Bustafellows out on PC–yay! Obscure controls where people were keyboard mashing to pull up the menu–boo! (Bonus: I have no controller, which plays this native Switch game much more intuitively for players familiar with visual novels. And I have a laptop, meaning I have none of the discrete keys they assigned the primary functions to. Moral: Never trust Japanese PC ports.)
Since this is a programming issue, I doubt a patch for native key remapping will come out any time soon, and I was bitter enough that I took matters into my own hands and found two solutions.
- Got a phone? Use Steam Link to configure a touchscreen controller layout. Now you can remote control the game or even play it on your phone proper.
- Download a free third-party tool to rebind mouse and key commands to more traditional PC controls suited for visual novels.
Consider this your table of contents. But you can also go under the jump! (First authored on Reddit, mirroring here for archiving. Maybe not for long because WordPress is SLOW. SLOW. SLOOOOW.)
Steam Link
What is Steam Link? It lets you beam Steam to TV or mobile devices so you can use other input peripherals (controllers, mobile phones…tablets?) to play its games. The app is free on Google Play Store and Apple App Store. See official Steam Link starter page and where to download.
I heard of Steam Link but wasn’t bothered to look into it until Bustafellows on PC gave me the sufficient amount of frustration. After trial-and-error, I slapped together a quick-and-dirty touchscreen layout on my phone that feels better than the PC keyboard. Tested on Chapter 1 scenes at time of writing. (Images come from my original Imgur post. Text is modified here with more detail.)
To set up, download Steam Link. Link up your account, then select Touch Controller before launching Bustafellows. You’ll see the default touch controller layout. Tap a Steam Link Controls icon to open this screen.
Configure the Mouse to Direct Cursor, then go to “Layout Controls” on the Touch Controller side (left) to start arranging the buttons. The final layout I have is below:
Besides the Steam Link Controls button at lower-left, these are the 7 buttons and functions you care about. Clear out the default layout except for the buttons you see here, and you can drag or group them to your liking. This arrangement doesn’t block text or UI elements, especially with the black bars at the sides to give extra space.
And that’s it! There’s much more to Steam Link–this super-detailed guide suggests you can remap touch controls and even create macros, but haven’t familiarized myself with that yet. This took a Saturday.
Key Rebindings
And this was Sunday! Despite the above I’m used to sitting at the mouse and keyboard for PC VNs and I was too upset that the developers would trash the traditional keyboard scheme of VNs. (Original Reddit post) After this I’ll try both and see if Steam Link is the killer app that tears me away from the PC for VNs.
In the 24 hours after messing with Steam Link, I looked at two popular key rebinding programs–GlovePIE and AutoHotKey–and tested both on Bustafellows. For the time I put in, it was a little embarrassing how barebones the final script is, but hey, that’s what research and attempted feature-creep do to you. Still dreaming of making a macro for Save/Load menus. Note that this isn’t so much an alternate keyboard scheme as a supplementary one: the old scheme is still in effect, so Home key still loads the in-game menu, for example.
My new key bindings:
| Key/Button | Action |
|---|---|
| Spacebar / Enter key | Advance Text, Select Highlighted Choice |
| Right-click / Back mouse button* | Cancel/Exit, Hide/Show Textbox |
| Right-click + Left-click (in quick order) | Load in-game menu |
| R / Fwd mouse button | Backlog, Rewind in backlog |
| F | Skip Mode Toggle Page forward options and gallery screens |
| A | Auto Mode Toggle Page backward options and gallery screens |
| Scroll wheel | Scrolls up and down lists, backlog, or audio levels (Click-and-drag is the faster “scrolling” in Archive and Memorabilia) |
These are just suggestions and can be easily modified for your own convenience. Quick Load/Save were fine to me (F1, F2 respectively) so I left them alone, but are included as script comments in case you want to assign them yourself.
GlovePIE
My preferred tool. It was the more quick-and-dirty solution that got me what I wanted and it keeps a window open for easier on/off.
Download GlovePIE and then extract to local drive. Open a new file, paste in the below code block, and save it to a convenient place with whatever name. Click the Run button to activate the key bindings. Click Stop when you’re done (because the key bindings hold over your whole computer).
// BUSTAFELLOWS PC Keyboard Assignments
// Basic key assignments
keyboard.Enter = keyboard.Space
keyboard.BackSpace = mouse.RightButton
keyboard.Home = mouse.RightButton + mouse.LeftButton
// Avoid using in Options; it will restore defaults.
keyboard.End = R
keyboard.PageDown = F
keyboard.PageUp = A
// keyboard.F1
// keyboard.F2
// Extra
keyboard.Up = mouse.WheelUp
keyboard.Down = mouse.WheelDown
keyboard.BackSpace = mouse.XButton1 // Back button cancels
keyboard.End = mouse.XButton2 // Fwd button rewinds
AutoHotKey
This one seems capable of more advanced behavior (e.g. better scrolling) but my weekend on this is up. One-click launch but easier to forget it’s running when you exit the game. Same controls, similar script.
Download AutoHotKey. Paste the below code in Notepad and save with extension .AHK in whatever location. Double-click to launch. It discreetly opens in the system tray, so double-click that icon to launch its own window. Remember to exit (or pause, via File > “Suspend Hotkeys”) when done with the game.
; BUSTAFELLOWS PC Keyboard Assignments
; Basic key assignments
Space::Enter
RButton::BackSpace
RButton & LButton::Home
; Avoid using in Options; it will restore defaults.
r::End
f::PgDn
a::PgUp
; F1
; F2
; Extra
WheelUp::Send {Up}
WheelDown::Send {Down}
XButton1::BackSpace ; Back button cancels
XButton2::End ; Fwd button rewinds
In an ideal world I’d have more creative, advanced shortcuts programmed (e.g. Save/Load menus?), but basic and working is pretty good. I did one new hour in Bustafellows with these key rebinds and can confirm how much more relaxed I am, though I’m mostly in Auto Mode with max text speed, just occasionally opening the backlog and then catching up on Archives.
This helped me and I hope it helps you or someone you know. Am now feeling motivated to post this as a Steam Guide, so coming soon…
あらゆる 