Controling the game using only the keyboard ... and other control improvements

[Vorkronor]

Hi,

Don't starve is a marvelous game that could be made even better (at least for me) by improving the keyboard handling. What do I mean?

• Allow to "use" the currently equipped item by tapping a key (e.g. Space) in the direction I am facing (e.g. towards a tree).
  
• Allow to switch items to use using keyboard (hot-swappable item slots mapped to 1-0).
  
• Allow to select and use any item in the backpack (might be done in a "Quicksilver-like" fashion or by mapping certain items to keys beforehand)
  
• Allow to initiate actions from the main menu without using the mouse (if the created item ends in my hand, because it cannot fit into my backpack, let me decide if I want to put it in my hand (press enter to hold the torch ... it's dark!) drop it to the ground (escape?).
  

The game has a certain arcadey feel, so these small changes would make it complete for me

On the other hand, mouse control could use some queuing.

Ever tried harvesting that "patch" of 40-50 grass you planted? What a click fest!

Why do I need to klick 8 times to chop down a tree? Let me just click once and admire my lumberjack skills

Want to mine those 4 rocks? Why not hold down shift, click 4 times and just lean back and watch the stones fly?

Anyway, thanks for the game guys. Your craftsmanship is appreciated!

[Toaster Fu]

A small tip: you can hold the mouse button down to chop trees and break rocks.

[Xacktastic]

Those are some pretty cool ideas, to be honest. I have no trouble with the current control scheme, but those would be cool, for sure.

[KonradosHut]

Well, that leads me into saying I'd like to be able to play with a gamepad. I'd like to ready the game, and play lying on my bed and play using a 360 pad. I don't know about you guys, but I REALLY wanted to be able to do that.

[Xacktastic]

Yeah, a game pad would be nice! It would be a good game for that.

It would also be great on tablets.

[Vorkronor]

Thank ToasterFu, that's a nice tip. Outsourced the wood harvesting to pigs by now

the most I would use the keyboard controls is when laying in bed with my notebook and operating my mouse is not that comfortable

Hope the devs consider them and add proper keyboard controls later.

[Kevin]

Tablet and gamepad controls are the kind of problems that keep me up at night. We are thinking about such things. A lot. Our first priority, however, is to get the mouse+keyboard version finished.

That said, the m+k controls are far from finished. My first priority is getting the building placement to feel good. Then I want to get rid of the need for the expando-inventory, so that I can put some adventure-game style command buttons in its place. Reconfigurable hotkeys would be a good thing as well. PC players in general expect such things, and we have a lot of European players who have non-qwerty keyboards who would benefit from being able to translate WASD.

I do like your default action on spacebar idea. Let me think about that one for a bit...