Just a thought but if it's keyboard only I prefer to move the character with the arrow keys.

WASD is good for 3D games cause you do part of the mouvement with the mouse but to move entirely with WASD feels too stiff.

Hope that can help a bit.

Have a nice day. 😀

@Wallace Yeah, arrow keys work as well.

Do old fashioned console RPGs count? Zelda on the NES is quite popular and those gamepads aren't a far stretch from basic keyboard controls.

This might be too obvious but I'd say Binding of Isaac certainly qualifies. It's keyboard only, it's topdown and it's an action rogue like thing.

More broadly I'd also put secret of mana on the list because while it's not on PC (recent remake not withstanding) the controls would work just fine with keyboard only.

What about auto-attack when in proximity?

This is almost certainly _not_ what you're looking for, but Epistory is a top-down-ish action/RPG game that's exclusively keyboard-driven (you literally cannot use any other controller) and runs on a Mac.  No pony, though.

Since you don't have a rumble function for the keyboard the most important thing is to give good sound and screen feedback:  A miss results in a nice whooshing sound, a hit in a enemy-specific thud (like a crack sound for skeletons, a mushy sound for soft-skinned enemies). Combine this with a good visual feedback (enemy flashes, is thrown back a bit) and you will immensly improve the experience. For keys: The spacebar is pretty large and has therefore a clunky feel to it which probably doesn't align very will with a precise and more nimble weapon like a sword. I would use Left-Ctrl.

I feel that the twin-stick shooter style used by e.g. Binding of Isaac works best. That means: WASD for movement and the arrow keys for directional attacks (attack up, right, down, left). So you can run straight but attack left, for example.

Nothing beats the ARROW keys for movement. Well except if you are left-handed ;)
Maybe using Num Keypad to combine arrow keys with additional functions if your game is complex enough. But for the sake of simplicity I would use arrow keys. As I remember my gaming in old DOS days this was the default setup for most of the games and probably for a good reason too.

I don't have a concrete example but maybe you could play a few old console RPGs (e.g. A Link to the Past) in emulators and experiment with key bindings.

A Redefine Keys option on the main menu works wonders, mr Gilbert.
Also, one of the best series of cRPGs ever, the Gold Box series, used top down, pixel graphics, keyboard controller tactical combat and it was awesome.

I want to post one more vote for arrow keys. That's what they are for ;-) The numpad idea is a second best for me, especially as Ikeman mentioned if you want to use 5, 7, 9 for actions

I played through a few Final Fantasy games using the num pad. (Enter, or 0 under the thumb was a good attack option. 5 can be remapped as a down arrow if you want the usual WASD block). I've since used this set up for a lot of 16bit style games and it's much more comfortable than the usual arrow keys.

Not too down, but Broforce (while way better with a controller) has fast and frenetic shooting/platforming that's surprisingly enjoyable on a keyboard....

No other game that complicated surprised me with how well it played with just a keyboard in recent memory.

The original Prince of Persia managed to pull of really tense, fun sword fighting with only a few keys.  You could advance, retreat block and strike from memory.

The Mario & Luigi series by AlphaDream has a really nice combat mode, you should check it out!

Anodyne

Also, don't forget to add a rebind option.

I remember I enjoyed playing The Chaos Engine a lot on PC with Keyboard.

DROD is amazing. Nothing else like it for top down keyboard combat. Not sure how it would translate to real time but it might be cool to try out something like that.

Not a topdown game, but Moonstone used keyboard only for combat and movement. I think it worked something like this:  move with arrowkeys. If you hold down an action key at the same time you make a directional attack instead, so ctrl +
UP = would be a slow but powerfull long reach overhead sword swing,
DOWN = short reach dodge
UP + LEFT/RIGHT = in direction of opponent = upwards forward thrust
UP + LEFT/RIGHT = away from opponent = throw knife
DOWN + LEFT/RIGHT = in direction of opponent = forwards thrust
DOWN + LEFT/RIGHT = in opposite direction of opponent  = block/downwards attack

Though what made it really great was the sound design.

Starkiller already said it, but QAOP + Space is the best way imo; that was used in Speedball 2 and it's so much better than arrows or wasd, you should try it.

@starkiller spectrum keys are good. I have used them also. Just to reiterate:
up: Q
down: A
left: O
right: P
attack 1: M
attack 2 : SPACE

PS. Most of those use mouse in their control scheme and I did read the post, but I personally find great examples of context inspiring. Also. If you're trying to eliminate mouse, have you considered looking into accessibility options for games? The designer of the game I'm currently working with just made a one-handed control scheme. I also have talked with gamers who play aRPGs with mouse controllers and such. I'm positive there would be wisdom there. (So, yeah. Sorry for not properly answering your questions. But I brought some out of the box ideas.)

On the arrow keys versus WASD thing, just remember that many laptops have silly little arrow keys, maybe in an unusual shape, but have normally sized and placed WASD keys.

Hello sir !
Don't forget azerty keyboards, ZQSD for movment :)

Thinking about game controls ala Super Smash TV: control character with wasd and attack/fire in directions with arrow keys.

Otherwise the binding of Isaac is one of the best game from those past few years control wise in that kind of games.

WASD vs Arrow keys is like asking "Left handed butter knife or Right handed butter knife?" The knife can be used in either hand, but some people will complain about the fine details being on the wrong side.

For any game that has a 2D perspective, the Arrow keys are the most obvious choice to use, and use ZXC for commands. For games that have a 3D perspective, WASD is the most obvious choice, and WASD requires the mouse to "camera/aim/fire"

In MMORPG's that use WASD, usally all the commands are activated using the number key row, and the 4 keys directly above the WASD are used for commands that you would stop moving to use (eg block/parry/cast) while the right-hand has to be the actual fire button, and that would have to be the space-bar if not used for jumping.

Alternatively, you can also do WASD + number pad, as laptops without a full number pad will remap those keys to the right hand side of the keyboard, OR, you can use DEL/END/PGDN (which also map to the number pad)

Though if you want to hit everything the best option is simply to let players change the key bindings, or put it in as a kind of quiz at the beginning. "Which key moves you forward" "Which key do you fire with"  and go from there.

How about using WSAD for movement and arrows keys for fighting actions. This allows more combat freedom and it could be combined with other keys for special moves.

Every good example I can think of was designed with a gamepad in mind. I just don't think using a keyboard specifically  without using the mouse as well, makes sense in any way. A computer keyboard wasn't created for video games, but with the tools we have at our disposal, we can make them work.

But if that works for you, the most obvious classic examples are of course games like Zelda: A Link to the Past, played with a keyboard. It doesn't work as well as it does when playing with a gamepad, but I'm ready to say that's just because using only a keyboard will always be inherently inferior to a pad.