Keyboard shortcuts

While Candli is designed to work well on mobile devices, even phones, we do not forget desktop users. Therefore, Candli provides a bunch of mouse and keyboard shortcuts:

While playing game

Keyboard (main area)

  • Arrow keys: select the corresponding direction
  • a/b/x/y keys: select the corresponding button
  • Space: button a
  • Ctrl: button b

Keyboard (numpad)

  • 8/2/4/6 keys: select the corresponding direction
  • ./Enter/0/3 keys: select the corresponding button (a/b/x/y)

Level editor

There are mainly two cases, whether an object is selected or not:

No object selected

  • Esc: exit the level editor
  • Arrow keys: scroll the view
  • +/- keys: scale the view
  • Home or a: zoom fit the scene in the view
  • s: reset the scale factor of the view
  • n: select the first object

Object selected

  • Enter: open the VPL editor
  • Esc: unselect the object
  • Delete: remove the object
  • Arrow keys: move the object
  • +/- keys: scale the object
  • PageUp/PageDown: change the z-order of the object
  • c: clone the object on spot
  • r: reset the rotation angle to 0.0
  • s: reset the scale factor to 1.0
  • Home or a: zoom fit the selected object
  • n: select next object

Object selected, when dragging the mouse

  • Shift + mouse left axis: rotate the object
  • Ctrl + mouse left axis: scale the object
  • mouse wheel: scale the object by steps of ~20%
  • mouse wheel + Shift: rotate the object by steps of 15 degrees

In any state

  • g: opens the interaction map screen

Block editors

  • Esc: return to the previous screen

Input block

  • Arrow keys: select the corresponding direction
  • a/b/x/y keys: select the corresponding button

Speed block

  • Arrow keys: select the corresponding direction
  • Keys from 1 to 5: set motion magnitude

I pretty honestly think, it’s too hard for PC Users, due to them then using „ABYX“, instead of „WASD“

Yes, we plan to switch to the model where the gamepad d-pad/left analog stick maps to WASD, and the gamepad A/B/X/Y map to the arrow keys. That will definitely improve the usability on computers and keep consistent muscle memory across devices. But it will also make the intuitive understanding hard (because gamepad arrows will not map to keyboard arrows any more), and so the UI and documentation must be carefully designed so that users are not confused. Hence, this takes some time to do properly.