hollow knight home row layout

I just made it past 100% in my main hollow knight run, so now I will allow myself to get silksong when it comes out. I did this with a little bit of YT guidance, but mostly just figuring it out. I only just discovered the reznormichael-hollow-knight-completion-check which got me an extra 2% for a few items I must have got and not saved on, because I was sure I had them.

Controller #

Hollow Knight is a game that can be played with keyboard or controller, You can use analog stick for movements, but they just translate to dpad, there really are no analog moves in the game. This makes it ripe for playing on pure keyboard. I really favor controller when there are more than one analog (throttle, brake, steering for example).

On controller I've switched to only using d-pad as I feel like it gives me the most crisp of controls. It is really easy to miss a pogo on analog by hitting slightly left or right.

My Keyboard #

My daily driver keyboard is a custom built 40% monoblock keyboard I absolutely love using it, it perfectly plops down on a laptop when I am in laptop mode and really fits me quite well for my wrok as a software/infrastructure engineer.

WASD #

We've got to talk about pinky stagger

I can use wasd perfectly fine on it, I have a layer that has no holds on any keys so that they are all nice and crisp and tailored to gaming operations that would require a hold.

Now what I haven't ran into before is that trying to game with wasd and use the right side is very uncomfortable with this steep of a pinky stagger. Generally with keyboard an mouse games I have the keyboard a little slanted and move my fingers to wasd just fine, but it just does not work well with both hands on the keyboard.

Enter asdf #

Today is day one, I'm not quite sure how long it will last, but I am giving asdf a try for arrow keys. This will work much more akin to a fight stick where each finger has a primary direction instead of using one finger for both up and down.

This seems weird #

So Ya, I know it's weird. I did some searching wasn't able to find much other than this one reddit post talking about using asdf. oddly one person reccommended sdfg, this souds so much like vim, which makes a lot of sense, but brings back moving fingers off of home row position or using one finger for down and right, which aint gonna work.

First thoughts #

I'm about 20 minutes in and struggling on False Knight, I could be a bit more patient, but I'm trying to work on pogos on all the mobs on the way in.

Holding up or down

The ability to just hold up or down as you run through the map with enemies coming from above or below feels superior, and its going to be nice, I really just got to put some time in to get use to the layout, maybe even make some changes.

I realize now that Hollow Knight rarely needs quick swiching between up and down and would probably be fine on a wasd layout if i were to be using a split keyboard or a bit less pinky stagger that would work out, but for now I am giving this a shot.

My Son's experience #

So my son is playing along with me, new save as well. He went with wasd and mouse, while this sounds insane to me to use mouse for clicking and no movement the natural feel that it has, has him blazing through faster than he does on controller, doing pogos he's never done before.

False Knight down #

The recording somehow stuck on the menu screen and did not record video, but I got this screenshot of the victory.

Vengeful Spirit #

Day 2 I managed to make it to the Ancestral Mound and get the Vengeful Spirit cast. Everything is starting to feel much better and more natural. Surprisingly my main issue is with up and down since they are used a bit less, left with my pinky has not been any issue.

Hornet Battle 1 #

I made it successfully through the first hornet battle I was able to snag this clip of a few nicely timed pogos. Its getting better, I am still really struggling between down srike and up strike.

Mothwing Cloak #

I got so lucky with the finish of hornet, I thought she hit me while healing, kinda lost where we were tanked a hit and almost took one last hit again and beat her to the final punch.

Gruz Mother #

After completing gruz mother I went to grab my macropad to click the clip button when her babies came out, and it was at this moment my son told me I was done for, there was no recovering from this. I was already at 2 hearts, and a mistake left me with one. You can see me fumble for the up key in the clip as I get repositioned fully on back on the board.

Now we have Sly the merchant unlocked and can buy items from him.

City #

I made it to the city, but on my way, it looks like one of the smokey layers were getting put on top of the game instead of layer in behind. I've never seen this, so I really have no idea what it is. During the thorny area it was in and out and right as I entered the city it locked on top and did not leave.

Soul Master #

I made my way over to the soul master, dying several times along the way to a few Soul Twisters, its time to battle.

After beating his second room, (this clip makes him look way too easy as he wasn't targeting me fore some reason at the end), I picked up desolate dive, which brings a new key combo to get familiar with down+cast.

Moss Knight #

I took a break for awhile on the game, my son got bored and moved on. He tends to switch out games a lot faster than me. I came back to it tonight after a few months off and just got some geo from the moss knights for awhile. I got this decent clip of clearing them, I'm no pro, but getting better at timing on the keeb layout.

Lumafly Lantern #

While I had a lot of geo from the Moss Knights I finished out getting 1800 geo to get the lumafly lantern from sly's shop at dirtmouth.

Royal Waterway #

I decided to head back to the city of tears and into the royal waterway to fight the dung defender and collect Isma's tear.

The Dung Defender battle, great lore with this guy, lots of bouncy movement, but overall not too hard of a boss. He is not very accurate with attacks, so you have time to just sit in the corners and heal.

Once the Dung Defender was defeated, I continued on up to the Kings Station and unlocked it.

I could not remember where ismas tear was and I ended up all the way down in deep nest, the climb out is a bit of a challenge, here I am going right by the route you take with crystal dash to get isma's tear.

Isma's Tear #

I managed to find my way through the royal waterway and where you crystal dash over to isma's tear. This battle took two attempts, because the first I had no health left and walked in with two masks.

Now the tear coats our shell and allows us to swim through the acid, and we can get a lot more places, and some places are just easier to get without precision parkour over the acid.

Thorny Mask #

I wandered around the world a bit today and found a few small items, nothing of major concequence.

Challenging Mantis Lords #

It felt like time to challenge the Mantis Lords. For the reason to prove to myself that I am getting better at this layout.

I drew my nail and ready for the challenge.

First try I made it past the first one, and deep into the second one, I think If I would have remembered the healing window for them I would have had a shot at a first try on them.

After three tries I had it. Maybe its not apples to apples with my first ever run years ago on steam deck, but it took months. I would have about 20 minutes a day waiting for kids pickup at school and I would just keep grinding at them for what added up to be likely several hours.

After defeating them I'm let into the treasure room where I get a bench, Hallownest seal, a big loot box, and the mark of pride. This is actually one of my favorite charms as it gives you an extra 25% range to your nail attacks. This opens up the window for pogos and reach attacks without taking damage.