I got a chance to play Desperate Gods a lot tonight. Here is a list of important commands that I have found (or want!!).
I hope you find it useful.
DRAW A CARD
This can actually be a little tricky at first, mostly because of the fact that you can accidentally pick up the entire deck: Place the cursor over a deck of cards. Press the Left Mouse Button and quickly flick / pull-off the top card. Letting go of the mouse button will also let go of the card so be careful. Generally you want to hold onto the card until it has been flipped / revealed.
PICK UP DECK
This is usually what you end up doing at first when learning the game: Place the cursor over the deck of cards and hold down the Left Mouse Button until the entire deck lifts up off the table. This command is necessary when placing monsters back at the bottom of the deck.
SHUFFLE
Surprisingly simple: Pick up a deck and shake it around. The contents in the deck will randomize. If you don't believe me, flip the deck upside down ('F') and give it a good shake. ** Big thanks to Anton for pointing this out!!**
JOIN CARDS
Just drop a card or deck of cards onto another single card (or deck) and they will join together. Face down cards can only join with other face down cards. Vice Versa for face ups. Keep in mind that different types of cards can join into one deck.
READ / REVEAL
Just press ‘R’ and the card will turn face up so you can read it.
ROTATE / FACE DOWN
You can rotate by pressing ‘E’ or ‘Q’. But you should really only ever use E. Why? Well first of all, regardless of which orientation a card has been rotated, it will magically change orientation when joined to a deck. In other words, if the back of a monster card shows the glowing skull facing the ‘opposite’ way in relation to the rest of its deck, the card will go back to ‘normal’ when joined to its deck. This way players can’t secretly remind themselves what cards are what by changing their rotation in the deck. Secondly, you should learn to quickly type ‘E’ then ‘F’ to turn a Revealed card Face Down. There are many spaces on the board where one must draw three or even four monster cards. Learning to quickly type E-F will help speed the clean up.
TAP
This is probably the most important Key Command in the Game since it can be used for so many things. I will break this part down into a few sub-categories to focus on the details; but in essence, ‘T’ places whatever item you are holding down onto the game board.
TAPPING TO MOVE
This is mostly for fun, but it does help show your opponents how many spaces you have moved: Pick up your game piece by holding Left Mouse Button and ‘tap’ the T key over every space that you move. On your final space, simply release the Mouse Button instead of tapping (or you can ‘Place’ your piece as well). Now you are moving around the board just like your childhood self!
TAPPING TO CHOSE
I don’t have a microphone to speak to other players with. And I’m also lazy about Game Chat. If I want to let others know what dice I have chosen or what Monster I wish to fight, I will pick up the game piece (LMB) and then ‘Tap’ it a few times to let them know I’ve picked it. The important thing with dice is you have to be careful to ‘Place’ the dice back down carefully or people might think you are trying to cheat. Speaking of which…
PLACING
Not too complicated: If you pick up a game piece and want to set it down in a very specific spot (or avoid rolling dice) you can ‘Place’ the piece down by holding ‘T’ and then releasing Left Mouse Button while still holding ‘T’.
DRAGGING
So if you Place an object down onto the board and begin to move the mouse (while still holding ‘T’) you will drag the game piece around. Interestingly, player pieces seem to slide smoothly when drug across the wooden table, but tumble around when drug across the game board. This means you can tip your game piece over for dramatic effect. Although mostly useless, Dragging can be helpful if you’ve flung your health stones over and want to roll them back right side up (or maybe I’m the only one who gets bothered by this).
--- COMMANDS I WOULD LIKE TO SEE ---
TAPPING TO PLACE
Right now the dice are the only objects that seem to magnetize together. (Hopefully there will be ways to pick up lots of coins at the same time?) But, let’s say I’ve picked up too many dice; it would be great if I could place them back down on the table, one by one, by ‘Tapping’. This type of command would also be important if the engine was modded to play games like Mancala etc…
TAPPING PEGS
Likewise, if there are ever modifications for games with pegs like Cribbage, Battle Ship etc… it would make sense to simply place the pegs into the holes by utilizing the Tap key as well.
LIFTING HIGH
Occasionally I have accidentally knocked pieces over while picking up another piece and moving it. Perhaps a player could lift a piece high into the air to avoid collision by pressing ‘H’?
SCOOPING UP / GATHERING UP
Finding a way to pick up lots of coins at once would be fantastic. There are probably a few ways to do this; but I was imagining a toggle command like SPACEBAR that changed the cursor into a large hand. Maybe the hand hovers above the game board and can be brought down to collide with objects by holding LMB. All objects that collide with the Hand (and with one another) would magnetize together like the dice. At this point a player could place individual pieces back down by Tapping one at a time. Or they could drop the whole pile by toggling back to the normal cursor.