Moonglow Bay Review (Xerion)
Not very playable with keyboard and mouse unfortunately, ran into usability issues less than 10 mins in which means it probably had very little testing for the UI options at the very least.
For those trying to play on mouse and keyboard here are the issues that might softlock you 5 mins in:
- Fishing Journal: If you are stuck in the fishing journal when your daughter tells you to select the lure then try the return / backspace key as this is the universal exit menu button instead of something more common like esc, it is also not displayed at this point and locks you from accessing the keybind menu so you wouldn't know right up until this point to check it. This means without googling the keybinds you have to restart the game from the beginning as it also doesn't autosave at this point.
- Options Menu: If you go into the options menu you are presented with just the confirm option to get out but again there is the hidden option of backspace to get out of the menu (devs if you're reading this displaying the menu back out option is conventional and should be done here as there is more than enough screen space on a 1080p monitor).
- Fishing: At the start you learn how to strike which unless you use two hands on the keyboard will be quite difficult and keep you locked trying to complete the tutorial, I recommend using one hand for space and holding right shift and then the other for the strike / reel direction. (I would rather it have the option of using the mouse direction for this instead of the wasd buttons as I think this puts it in line with the console version and means less buttons for the user and less hand scrunching in the keyboard)
Will probably pick this back up when I get home (where my controller is) from the holidays as overall the game still appeals to me but it really needs a controller to play comfortably at this point. I know these probably seem like very minor issues to most folk but accessibility of a game directly effects how much I want to play it. If I have to keep restarting the first moments of a game cause I keep getting trapped in menus then those moments are dedicated to frustration rather than getting me hooked into the story / gameplay loop.
Edit: After doing some reading online I realise this is probably never going to be fixed as people have been writing articles about these keyboard controls since October 2021 as well as how inconsistent some of the buttons are for menu interactions (return, enter, and space changing functions occasionally)