Introversion

We've designed the Mac version of Darwinia to run fine with single button mice, to allow the maximum number of people to enjoy the game. Testing the single button control system is going to be a task unique to the mac beta testers though - you'll need to help us balance and tweak it so it feels just as good as 2 or 3 button mice. Darwinia was always designed with 3 buttons in mind, so forgive us if things are a little shakey at first.

If you have a USB mouse with 2 or 3 buttons connected to your Mac, you can run the game using the PC control mechanism instead of the Mac one if you wish. To do this, edit the file Darwinia.app/preferences.txt. You can edit this from the finder by Ctrl-clicking on the Darwinia icon and selecting "Explore Package Contents". The very last line of this file reads "ControlMouseButtons = 1". Set this to 2 or 3 and you'll get the PC control mechanism.

Let us know your thoughts on the single button control system in this topic.

I have a hard time getting scrolling to the middle box in the controls. I can get to the top and bottom boxes. Gestures on top and the bottom. I can not for the life of me, get back to the middle box. I seem to overscroll the middle box and land on the top or bottom. Very frustrating scrolling up and down and not hitting the goal of the middle box control.

I'm sorry for going off topic slightly; I know you wanted insights into the single button control mechanism. I have a three button (Well, two buttons and a regular scrollwheel) Logitech USB mouse. It's a rather generic USB Mouse, which works with Logitech Control Center installed. Darwinia works identically with the mouse no matter what it's set to. That is, the PC settings work when ControlMouseButtons = 1.

I guess it's not really a bug, since it seems to work in a positive manner, but it does seem to be unintended, as you inferred that two and three button mice shouldn't work when ControlMouseButtons = 1.

If you have a 3 button mouse, you can run Darwinia in 1-button mode or 3-button mode, simply by setting the ControlMouseButtons variable.

Regarding the problem with scrolling to the middle screen, I suspect this is happening because you have a low framerate...other people have reported this. You can use the W,A,S,D keys to scroll the screens - you may find this easier.

I've got a Logitech MX700

Here's what I've discovered with my experiments with the two controls systems:


As far as I can tell there is no way of throwing a grenade while using the three-button mouse config.

Well, you have grenades listed as option+click. It's actually shift+click (at least, it is for me).

Thanks for spotting that. <fixed>

The shift-modifier does not allow you to fire grenades in 3-button mode though.

Blimey! You're right.

im not sure if this works for the mac version, but it should. if you are in the menu, you can hit any of the wasd keys to change the menu in that direction. ie: w moves up a menu, d right, a left, s down.

Lord_Doskias wrote:im not sure if this works for the mac version...

Yes, it does appear to work.

just thought I'd bump this:

grenades still don't work with the 3-button config in fullBeta2.

That's strange. They've been working fine for me.

Hold right, then click left.

Interesting - It does appear to work - (at least partially.)

Left-button on its own doesn't work.

My 4-member squad only fires one grenade with the right-left technique.

With the functional menus, could this now be an option in there?

In single level b4, you can't use the cheat to get the research done. I'll try the 3 button mode..

It's also very difficult to get the Officer to switch to a different mode- follow vs nothing, etc.

Squad firing works very well with left click & hold. Let me see how it operates with 3 button.