Mobile Controls
| Mobile Controls | |
|---|---|
| Type | Mechanic |
The phone and tablet version has its own set of control schemes, none of which exist anywhere else, and they are chosen from a dropdown in the Options tab. The default is tap to move with automatic attacking, which turns most of the game into a single tap: tapping a rock picks the pickaxe, tapping a tree picks the axe, and tapping a villager walks over and talks to them. Combat is where the default struggles, because a tap on a monster and a tap on the ground behind it are nearly the same gesture, so the other schemes bring in joysticks and on-screen buttons instead. A toggle button can be added to the corner of the screen to flip between the chosen scheme and the simple default, which is the usual answer for players who want tapping for farm work and a stick for the caves.
Overview
Tap to move walks the farmer to wherever the screen was touched, and a route that cannot be reached is highlighted in red. Keeping a finger down makes the character follow it continuously, which is how villagers, pets and farm animals get nudged out of a doorway, though the following is literal and walks straight at the finger rather than round anything in the way. A path blocked partway by a moving animal can make the character stop, pick a different route or wander off in an unhelpful direction.
Tapping an object acts on it and picks the right tool automatically, which covers stones, wood, stumps, boulders and the rest. The scythe is the one exception and has to be selected by hand. Tapping a person, a pet or a farm animal walks over and interacts, and the character will chase a moving target for a short while, sometimes interacting with the wrong one or arriving and forgetting to interact at all. One trap deserves care: if a giftable item is in hand when a villager is tapped, it is handed over as a gift on arrival. Tapping close to the edges of the play area can also change the selected item without meaning to, which is how an accidental gift or a dropped bomb happens.
Automatic attacking triggers when an enemy comes into range. If a tool or nothing is held, the farmer draws a weapon out of the bag first, choosing the most recently used one or the one in the highest slot. A held scythe is treated as a weapon and will be swung rather than swapped out. A slingshot switches the whole behaviour off, and so does holding anything that is not a tool, such as food, a bomb or a staircase. Tapping an enemy directly walks over and performs that weapon's secondary attack, which is the only way to use one on a touchscreen. The farmer will not swing while walking to a tapped point, but will swing while following a finger, and moving away is possible between swings rather than during one. The swinging continues until the target dies or leaves range, which is a real hazard against a mummy and anything else an ordinary weapon cannot finish. Range detection is approximate, so it can fire at an enemy that is unreachable behind rocks, miss a fast-moving slime entirely, or misjudge a diagonal when a dagger is in hand.
Reviewers and players have made the same complaint about the default for years, which is why the alternatives exist. One scheme keeps tap to move and adds an attack joystick in the corner that only appears when a weapon is selected, and dragging it faces a direction and swings. Another replaces tapping with an invisible joystick: touching the left half of the screen sets the centre of the stick, and the right half becomes two button zones, one for performing an action and one for using a tool, the latter repeating while it is held. A one-button version of the same thing uses the length of the tap instead, with a quick tap using the tool and a longer press performing the action. There are also visible joystick and button layouts, with variants where the joystick, the buttons or both appear only while a weapon is selected, a joystick-only layout with no buttons, and a joystick-and-buttons layout with tapping turned off entirely.
Some parts of the game need precision that tapping cannot provide. Solving certain Secret Notes and placing objects neatly on tables both want exact positioning, so switching temporarily to a scheme with a movement joystick is the way through them.
Fishing and the inventory have their own touch rules. Bait and tackle go onto a rod by dragging them onto it in the bag, and dragging something else on replaces what was there. Every cast lands in a straight line ahead of the farmer, so the bobber cannot be aimed at deep water. In the bag, a stack is moved by dragging it, an organise button tidies either the backpack or an open chest, and holding a stack brings up a panel with a counter that climbs while the finger stays down, which is how part of a stack is split off. The counter accelerates the longer it is held, so splitting off an exact larger number takes some patience.
Notes
The touch interface outside combat is generally well liked. Menus, crafting, relationships and statistics were all rebuilt for a touchscreen, and the inventory bar can be moved to the side of the screen or returned to the usual layout. The common complaint is text size, which stays small even on a tablet.
The usual advice for a newcomer on a phone is to start with tap to move plus a joystick and leave automatic attacking on, then turn the attacking off once the Mines get deep enough for it to be more nuisance than help. Many experienced players end up on a joystick scheme for the caves and the default for everything above ground, which is exactly what the toggle button in the corner is for.
All Mechanics
Every entry in this group, with its key details.
