Supported movement keys?

[Brigand]

Currently my controls are set up to allow movement via the mouse, cursor keys, numpad....and QWEASDZXC square.

Imho, the numpad is ideal, but I realize people may play on a laptop without a numpad. The cursor keys are always present, but don't provide easy diagonal movement without a modifying keypress. My mouse implementation allows players to move to a designated position stepwise or continuously...but you are required to move your hand off the keyboard to the mouse.

Given the above, there really seems to be no ideal, always present option for movement. Therefore I have included the QWEASDZXC square as I mentioned, but this robs me of 9 keys (27 with modifiers) I could use for other functions.


So my question is, given this isn't a FPS, is the inclusion of the left-hand movement block a must, just a nice extra, or something no one would ever use? Would removal of this feature be enough to turn people away from playing a game?

I am considering user-defined keys, but that's a low priority...I can't see a realistic need to allow the player to remap the 'inventory' key, for example, although I do allow skills (and maybe direct access items) to user defined hotkeys.

[Krice]

I am considering user-defined keys, but that's a low priority...

In roguelikes it should be high priority, because there are different opinions about movement keys, including hjkl style. I think arrow keys with ctrl and other modifiers to get diagonal movement is actually quite nice. Not to mention that the game could have automatic travel options to help navigation. Something like "go to nearest item/door/object" etc.

[Tilded]

Can you detect key up as well as keypresses? If you can, you can move diagonally by pressing two arrow keys at once, which is really nice, intuitive, and space-saving on a laptop.

[doulos05]

I am considering user-defined keys, but that's a low priority...

In roguelikes it should be high priority, because there are different opinions about movement keys, including hjkl style. I think arrow keys with ctrl and other modifiers to get diagonal movement is actually quite nice. Not to mention that the game could have automatic travel options to help navigation. Something like "go to nearest item/door/object" etc.

I'm with Krice (Holy shit, did I just say that?)

YKU
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BJN

That's my preference because I use VIM as my IDE. But my friends who grew up on Call of Duty would prefer WASD. Just set it up as a config file, just about every modern languages supports those in a simple library (you aren't coding this in bare C or Assembly, are you?)

[Krice]

(you aren't coding this in bare C or Assembly, are you?)

Adding a config file (parser etc.) can be a bit pesky in C/C++, if you aren't using some kind of library for that. I'm planning to add a built-in keyboard command editor to Teemu, but funny enough it's not on my top priority to do's for the next version. Maybe I'll add it anyway just to see how much work it requires. In Teemu it requires re-design for the static keyboard command data which has to be replaced with dynamic data.