Controls: touch, mouse and keyboard
Inktide is played on the map itself, and nearly everything you do in a match is a tap. This page lists every control the game has, on a touch screen and on a computer, stage by stage: the lobby, the match, and what comes after it.
Picking your start in the lobby
While the lobby fills, the map of the coming match is already on screen. Tap or click any land to put your starting point there, and tap somewhere else to move it as often as you like. The choice locks a few seconds before the countdown ends, and if you never pick at all, the game chooses a spot for you.
When a lobby opens, two map names can appear as buttons at the bottom of the screen. Tap one to vote for it. The numbers beside them are counts the server sends back, so they change when a vote has really landed.
Moving around the map
| What you want | Touch screen | Mouse or trackpad |
|---|---|---|
| Send your army | Tap a tile | Click a tile |
| Look around | Drag with one finger | Press the button and drag |
| Zoom in or out | Pinch with two fingers | Turn the wheel, or pinch on the trackpad |
| Open the map menu | Hold one finger still for half a second | Hold the button still for half a second |
| See a rival's numbers | Hold on their land | Rest the pointer on their land |
A touch counts as a tap only when it barely moves and lifts again within half a second. Anything that travels further becomes a drag, and the map follows it instead of receiving an order. Zooming keeps the point between your fingers, or under the pointer, fixed where it is, so the ground you were looking at stays in view. If a pinch ends with one finger still on the glass, the map keeps moving with that finger, and lifting it afterwards sends nothing.
What a tap on the map orders
There is no confirmation step. The kind of ground you touch decides what happens, and the order leaves as your finger lifts:
- Empty land: your border grows toward it.
- Another player's land: your army attacks toward that point.
- Your own land: your border grows in that direction, which is also how you fill a gap inside your own outline.
- Water: your front pushes that way and stops at the shoreline.
- Land across the water: when your army cannot walk there, it sails in a transport and comes ashore close to the spot you picked.
The slider along the bottom sets how much of your army each order takes, from 5% to 100% in steps of five, and the figure under it is the number of soldiers that share amounts to right now. Each new order takes over from the one before it.
The map menu
Holding still on the map opens a small menu beside your finger. It always offers four markers you can drop on that spot for everybody in the match to see, unless they have muted you: Attack here, Defend here, Danger and Rally to me. On another player's ground it also shows a card with that player's numbers and a button to offer them an alliance, or to accept theirs if they asked first. Tapping anywhere outside the menu closes it without doing anything else, so a stray tap cannot send troops while it is open.
Alliance requests sent to you appear in a box of their own that stays in sight. Your current alliances sit behind a toggle beside it, where either side can end one at any moment.
Building and placing
The console along the bottom has three buttons: What to build, Say something for quick phrases, and Reactions. Only one of their panels is open at a time.
The build strip lists everything you can put on the map: City, Port, Factory, Mine, Warship and Reclaim. There are two ways to place one:
- Drag it. On a touch screen, rest your finger on a card for a moment until it lifts, then drag it over the map; with a mouse, press a card and move. The spot under it turns red wherever it cannot go. Let go to place it.
- Tap it, then tap the map. A tapped card is armed, and your next tap on the map places it instead of sending troops. That tap disarms the card whether or not anything was placed.
Press Escape to drop a card you are carrying without placing it. Switching to another window drops it too.
The buttons around the map
- To my land, the crosshair beside your figures, flies the camera back to your own country however far you have wandered.
- Leave the match, the cross, asks you to confirm before it takes you out.
- If you are knocked out, the results offer Stay and watch the finish, which keeps you on the board as a spectator until the match is decided.
Keys that work
The map itself has no keyboard shortcuts: orders, panning and zooming are touch and pointer controls only. Everything else can be reached from the keyboard.
| Key | Where | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Tab, then Enter or Space | Any screen | Moves between buttons and presses the one in focus |
| Enter or Space on a build card | The build strip | Arms the card, ready for a click on the map |
| Left and right arrows | The army slider, once it has focus | Moves it one step down or up |
| Escape | A card being carried | Puts it back without placing it |
| Escape | A confirmation, the age question, the install guide | Closes it |
| Enter | The age question, the save form | Sends it |
| Space | A replay | Plays or pauses |
| Left and right arrows | A replay | Jumps five seconds back or forward |
In a replay, Space and the arrows are ignored while a button or a text field has focus, so pressing Space on the close button closes the replay rather than starting it. The bar under a replay can also be dragged to any moment of the match, and the speed buttons beside it change how fast it plays.
For what to do with all of this, How to play explains the rules of a match and the strategy guide has the numbers.