Overview
A basic guide on how to play Hotline Miami
The basics
Use WASD to move
Use left mouse to punch/attack
Use right mouse to pickup/throw items (Literally every item that is visibly bobbing up and down on the screen) and also to interact with things such as doors.
Press spacebar to finish enemies (You can also take knocked down enemies as a human shield if you press spacebar when you have a gun equipped like the pistol, you cant take a human shield if you have 0 ammo.)
Press and hold shift to look ahead of your character (Using this you can lock onto an enemy if your cursor is on top of them and you press middle mouse button, pretty useful for not dying.)
Press R to restart, you’ll probably be using this a lot until you have more knowledge on the levels.
Go to/follow the red arrow to find your way to your objective after beating the section of the level.
Playing the game right
There’s multiple ways to play the game but honestly one of the best and most rewarding is to play it fast and brutal, don’t be scared to die and don’t be scared to make bold moves, the hint system often says “Don’t be afraid to die” and that “Enemies are predictable” so use the fact that you can redo over and over to your advantage.
There’s also the grading & point system, the best way to get a high score is to get high combos (So killing fast) and by killing in different ways and basically being flexible, one of the best ways to get high scores is to replay the level with a mask you’d think is best suited for it.
In my opinion the best way to play the game is like a cracked out 35 year old searching for his stash, so turn up the music or your headphones because this game might just have the best soundtrack to kill to of all time other than Doom and It really helps with getting into the flow of the game and staying there.
Conclusion
The game is really hard at some points, but the main key to beating this game and getting high scores is to not be discouraged, and to instead learn from how you died and better adapt to those situations, the more you die the more pissed you’ll probably get but you’ll also learn more about how the game works, and where the enemies for the level are and what weapons they’re usually using.
End
(Also this Is my first guide, so sorry If i didn’t properly explain everything correctly, I’d love to hear feedback or what you thought!)