Solid Aether Manual

-> Japanese
-> Solid Aether cover page

How To Play

  • Just dodge and shoot!

  • Use “focus” key / button when you need to move slow and dodge precisely.
    In “focus” mode, your hit-box will be visible and your shots will be focused as well.

  • You will loose a life by getting hit by an enemy bullet.
    Game is over if you lost all your lives.
    You can receive extra lives by destroying enemies or damaging the boss.

  • The effect that appears when you get hit or get an extra life shows how many lives you have.
    The number of the squares indicates the number of the remaining extra lives.

Gamepad operation

  • Move

    • D-pad

    • left analog stick

  • Fire / Accept

    • Button 0 (or button A when XBOX controller)

  • Cancel (only for menus)

    • Button 1 (or button B when XBOX controller)

  • Focus ( = slow down & focused shot )

    • Button 2 (or button X when XBOX controller)

  • Pause

    • Button 3 (or button Y when XBOX controller)

Gamepad buttons can be remapped in the “SETTINGS” screen (except the move buttons).

Keyboard operation

  • Move

    • Arrow keys

  • Fire / Accept

    • Z key

  • Cancel (only for menus)

    • X key

  • Focus ( = slow down & focused shot )

    • SHIFT key

  • Pause

    • ESC key

Keyboard operation (alternative: WASD)

  • Move

    • W, A, S, D keys

  • Fire / Accept

    • J key

  • Cancel (only for menus)

    • L key

  • Focus ( = slow down & focused shot )

    • K key

  • Pause

    • I key

Keyboard operation (alternative: numpad)

  • Move

    • numpad 2, 4, 6, 8

  • Fire / Accept

    • SPACE key

    • ENTER key

  • Cancel (only for menus)

    • numpad 5

  • Focus ( = slow down & focused shot )

    • numpad 0

  • Pause

    • numpad 7

Shortcut keys

  • Toggle fullscreen / windowed

    • ALT + F11

    • ALT + Enter (on Windows)

    • Command + Control + F (on Mac OS)

  • Reset game and go back to title

    • ALT + F12

  • Toggle window size (1x / 0.5x)

    • F4

  • Toggle scale (1x / 0.5x)

    • F5

 

The game is laggy on my PC! / What’s the [ LOW FPS ] ?

Depending on the GPU or other specs of your PC, the game might be laggy in some cases.
If the actual FPS is less than 85% of the ideal FPS, a warning message [ LOW FPS ] will be displayed at the top left of the screen.

Try following the instructions below:

  • Go to "SETTINGS" from the title screen and change one or both of below.

    • Change the "SCREEN SIZE" from 1920x1080 to 720x960
      (You’ll have to reboot the game to apply this change)

    • Change the "FRAME RATE" from 60 to 30

  • Shut down all programs that are not related.

  • If your display has a very high resolution, it might also help to decrease it.

Note: If the actual FPS in the game is less than 70% of the ideal FPS, the frame rate will automatically be changed to 30. (v1.0.3 or later)

 

I don’t like the moving speed of the player ship

Go to “SETTINGS” from the title screen and change the “MOVING SPEED” values. (v1.0.1 or later)

 

My gamepad isn’t detected by the game!

It is reported that some gamepads (such as PS2 controller + USB converter) cannot be detected by the game.
The game relies on OpenFL (Lime) for gamepad support. It supports a lot of gamepads but unfortunately it’s not perfect.
(See also: https://steamcommunity.com/app/367430/discussions/0/481115363869908493/
This is a thread of another game that uses the same library.)

Gamepad > Windows

Maybe Xbox 360 Controller Emulator (x360ce) might help you.
This is a tool that allows your controller to function as an Xbox 360 controller.
Please try it as follows:

  1. Download x360ce from the webpage.

  2. Confirm the installation directory of Solid Aether (that contains the file “solid_aether.exe”) in your PC.
    For example, if you installed it via Steam on Windows 10, it will typically be:

    • C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Solid Aether\

  3. Run x360ce from the same directory of “solid_aether.exe” according to the instructions of x360ce.
    Two files will be generated:

    • x360ce.ini

    • xinput1_3.dll

  4. Close x360ce.

  5. Rename the file “xinput1_3.dll” to “xinput1_4.dll”.

  6. Open “x360ce.ini” and confirm that the value of ControllerType is 1 (if not, change it to 1). Then close.

    • ConrollerType=1

  7. Run Solid Aether.

Gamepad > Mac

Please try following tools.

 

The game screen doesn’t fit to my Retina display!

On high-DPI displays, the window might go off the screen and be scaled 2x more than what it should be.
Using both F4 (toggles the window size) and F5 (toggles the rendering scale) keys might solve this issue.