Welcome to Elderfield Keyboard, Mouse, and Gamepad

Welcome to Elderfield uses RPG Maker MZ input, then layers a full rebind menu, mouse support, and gamepad maps on top. If the stick, the A key, or confirm feels haunted after an old install, the save folder — not the farm — is usually the culprit. Read this page before you assume a bug in combat or farming. Default movement is the arrow keys. Z confirms, X cancels, and Shift sprints. Hold Control on keyboard, or LT / RT on a pad, to turn in place while the movement keys rotate you through four facing directions; rebind that lock by rebinding Control in settings. Mouse clicks drive menus, dialogue, and inventory without replacing the keyboard for walking. A full gamepad layout is supported, which is why the store page talks Steam Deck in the same breath as PC.

This is a single-player PC game. There is no second-player hotseat, so one keyboard plus one pad is plenty. PrintScreen captures screenshots using the engine’s default. Everything below is configurable; if a bind fights your muscle memory, change it once and save, then copy the note into your first-week routine so you do not rediscover it after a crash.

Default keyboard

Action	Default
Walk	Arrow keys
Confirm / talk / harvest	Z
Cancel / menu back	X
Sprint	Shift
Turn in place	Hold Control, then tap a direction
Screenshot	PrintScreen

Tapping a direction walks you. You no longer pivot in place with a tap; that old habit was removed in a demo patch so you would not waste a step facing a scarecrow. When you need to face a tile without moving — watering the edge of a plot, talking through a counter, lining up a mall corridor — hold Control (or LT / RT) and tap the arrow. Rebind Control if your left pinky hates it. Sprint is a hold, not a toggle, and there is no stamina cost; Shift only changes your overworld speed.

Menus still accept keyboard even when the mouse is hovering. If a shop list feels sticky, click the row, then Z to confirm, or click the confirm button. Inventory, equipment, cooking, and dialogue all accept mouse selection. Do not mix a flick of the analog stick with a mouse click in the same frame if a cursor jumps; pick one device per menu.

Gamepad

Plug in a pad before you launch if you can. Elderfield maps a standard layout: face buttons for confirm and cancel, shoulders for turn-in-place, stick for walk. Because the engine also reads keyboard, an overlay tool or Steam Input profile that still sends arrow keys can double-move you. If the character jitters, disable extra keyboard emulation in Steam Input or close the on-screen keyboard. Steam Deck users should treat this as a gamepad-first title; the system requirements page tracks verification notes as Kwalee updates them.

Turn-in-place on a pad is LT or RT held, then the stick or d-pad to face a tile. That bind is the same logical action as Control. If you rebind Control, the pad shoulders follow the new mapping. Test it in your bedroom — face the tub, the bed, the radio — before you take the bind into Hans’s rows.

The broken A-key and config.rmmzsave

After an older demo build, some players find the A key dead, or the analog stick inverted, or confirm stuck on the wrong face button. Elderfield stores binds in config.rmmzsave inside the save folder. Delete that file, relaunch, and the defaults return. Do not delete your actual save slots unless you also want to replay the demo walkthrough from the bedroom. The config file is settings only.

Where is the folder? On Windows it lives under the game’s app data / save path used by RPG Maker MZ (Steam’s Browse local files will get you close; the save directory is alongside or under the install depending on build). If you cannot see the file, enable hidden items and search for config.rmmzsave. After deleting it, set language, window mode, and binds again. If a friend copied their save into your folder, they may have copied their binds too — same fix.

Why binds matter in this game

Farming is tile-precise. Hoe, seed, and water each ask you to face the plot. A missed facing wastes a day of growth only if you walk onto a crow tile or skip water because you thought you were looking at the wheat. Practice turn-in-place on the first eight plots. Combat is menu-based: confirm spends AP, cancel backs out of a ritual list. A sticky confirm can eat an item you meant to keep for Hall Monitor. Sleep and bath are also confirms on furniture; do not mash Z next to the bed at 5:50pm unless you intend to save, and do not mash it after 6pm unless you intend to roll the luck die described in sleep and curses.

Mouse users should still learn Z and X. Some overworld objects highlight only when you are facing them, and a click on the sprite is not always a confirm. Walk with arrows, interact with Z, shop with the mouse if you want. That hybrid is how most long demo sessions actually feel.

Settings worth opening on day one

Open the options menu from the title or from the in-game menu. Set language first — the demo added extra localizations through the Language option on page one of settings. Lower effects if a low-end PC hitchs in the mall fog. Rebind Control if you need Caps Lock or a thumb mouse button for turn-in-place. Confirm that sprint is Shift and not a face button you also use to talk. Take a PrintScreen now so you know where screenshots land; they are useful for Tax Man bills and Dave’s door code before you trust your memory.

If you came from another MZ game, do not assume the same Q/W tab binds or number-key items. Elderfield’s combat is AP menus, not hotbar skills. Read Getting Started for the house furniture those binds will touch, then return here if a patch notes a control change on demo notes.

Quick checks when something feels wrong

• Character slides without input: another device is sending arrows. Unplug the pad or disable Steam Input keyboard overlay.
• Confirm does nothing: you are in turn-in-place hold, or config.rmmzsave is stale. Release Control; if still dead, delete the config file.
• A key ignored: same config file. Defaults do not even use A for confirm — Z does — so an A-key bind you set last month can collide with text entry or a leftover map.
• Cannot face a shopkeeper: hold Control / LT / RT and tap toward them instead of walking into the counter.
• Screenshot is black: wait until the overworld is visible; some menu fades capture a blank frame.

Once walking, sprinting, and facing plots feel boring, you are ready. Boring binds are the goal. The horror is supposed to come from Pale Moon and the mall, not from a stuck analog stick. Keep this page bookmarked next to the guides hub, and only chase mysteries after Z still means Z.