Changing Settings

The Settings Screen can be reached from the Main Menu by choosing the "Change Settings" option.  The following settings are available:

Personal - Enter your player name and optional CaravelNet information here.

Special - Select whether to play with room checkpoints or not, and whether to save demos at special points in the game. Checkpoints allow saving at certain locations in the middle of some rooms. Enabling Auto undo on death will automatically take back your last move whenever you die. To restart a room with this setting enabled, you'll have to press the "Restart room" key.

Editor - When "Save automatically" is checked, changes you make to a room in the editor are saved on leaving the room.  Turn this option off if you want to be prompted before saving any room changes.  Check "Show item tips" to receive help placing special objects in the room.

Demos - "Play demo on Hold Management screen" controls if the room preview on the Hold Management screen should replay the player's actions in that room. "Demo data format" controls how the recording date is displayed in the demo list on the Demos screen.

Graphics - Click "Use full screen" to toggle between full screen and windowed mode (1024x768).  Note that you can also use the F10 key to do this at any time. Slide the "Tarstuff alpha" bar to change tarstuff transparency, and uncheck "Display combos" if you don't want to see kill combo messages during play.

• Resizable Window - Allows changing the dimensions of the game window. Note that there is no mechanism to restore the window to default size once you resize it other than restarting the game, as the dimensions are not saved.
• Alpha Blending - Controls whether light effects are used in the game. Turning it off will disable: transparency of most game effects and monsters, all lighting effects. Turning it off will improve the performance of the game.
• Environmental effects - Controls the density of various particle effects, and certain threshold values have additional consequences:
  • 0 - turns off particle rotation; turns off weather; turns off light;
  • 8 and above (second larger vertical line) - Enable animating shadow casting when light sources move;
  • 12 and above (third larger vertical line) - Enable temporal projections casting light;
  • Any value - Affects the number of debris particles when bomb explodes;
  Moving the slider to the left will improve the peformance of the game.

Sound - You may turn sound effects, game speech and background music on or off and set the volume each is played at. Unclick "Show subtitles when voices play" if you do not want subtitle text to be displayed in the game while characters are talking. Check "No focus plays music" to have the game play music even when it's not the active desktop window. If sound effects or music doesn't work, first try closing other applications and restarting DROD. If you are still without sound, try rebooting your computer.

Keyboard commands - Use to redefine the game commands to different keys.  If you are using a non-US keyboard or have selected a layout other than Qwerty (e.g., Dvorak), you may see incorrect key descriptions as you redefine keys.  Despite this, the key redefinitions will probably work once you begin playing the game.

Repeat Rate - Controls keyboard repeat rate (i.e. movement rate) during play.  Increasing it will decrease the delay between moves when a key is held down. Decreasing it will make movement animations smoother.

Undo level - Select how many consecutive moves you can undo while playing. A smaller value provides a (more) hardcore experience and typically requires more thinking ahead. Your choice for this setting is purely based on your personal play style.