Controls and tips
How to play Lofi City
There is nothing to win. Walk, climb, sit, chat and listen. Here are the controls, the places worth finding and a few small secrets.
Keyboard
| Walk | ← → or A D |
|---|---|
| Run | hold Shift |
| Jump | Space (or ↑ / W when no ladder is near) |
| Climb a ladder | ↑ / W up, ↓ / S down |
| Drop through a floor | ↓ / S |
| Use, sit, order, hop on a sled | E |
| Chat | Enter, then Enter to send; Esc to cancel |
| Emotes | 1 heart, 2 note, 3 coffee, 4 sleepy, 5 sparkle, 6 smile |
| City map | M |
| Hop off the sled | E, ↓ or jump while moving |
Phone and tablet
On a touch screen the buttons appear on their own: left and right on the left, jump (A), interact (E), up, down and run on the right. Turn them on or off in Settings. The game stays smooth on phones because everything is drawn at a small pixel size and scaled up.
Things to try
- Climb to the rooftops. Every building has a ladder inside. Roofs of neighbouring buildings are joined by ladders, so you can walk the skyline.
- Ride a sled. Three sleds glide along the street and wait a few seconds at every sled stop. Walk up and jump on (or press E), ride along while the music follows the districts, and hop off with E, ↓ or a jump. Touch the sign at a stop to see when the next sled comes.
- Watch the rain. Showers and distant thunder come and go by themselves. Rain is quieter indoors, and you can hear it on the windows. Pick Auto, Always raining or Off in Settings.
- Take a seat. Sit or sleep in a spot that a resident is using and they politely get up and wander off; when you leave, they come back and settle in again.
- Skip a song. The turntable in Groove Records skips to the next record.
- Order something. Coffee at the cafe, a melon pan at the bakery, ramen at Night Noodles.
- Sleep. The bed on the top floor of the Lamplight Apartments dims the screen. Move to wake up.
- Look at the stars. The telescopes in the Star Observatory have something to say.
- Talk. Residents answer when you chat near them.
Music controls
The player at the bottom of every page has play and pause, previous and next, a volume slider and mute, shuffle, and a pin button. With the pin on, the music follows the city: walking into a new place crossfades into that place’s playlist. Turn it off to keep one playlist everywhere. Songs download as MP3 with the arrow button.
Calm mode and accessibility
Settings has a calm mode (gentler rain, no lightning flashes, flicker, fades or drifting clouds). It switches on by itself if your device asks for reduced motion. Menus work with the keyboard and the game is playable without sound. Name tags and speech bubbles are large and scale with the window, and thunder is always soft.
