# Controls [Back to the front page](../README.md) ## Play with a gamepad, a keyboard or a mouse A gamepad, the keyboard and the mouse all work, even at the same time. Gamepad buttons go by where they sit, not by what is printed on them. The bottom face button is always Cross, whether your pad is an Xbox, PlayStation or Switch pad. In the menus the gamepad's four face buttons and the d-pad always go by position, even after you change them under Remap controls: the bottom button confirms, the top button goes back, and the d-pad moves. Start, Select, the shoulder buttons, the triggers and the stick presses follow your changes everywhere, unless you move one of them onto a face button or the d-pad. Then the game follows your change in play, but the menus still use that face button or d-pad direction for its usual job, and the original button for its own. | PS2 button | Gamepad | Keyboard | Mouse | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Cross (confirm, jump, call Yorda) | bottom face button (A on Xbox) | Space | left button | | Circle (in menus, goes back like Triangle) | right face button | E | right button | | Square | left face button | Q | | | Triangle (back) | top face button | R | | | L1 / R1 | shoulder buttons | Tab or the ` key (left of 1) / F | middle button (R1) | | L2 / R2 | triggers | Z / X | | | L3 / R3 (press a stick in) | press a stick in | V / B | | | Start / Select | start / back (or view) | Enter / Backspace | | | D-pad (menus) | d-pad | arrow keys | | | Left stick (move) | left stick | W A S D (hold Left Shift to walk) | | | Right stick (look) | right stick | I J K L | move the mouse | A few more keys on a computer: - **Escape** opens the pause menu while you play, and goes back in the menus, like Triangle. It does not close the game: to quit, choose **End Game** in the pause menu, then **Quit to desktop** on the title screen, or close the window. - **Start** skips a movie, on every input: the gamepad's Start button, the key you gave to Start (Enter at first) or the Start button on the touch screen. No other button skips one. - **Alt+Enter** switches between a window and the whole screen (the Borderless or Fullscreen choice you made under Window mode). - **F12** saves a picture of the current moment, and a zip file to attach to a bug report. See [When something goes wrong](TROUBLESHOOTING.md#save-a-picture-of-a-problem). - **Shift+F12**, in photo mode, saves the paused moment at five picture shapes, from 4:3 to the widest, into one zip file beside the F12 files, for problem reports about wide screens. - **F11** makes the game write its speed numbers into the log every second for 30 seconds, instead of every 10 seconds. Press it again to stop early. It is for problem reports about slow play. Escape, Alt+Enter, F11, F12 and Shift+F12 cannot be changed. Everything else can be, in **Options > Controls > Remap controls**. When you give a button or key to another action, the two actions swap. If the action you changed had no button on that device, the other action is left without one. The game's own **Button configuration** applies on top of your changes. ## Look around with the mouse On a computer, the mouse moves the camera while you play. The pointer is hidden then, and moving the mouse turns the camera the way the right stick does. Keep the mouse still for a moment and the camera swings back behind Ico on its own, just like letting go of the stick. The pointer comes back whenever a menu is open and when you switch to another window. It stays out of the way during films. You can change how it feels in **Options > Controls**: - **Mouse camera** Off stops the mouse from turning the camera and lets the pointer leave the window while you play. The mouse buttons still work. - **Mouse sensitivity** sets how far the camera turns for the same move of the mouse. - **Invert mouse up/down** swaps up and down. - **Mouse camera speed** is how quickly the camera reaches the place you point it at. 1.0x is the speed the camera has with a gamepad; a higher number is quicker, a lower one is slower, and Instant moves it almost at once. - **Mouse camera range** Normal keeps each area's own limit on how far the camera can turn. Full lets you look all the way around. In scenes where the game steers the camera itself, Full can show what the camera was kept from showing. - **Camera swings back** Off keeps the camera where you left it until you move the mouse again, instead of swinging back behind Ico. These rows are not shown on phones and tablets. The speed and the range only apply while the mouse is turning the camera; a gamepad or the keys move it at the normal speed, within each area's own limit. ## Use the mouse in menus The mouse works in every menu: the title screen, the pause menu, the memory card and save screens, and all of Options. - **Point** at a choice to pick it, just like moving to it with the d-pad. - **Click** it with the left button to choose it. - To change a setting, click the small arrows on either side of it, or click the setting itself to go to the next choice. - **Scroll the wheel** to move up and down, one line per notch. Long lists scroll along. - The **right button** goes back, like Circle. Clicking an empty spot does nothing, so a stray click never chooses anything. If you press a key or a gamepad button, the pointer hides until you move the mouse again. While the title screen is still checking the memory card, the choices wait until it is done, for the mouse just as for a gamepad. ## Look at the models The model viewer lets you look closely at the characters and some of the objects. Open it from the title screen: **Options > Extras > Models**. Pick a model from the list and press Cross. | To do this | Press | | --- | --- | | Turn the model | right stick | | Move the model around the screen | left stick | | Zoom out / zoom in | L2 / R2 (keyboard Z / X) | | Pick the previous or next animation | L1 / R1, or Up / Down | | Play the animation | Cross | | Repeat the animation over and over, or stop repeating | Square | | Go back to the list | Triangle or Circle | With Developer mode on, **Select** (Backspace on a keyboard) also saves the model's files for people who make model packs. A message tells you how many files it saved and where. [More about model packs](MODEL_PACKS.md#make-a-model-pack). ## Change the colours