QUICK WAY TO MODIFY KEYBOARD LOOK UP/DOWN TO Z,X USING NOTEPAD

[El Patito]

Hello, I just want to show you a Quick and Dirty method I used to Modify Dark Forces Keyboard input for Look Up/Down and reassign those keys to Z,X using Notepad. I was Lazy to install some Extra Mods for Vertical Mouse aiming and the Keymapper of Dosbox was Cranky and sometimes refused to Change my inputs, so Notepad was helpful and it made my day happier.

Play Dark Forces and inside the Game press CTRL-F1, it will open Dosbox Keymapper utility, Change whatever key the game never uses like P for L and SAVE. Close the Game. A new file called "mapper.txt" should be created.

Now in your Steam Library right click on Dark Forces, Properties and select Local Files.
If you see a file called "mapper.txt" BACKUP with a different name so you can keep an unmodified version and revert changes if you have to.

OPEN "mapper.txt" with NOTEPAD and Edit ONLY these lines:
key_pageup "key 120"
key_pagedown "key 122"

SAVE mapper.txt and Play the Game.

Now it should work like this:
Z=Look Up
X=Look Down

This is helpful for you to be able to shoot back at those Pesky Imperial Guards shooting at you from the Second Floor.

Also do not attempt to use these keys because they're taken:
E=Open Doors
C=Crouch
R=Fire (it was already pre configured like this)

Well, that's it. Thanx for reading.

[Mobile Suit God Damn]

Is this meant to help people who just play the game with a keyboard and no mouse? Why would anyone do that in 2023?

[sonderkraftfahrzeug]

Honestly you should be using The Force Engine at this point. It has full key rebinds. You never have to mess with ancient notepad editing.

[Ex7BD]

Many gamers, many preferences. Personally I use neither, and quite happy with the SIC:

https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/steam_controller/concepts

Although originally had planned to followed the DOSBOX key mapper approach, but SIC persuade me to use it as the go to controller binding/mapping.

[Mexicutioner]

I'm running the pure keyboard controls, that's how I most likely would of played it back then. I ran Doom like that too way back when. It's actually fun, makes it feel like I'm playing a new genre or something.

[Blaagh]

the game actually allows to rebind keys with the included install.exe. but for that you have to run dosbox without launching the game.