LayoutKitchen Laboratory: Commandos 3 Demo
In the first of what I hope to be a continual series called "LayoutKitchen Laboratory" I’m tackling the Commandos 3 Demo from Feral Interactive. The idea behind LayoutKitchen Laboratory is to attempt to make previously unplayable or difficult-to-play games playable by creating custom keyboards for them using AssistiveWare’s excellent LayoutKitchen 2.0 software.
The Commandos 3 Demo (or C3) is a small portion of Commandos 3: Destination Berlin, which is part of the Commandos Battle Pack. Commandos 2: Men of Courage is also part of the Battle Pack.
The description states C3 is a squad-based action-strategy game set against the dramatic background of World War II. You take control of an elite group of Commandos as they venture deep into enemy territory to carry out the most daring missions of the war. Your squad must use their combined skills to confound the enemy and accomplish operations vital to the outcome of WW2.
First things first, C3 is one of those programs that block KeyStrokes in fullscreen mode. There’s no visible "windowed-mode" under "Options", at least in the demo, so you have to locate the "Pyro Studios" folder in your Home folder. There you will find the C3 preference file. Opening that file and changing "Fullscreen=1" to "Fullscreen=0" will make the game run in windowed-mode. In this case an 800x600 window although higher resolutions may be available in the full game. I must stress that windowed-mode is an unsupported feature thus any bugs or problems that occur in windowed-mode are not the responsibility of the developer or publisher.
So now you can see KeyStrokes and play C3. However you’ll soon notice C3 has one of the most complicated keyboard control schemes seen in any game. And what’s worse is some of the way they have it isn’t consistent with what you’d expect. In short, it’s a mess. There’s a color-coded keyboard controls pdf included but it’s a pain having to constantly refer to it. That’s where LayoutKitchen 2.0 comes in.
Using LayoutKitchen 2.0 I created a C3 keyboard using the included pdf as a guide. The result is pictured below.
The keyboard I created didn’t solve every issue but it made C3 playable for me. Certain keys don’t work the way you’d expect and right-clicking especially doesn’t always work as expected. For example, right-clicking on a button in the game window is suppose to cycle through available items but before you can select another item to use the menu vanishes. To solve this problem I briefly move the keyboard to right above the button, positioned so the control key is right by it. This allows me to activate that menu and select another item before the menu vanishes. Fortunately switching items isn’t something that’s done often. On a related note the inventory window has a "Use" button" that you’d think would solve the above problem but clicking on it does nothing. Go figure.
Also, don’t try switching to other applications while playing because it renders KeyStrokes inoperable with C3 when you switch back. Quitting C3 from the menu bar and re-launching the game solves this problem but that’s a pain.
Once you design a keyboard layout you’re comfortable with, and get use to the few oddities like the one I described above, C3 can be fun to play. But make no mistake, C3 is extremely difficult to master and takes alot of patience. I heard this before I started playing and they weren’t kidding. Saving your game frequently is highly recommended.
So the bottom line is LayoutKitchen 2.0 does make a difference with C3 but it’s not a perfect marriage. Perhaps the full game behaves differently. But even the full game won’t solve the odd interface quirks that I’ve heard others complain about. In a sense LayoutKitchen 2.0 gives its users a bit of an advantage over able-bodied users in that we don’t have to refer to manuals (or pdfs) to remember what keys to press. We can simply make our own, customized and labeled keyboard for each game. This much is clear after tinkering with C3 and LayoutKitchen 2.0.
System Requirements:
- Mac OS X version 10.2.3 (10.3 or higher recommended)
- Commandos 2: 500MHz PowerPC G3 processor (867MHz or higher recommended)
- Commandos 3: 867MHz PowerPC G3 processor (1GHz or higher recommended)
- 256MB of RAM (512MB recommended)
- 2GB hard disk space
- 16MB video RAM (32MB recommended for Commandos 3)
- DVD drive
If you’d like to try my Commandos 3 keyboard click on the Zip icon below to download it. You’re welcome to modify it if you have LayoutKitchen as it’s a work-in-progress. Just open your Home folder and go to Library/Application Support/AssistiveWare Support/Keyboards and drop the file in there.
Paul Natsch
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