of Ico and Yorda **Options > Extras > Character Customization** has a row for each part you can recolour. On the title screen the character is shown beside its own rows, and each colour you pick shows on the model at once. | To do this | Press | | --- | --- | | Pick a row | Up / Down | | Pick a colour for the row | Left / Right | | Put the row back to its original colour | Square | | Show the other character (title screen) | L1 / R1, or Cross on **Switch to Yorda** / **Switch to Ico** | | Turn the model (title screen) | right stick | | Zoom out / zoom in (title screen) | L2 / R2 (keyboard Z / X) | | Go back | Triangle or Circle | From the title screen, going back returns you to the title screen with Options open on Extras. In the pause menu, the game behind the menu changes colour as you choose. [All the rows](OPTIONS.md#character-customization). ## Take a photo Photo mode pauses the game and shows it from a camera you move around, with every effect the game has, so you can save a picture. During play, press Start and choose **Photo mode**. The camera starts as a free camera. You fly it around like a drone: | To do this | Press | | --- | --- | | Move forward, back and to the sides | left stick | | Look around | right stick, or move the mouse | | Rise / sink | Up / Down | | Tilt the picture | L1 / R1 | | Zoom out / zoom in | L2 / R2 | | Change the speed (Slow, Normal, Fast) | R3, press the right stick in (keyboard B) | | Put the camera back where it started | Select | | Save a picture | Cross, or click the left mouse button | | Hide or show the help panel | Square | | Film effect: Off, 1, 2, 3, 4, Off | Right on the D-pad (keyboard Right arrow) | | Leave photo mode | Triangle, Circle or Start, or click the right mouse button | Press **L3** (press the left stick in, or keyboard V) to switch to the orbit camera. It circles around the spot you were looking at: - The left stick, or moving the mouse, circles around that spot. - The right stick moves nearer, farther and to the sides. - Up and Down zoom. Press L3 again to go back to the free camera. Select puts back only the camera you are using. The help panel at the bottom tells you which camera you are using and its speed, and shows each button beside what it does: the game's own button pictures, and the names of the buttons it has no picture for (the sticks, L3, R3, Up, Down, Right and Select). If you play on the keyboard, it shows the names of your keys instead, like [Space] (the panel changes as soon as you press a key or a mouse button). When you hide it with Square, the game remembers, and photo mode opens with the panel hidden next time too. Press Square again to show it. The Film effect is a filter here: each press of Right goes to the next look, from Off through 1 to 4 and back to Off, and a small note says which one you have. It works whether or not you have finished the game, and it does not change the Film effect row in Options. The game remembers your choice for the next time you open photo mode, and your saved pictures include the effect. If you move the camera quickly into another room, you may see parts the game had not prepared yet. Your pictures are saved as PNG files in a `screenshots` folder, in the same folder as your saves. [Where that is](PORTABLE_MODE.md#where-your-saves-are). You can change how fast the camera moves, or swap up and down when you look around. Close the game, open `config.toml` (it is next to your saves, [where that is](PORTABLE_MODE.md#where-your-saves-are)) in a text editor, and find the `[photo]` part. For example, this line makes the camera move half as fast: ``` stick_speed = 0.5 ``` and this one swaps up and down: ``` invert_y = true ``` ## Touch controls (phones and tablets) On a phone or tablet, buttons are drawn on the screen over the game, laid out like a PlayStation controller. They carry the game's own button pictures: - **The stick** is in the lower left. Put your thumb down anywhere in the lower left part of the screen, and that spot becomes the middle of the stick. Slide your thumb to walk. Slide it out to the ring around the stick to run. As with a real stick, running between the eight main directions needs **Options > Controls > Analogue stick fix** (it is also under Gameplay). - **The D-pad** is above the stick, beside the L1 and L2 buttons in the top left corner, with L2 at the top. It moves around the menus. - **Cross, Circle, Square and Triangle** are in the lower right corner. - **R1** is the big button just above them. It holds Yorda's hand. - **R2** is in the top right corner. - **Start and Select** are at the top in the middle. - **The look pad** is the rest of the upper right part of the screen. Slide a finger there to look around, as you would with the right stick. The buttons have about the same real size on every phone and tablet. On a small screen they shrink a little so nothing overlaps. On a foldable, nothing sits on the fold. When the fold runs from top to bottom, each hand's buttons stay on their own side of it, flat or half-folded. When it runs across the screen: half-folded like a laptop, all the buttons move to the lower half; opened flat, they stay where they are, unless one would sit on the fold: then they all move below it. You can use several fingers at once, for example the stick and a button. When no connected gamepad can rumble, the phone itself vibrates where a gamepad would rumble. **Options > Controls > Vibration** (in the pause menu's Options) turns that off. The buttons fade away 5 seconds after you last touched the screen. Touch the screen and they come back. When you connect a gamepad, they go away and the screen stops acting as buttons, so a stray finger does nothing. Three rows in **Options > Controls** change them. These rows only show up on a device with a touch screen. - **Touch controls:** Auto is the normal choice and works as described above. Always keeps the buttons on the screen all the time, and they keep working with a gamepad connected. Off turns them off. - **Touch size:** Small, Medium or Large. Medium is about the size of a gamepad's buttons; on small phones Large cannot grow much. - **Touch opacity:** how see-through they are, from 25 % (faint) to 100 % (solid). On Android, the phone's **Back** button or gesture opens the pause menu, like Start. [More about Android](ANDROID.md#controls).