Steam Deck Support

The Red Weight now has full controller support, and a version of the interface built for the Steam Deck's screen.

On the Steam Deck, the game runs at the panel's native 1280x800 instead of letterboxing a 720 canvas, and I went hunting for more room on top of that, shaving 10 extra pixels out of the title bar and handing every reclaimed row to the story text box. The interface and the text box render noticeably larger on Deck. The story text steps up from 22px to 26px, the UI text scales up around it, and the scene art keeps exactly its original framing.

More words on screen, bigger words, and nothing cropped.

Two Modes Interchangeable

The game now fully supports a controller and a mouse.

If you play with a mouse, nothing changes. No prompts, no toggles, no controller chrome anywhere; the game is exactly what it was before this update.

Pick up a controller, on a desktop PC or on the Deck, and the interface wakes up around it: a selection appears, and every surface in the game becomes reachable without touching the pointer.

Touch the mouse again and all of it vanishes on the spot.

There is nothing to configure and no mode to switch. The two input styles just trade places, mid-session, as often as you like. For anything that genuinely wants a pointer, flick the right stick: a cursor appears and the stick drives it like a mouse, with A as your click.

You can switch, for example, during a scanner mini-game to the controller and back seamlessly.

Each mode has its own colors. You can tell at a glance which mode you're in. Mouse play keeps the interface's copper accents. The warm highlight the game has always had.

Controller play recolors those accents teal, and selection follows the same language: the selected button fills teal, the selected choice row fills teal with dark text, artwork tiles get a green outline, and a held button darkens until you release. When the mouse takes over, the copper accents come back.

Original orange.

New teal for controllers.

The Controls

- D-pad -- move the selection anywhere: choices, the action bar, the tablet, the minimap.

- A -- select / continue

- B -- back / pause

- X -- pop up field-note cards for the highlighted terms in the story text

- Y -- open and close the field unit

- LB / RB -- cycle the field unit's tabs

- Left stick -- summon the cursor when you want a pointer

- Right stick -- scroll the story text and lists

Everything in the game is playable this way: reading, travel, calls, the scanner minigames, the works.

If you have been waiting for better Steam Deck support this is it.

Remember, Umm Walid keeps a private reserve for those she judges worthy, and in my experience, her judgements are usually accurate.