was hesitant to suggest that idea in particular for reasons such as those. Thinking about it, it made more sense in Day of the Tentacle, because passing items between characters required both characters to each go to as specific screen. Forcing two characters to move away from where they were exploring–only to have to move both of them back afterward–would have made Day of Tentacle very tedious to play without such a shortcut. It’s not so bad in games like Thimbleweed Park or Maniac Mansion where the characters aren’t required to meet each other halfway.

Oh, here’s an idea actually involving keyboard shortcuts that I think would be quite handy–assuming you didn’t implement it already and I just didn’t notice:

Would it be possible to enable keyboard shortcuts for the elevator when standing inside it? Being able to just hit a number or two on the keyboard while standing in the elevator would be more convenient than having to interact with the elevator panel and then selecting a floor on a separate screen.

And we’ve already got those handy Floor 1 to 12 keys on most keyboards … hardware manufacturers must have anticipated your request :wink:

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But only if the “annoying in-jokes” is checked.

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Dude, the panel is just one click away!

OK, this was convincing :smiley:

[quote=“Nor_Treblig, post:12, topic:718, full:true”]

Dude, the panel is just one click away![/quote]
So are the dialogue options, and they’re getting keyboard shortcuts. Also, the panel may be a click away, but then the buttons are an additional click after that in a different spot on the screen. And all that is after calling the elevator, waiting for it, and getting in. Left up to me, I’d want to streamline the whole elevator process after it’s been used a certain number of times, but just making it a bit quicker to pick floors would be nice.

If Ron doesn’t like the idea, he has enough bullets to shoot me down more than once. :wink:

Yes, but those are used far more often in the game.

Riding the elevator takes much more time than the two clicks selecting the floor, that’s why I don’t really see a point in this. (Also I personally didn’t have the feeling I lost a lot of time in it during the course of my first play)

What we could request instead is that Franklin should be able to skip the elevator completely and just float between the floors… (the penthouse could by protected by a force field)

Hold P and press D twice to automatically trigger Phillip´s Dangerious Dövice

Seriously though, being able to use the elevator with the numbers on the keyboard or even better using the phones with the numbpad sound like nice idea. But I haven´t given this much thought, here is probably a lot that speaks against it.

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:smiley::smiley::smiley::smiley::smiley::grinning::grinning::grinning::grinning::grin:

  • F1 … F5 : switch characters (same as 1…5)

Of course not, it will work after the next update!

That’s one of the reasons why Zak McKracken my best game ever. You couldn’t use a map to teleport from a location to another (*), you had to go from a city to another city in a precise order. Like in reality.

(*) ok ok, except for reaching planets :smiling_face:

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And Scroll-Lock for the Penthouse floor? :grin:

I second this, it happened that I tried to dial a number using the mumpad!

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