Homicide Desk Controls
Point-and-click desktop OS, 3D evidence, UV light, and interrogation typing.
Homicide Desk is a police workstation, not a crime-scene walker. There is no WASD locomotion, no sprint, and no controller scheme that turns DET. GHAITH into a third-person avatar. Shu’la Lab LLC built a CRT-era desktop OS: scanlines, a world clock, weather on the taskbar, and a mouse that does almost everything. If you came from a shooter, unlearn the keyboard.
This page is the input map. First-hour story lives in Getting Started. What you type in the booth lives in interrogation. What you do with a print or a chromatograph lives in forensics. The rest of the Guides Hub covers salary and dispatch on the precinct page.
Mouse, desktop, and the taskbar
Left-click opens an app. Double-click nested folders inside Case Files the way you would on a real 1990s workstation. Drag windows. Close what you are not using; the CRT look is atmospheric, but overlapping reports will hide a timestamp you need. Recycle Bin, Gazette, Cases, Personnel File, Case Files, Game Room, Investigation Board, City Atlas, Settings, Notebook, Email, Forensics Lab, Arrest Warrant, Store, and Certification are all mouse targets, not hotkeys.
The taskbar is live. The world clock is not decoration. Phone records, pawnshop receipts, and the 21:47 find time on Marcus Reeves all care about hours and minutes. Weather on the taskbar matches Ravenport’s rain-soaked port mood; it will not give you a quest marker, but it will keep you inside the fiction while Email piles pressure on the case. Open Gazette when you want city copy. Open City Atlas when you need districts — Northloop, Eastdock, Westgate, Civic Quarter, Mayfair, Harrow Flats, Ravenport Quays, Dockside — or a patrol unit such as U-19 running Code 3.
Settings hold scanlines, audio language, and right-to-left layout for Arabic. English and Arabic have full audio. Do not hunt a graphics-quality slider that turns this into a 3D scene. The heavy process is the local model, documented on system requirements. If the desktop will not draw after a patch, read patch notes before you rebind keys that do not exist.
Right-click the desktop for the UV light. That is the control. It is not F, not T, not a flashlight on a character’s belt. Drag the lamp across a photo or a print. If nothing fluoresces, you are on the wrong document or you have not earned the sealed layer yet. Notebook is for your own typed notes; the game will not auto-pin every sentence you highlight.
3D evidence, documents, and the lab window
Case Files drop objects you can orbit. Click to pick up. Drag to rotate. Mouse wheel zooms. You are looking for engravings, serials, wear, and anything a still screenshot would hide. The Longines watch HV-0417 from Westgate Pawn & Loan is the training object: turn it until the tag and the case-back make sense, then compare them to receipt 26-0893. Read Text is the document control. Use it on reports, statements, and sealed files that have become readable. Do not assume a PDF-style scrollbar is the whole page; some packets stay locked until interrogation or a cipher in the Forensics Lab gives you the code.
In the lab, the mouse is a pair of hands. Align a fingerprint by dragging until ridges seat. Calibrate a chromatograph with the on-screen controls against the clock. Cipher puzzles are click-and-type, not a separate minigame overlay with WASD. Phone-record analysis is flag-the-timestamp work: click the call, note the hour, cross-check the board. Photo analysis is crop, enhance, and UV — still the same right-click lamp.
The Investigation Board is drag-and-pin. People, objects, and places become cards. String is a click-drag between pins. The case-chain tracker is a timeline, not a compass. Full board language sits in the evidence board walkthrough; the control is still mouse. Arrest Warrant is a form you fill when the deduction is written, covered under charging. Do not bind a “charge” key in your head. There isn’t one.
Typing, stress, and what you should not remap
The interrogation window is a two-line text field. Click it. Type a question. Submit. Keep it short. Present evidence with the case’s document list, not by typing the filename as a magic word — the UI has a present action. Watch the stress meter and the AGITATED tag. Offer a Break and Request Dossier are buttons that cost salary from the precinct economy. They are not keyboard shortcuts.
Because replies are generated live by the local model, there is no dialogue-tree number to press. You cannot mash 1–4. You also cannot open a console and noclip. If a suspect lawyers up, you pushed with nothing; that is a play mistake, not a missing bind. Use the interrogation planner to decide questions before you click the field.
Steam achievements such as Inspector’s Eye and Leave No Stone reward looking, not key combinations. High Roller is the Game Room, also mouse. The game is single-player only.
If a tool has a handle, drag it. If a document has ink, right-click for UV. If a person is talking, type. That is the whole scheme.
Frequently Asked Questions
Quick answers for detectives still on the clock.
Is there a WASD or controller walk-around mode?
No. Homicide Desk is a point-and-click desktop. You inspect 3D evidence in a window; you do not walk Ravenport as a character.
How do I turn on the UV light?
Right-click the desktop and drag the lamp across photos or prints. Details on what UV can reveal sit in the forensics guide.
How do I zoom a 3D object?
Mouse wheel. Drag to rotate. Use that on the pawnshop watch in Getting Started before you try a sealed strongbox.
Where do I type questions?
In the interrogation window, two lines at a time. See the interrogation guide for stress, presenting evidence, and lawyer-up.
What does the taskbar clock actually do?
It is a live world clock. Match it against receipts, phone records, and scene times such as 21:47 in Server Room B. Weather is flavor; the clock is evidence.
Can I rebind keys?
There is almost nothing to rebind. Settings cover display and language. If the OS will not start, check system requirements and patch notes.