Controls

Wildshift is built around a virtual joystick. You can move and fight without a second hand on the screen.

A labeled screenshot of the HUD is coming soon. Until then, here is how the official controls work.

Virtual joystick

• A floating virtual joystick appears under your finger.
• It only starts if you touch the bottom half of the screen, and not on a HUD button.
• When you are not touching the screen, a faint rest ring sits near the bottom center.
• The stick is analog: a small nudge is a slow walk, a full pull is a sprint. There is a short deadzone in the center so tiny slips do not move you.
• If you drag past the edge of the stick, the base follows your finger, so reversing direction stays quick.
• On a computer build, the mouse can stand in for a finger.

A setting exists for joystick opacity if the ring is too bright or too faint on a given stage.

Attacks

Basic attacks fire automatically from the weapon you have equipped. You do not aim with a second stick; movement and positioning are how you line up shots and dodge.

Special — Wild Essence

A special button sits in the bottom right. It uses a Wild Essence meter that carries between rooms in the same run. When the meter is full the button pulses; tap it to unleash your creature line’s special.

Wild Essence pickups fill a meter. Kills in each room share out about one-third of a full meter, so the special is ready about once every three rooms on average. The meter carries between rooms in the same run. Damage against a boss is capped per cast so a special cannot one-shot a boss. Numbers and some details come from the current development build and may change before launch.

Each element has its own special:

• Giant Fireball (Fire), Tidal Wave (Water), Thornbloom (Nature), Event Horizon (Void), Ice Storm (Ice), Thunder Shockwave (Electric)

Bomb Drop

A Bomb Drop button sits directly above the special button. It stays hidden until you pick the Bomb Drop card in a run. After that, you tap the bomb button to use it.

Pause and skills

You can open a pause menu. Skills you have picked in the run appear there as an icon grid — tap an icon for its name and description.

Coming soon

• A diagram of the HUD (bars, joystick, special, bomb)
• Accessibility and control options, beyond joystick opacity
• Controller or keyboard layouts, if any ship