Manual · Desktop Destruction

How to play Desktop Destruction.

Getting started

When the game starts it captures your desktop and freezes it into a picture: that picture is what you destroy. Nothing on your real desktop is touched, and the picture is never saved or sent anywhere.

The first time you play, a short intro plays and you choose how to play:

No Lifer: earn every tool through the challenges. The tutorial, Cheeky Start, has you slap a bum fifty times; that opens the rest of the game.
Dad/Mom: everything open at once, no tutorial.

After that the main menu offers Challenges and Sandbox.

On Linux under Wayland, or on a system that blocks screen capture, the game uses a generated wallpaper instead of your desktop.

Controls

Left mouse	Use the tool in hand (hold to keep swinging, sawing, firing or drawing)
`Space`	Open the radial menu (the game slows to slow motion while it is open)
Right mouse, in the menu	Back a ring
`1` … `0`	Quick slots: in the menu, point at a tool and press a number to put it on that key; press the number in play to switch to it
`H`	In a challenge: show hints (where to aim)
`R`	Restart the challenge, or reset the Sandbox scene
`S` / `T`	Straight to Sandbox, or to its Tools ring
`C`	Skins: over a tool in the menu, its skins; in play, the next skin
`F7` `F8` `F9`	Your music player: previous track, play or pause, next track
`F2`	Set up your desktop for a face challenge: arrange a photo or video, then Capture
`Esc`	In a challenge: quit it (asks first). Elsewhere: exit the game (asks first)

Most tools show their controls by the pointer when you pick them; the hints can be turned off in Settings. Every key can be changed in Settings.

The tools

Hand

Left mouse	Slap the desktop, or grab what is under the hand (a prop, a hanging piece, a falling piece)
Hold and move	Rub; let go on the move to throw

Hammer

Click to swing: cracks, holes and pieces breaking off, each material its own way.

Chainsaw

Hold to saw through the screen; pieces you cut out drop free.

Laser

Left mouse	Hold to cut
Wheel	Beam width (1 to 8 px)
`Ctrl` + wheel	Intensity: half power and over cuts, a quarter engraves, a tenth fades dark marks such as a tattoo
Right mouse	A 4× magnifier beside the beam

Minigun and Glock

The minigun spins up while held and hoses the screen; the Glock fires a round a click, 10 in the magazine and 1 in the chamber, and reloads by itself. Rounds go through thin materials and gouge thick ones.

Bazooka

Click to fire a rocket: a crater, flung pieces and debris everywhere.

Flamethrower

Hold to throw an arcing stream of burning fuel. Paper catches and burns on, wood chars and smoulders, flesh sears, metal glows red-hot, glass cracks from the heat, concrete soots and spalls.

Spray Paint

Left mouse	Hold to spray
Right mouse	Colours and nozzles (round, calligraphy, speckled)
Wheel	Nearer (thin, heavy) or further (wide, misty)
`Ctrl` + wheel	Dot size, with the speckled nozzle
`Shift`	A lighter spray
`Alt` + left mouse	Take a colour from the screen

Paint held in one spot drips. Paper soaks it in, glass and metal let it run, concrete speckles it.

Pencil

Left mouse	Hold to draw
`Shift` + left mouse	Turn it over and rub pencil out with its eraser
Wheel	Lead size: Fine, Medium, Thick, Chunky
Right mouse	Colours and leads
`Alt` + left mouse	Take a colour from the screen

Paper takes pencil fully, wood breaks it along the grain, glass and metal let it skate faint and thin. Paint covers it and the power washer rinses it off.

Power Washer

Left mouse	Hold to spray: Rinse washes marks off, Revive heals damage
Right mouse	Switch between Rinse and Revive
Wheel	Nozzle: narrow or wide
`Ctrl` + wheel	Pressure

Prop Remote

Wheel	Choose a prop (brain, fish, skull), or scale the one in hand
Right mouse	Hold and drag to turn it
Left mouse	Set it down; click one to pick it up again
`F`	Push it through the glass, or bring it back out
`G`	Gravity on or off
`Ctrl` + wheel	What it is made of
`Delete`	Take it away

Every tool damages a prop exactly as it damages the desktop, as its material.

Chain

Left mouse	Bolt one end, then the other
Right mouse	Cancel the chain you are placing

Cut a piece free round a bolt and it swings on the chain instead of falling.

Sculpt

Left mouse	Hold to raise the screen
Right mouse	Hold to sink it
Wheel	Area
`Ctrl` + wheel	Strength

Push it too far and the material gives way its own way.

Camera

Left mouse	Hover a face and click to take its photo; type who it is and press Enter
Hold right mouse	On someone already named: forget them

Named people open the face challenges. See the privacy page for what is kept.

Every tool works on every material, each the way the real thing would.

Materials, backgrounds and foregrounds

Materials (menu: Materials) set what the desktop is made of: glass, wood, metal, paper, concrete or flesh. Damage, debris, sounds and the feel of every tool change with it.

Backgrounds are what shows through the holes: the void, a broken LCD, or a 3D room behind each material (a deep aquarium that drains through the holes, a timber cabin with spider nests at the back, an engine room, a paper stage, an underground car park, the inside of a body).

Foregrounds paint the desktop over with a generated surface for any material, or show your own desktop again.

Challenges and ranks

Challenges are short goals, each with its own scene and tools, played against the clock: drain the fish tank, cut a piece of wood free, set a wall on fire, trace a crime scene's chalk outline in pencil. Each tool has a path of challenges; finish the whole path and that tool is yours in Sandbox.

A finished challenge is ranked Baby Drawing, Pencil Pusher, Artist or Picasso by your time against its par and, where the game can tell, how well it was done. Ranks earn tool skins.

Stuck? Press H in a challenge for hints on where to aim.

Face challenges

Some challenges are done to a person on your desktop: open a photo or a video, photograph a face with the Camera and say who they are (an actor, a politician, a musician, or your own word). Then, for example, paint a moustache on a musician or draw shades on a politician.

F2 (or Set up, on a challenge) steps the game aside so you can arrange the picture, then captures it as the new desktop. Faces are found and recognised on your computer only.

Sandbox and settings

Sandbox is free play with everything you have unlocked: tools, materials, backgrounds, foregrounds, props and skins. As a No Lifer it starts with the hand and the power washer.

Settings (main menu, or the radial menu) set the master, effects, tools and music volumes and mute, the key bindings, the tools' control hints, whether the quick tools bar always shows, and the intro. Reset Progress there clears challenge progress, best times and ranks, skins, quick slots, tips, remembered faces or settings, each on its own.