Auto-walk and can’t-walk fix
Two movement bugs come up again and again on the Steam forum, and they need different fixes. Work out which one you have first.
If your character walks on its own
The fix the developers point to comes from a player whose wireless keyboard and mouse combo showed up in Windows as a game controller. They switched that entry off in Device Manager (in Steam discussion: Auto-Walk). Step by step:
- Close the game, and unplug any gamepad you actually play with so its entry is not the one you switch off.
- Open Device Manager in Windows.
- Expand Human Interface Devices.
- Right-click HID-compliant game controller and choose Disable Device.
- Start the game again and check that you stand still.
- If nothing changed, go back and choose Enable Device on the same entry.
The devices named in that thread vary: a Keychron wireless combo, a Razer Tartarus Pro keypad, and vJoy, a virtual joystick driver, which one player disabled the same way. One player fixed it with a new profile in their mouse software, while another made new mouse and keyboard profiles and still walked forward. A disabled device stops working in other games too, so turn it back on in the same place if it was not the culprit, or once a patch fixes the game.
The developers first said “We had multiple people report that issue, so it’s most likely on our side.” (in Steam discussion: Automatic walk) Patch 0.6.24 named a “fix for auto walk” under coming next and linked the same community fix in the meantime (in Steam announcement: Shroom Patch Notes: 0.6.24); 0.6.39 is the patch that says it should be fixed.
Between the first patch and 0.6.39, reports pointed both ways. One player thanked the developers “for fixing the auto-walk issue so quickly” (in Steam discussion: Suggestion : make the hover-able text more obvious), and a Mac player whose character walked backwards wrote “This is fixed as of 0.6.24”, while allowing it could be a macOS update instead (in Steam discussion: Backwards Movement?). Others still have it: “I am experiencing this issue” came after 0.6.24 (in Steam discussion: Auto-walk Toggle Please), and a Mac player on a later day got rid of it by closing their mouse software: “Fully quitting Razer Synapse immediately fixed the issue for me.” (in Steam discussion: Auto-Walk) All of these predate 0.6.39. If updating did not help you, the device steps above are still the thing to try.
If W does nothing
Several of the players reporting this one are on Linux. The opening report describes it exactly: “If I press any other key (e.g. A or D) while pressing W, then I am able to walk forward.” (in Steam discussion: Unable to play. I see the "W" card but nothing is happening) Most of the players who confirm it in that thread and give their system are on Linux, one of them with and without gamescope.
Why a device could make you walk
The 0.6.39 notes describe the mechanism: an input device the game did not recognise could send the Unity input system “an analog input with default position as +0.5 or -0.5”, which is what showed up in game as always walking forward or always walking backwards (in Steam announcement: Shroom Patch Notes: 0.6.39). That is why, before the fix, the community answer was to disable the device Windows mistakes for a gamepad. It also lines up with the earlier developer reply that it “seems to be related to hardware.” (in Steam discussion: Auto-Walk
Mouse movement is the other thing to try. The developers confirm that “middle mouse button is mapped to walk. If you need to back pedal a bit you can also scroll down on your mouse.” (in Steam discussion: Option for Menu Setting) Rebinding keys is not in the game yet, but “Custom key binding is something we plan to roll out down the line!” (same thread). Don’t count on the mouse if you are on Linux, though: two players in the W thread say middle mouse did nothing for them either (in Steam discussion: Unable to play. I see the "W" card but nothing is happening), so holding A or D is the workaround that has worked there. Deck-specific notes are on the Steam Deck page.
Other control problems, like the map and door signs on a gamepad, are on controller support. More known traps are collected in tips.