Verb Coin vs two buttons

[Ali]

I'm co-writing an adventure game at the moment, and the lead writer/developer decided on single-click before I came on board. I'm writing most of the room interactions, and I thought that the lack of a look-at would be creatively limiting.

It isn't. What we have ended up doing is writing (at least) 2 lines of dialogue for each hotspot. The first one is usually a description that adds more detail than the artwork, and the second is an observation, musing, or joke off the back of the first. Maybe no one will click on the hospots twice... but I've watched people playing Nelly Cootalot: The Fowl Fleet (2-click interface) and people DO NOT right-click. Apart from hard-core adventure gamers, they just never right-click. So they miss out on loads of good* jokes, and get stuck when they need to know something contained in a look-at.


*I think.

[CaesarCub]

Interesting. I only found this screenshot here, is this what you mean?

I think that cascading context menus are hard to use (even in a windows environment).

Oh LSL7 has a lot of issues in usability.
They had this weird idea where you only get the most basic verbs, and by clicking on that "Other..." you type new verbs and if they are recognised, they get added to your verb list (like Break or Screw there).
The Use tab would let you pick from your items.

I agree that cascading menus can be bothersome, but I am curious on how good/bad would be to have a verb coin expand to show an inventory window in a more friendly manner (that is, better than having the menu disappear if you don't hover exactly where required).

[Mr Underhill]

Well, in our case a verb coin was a no-brainer because there's a special action for both our main characters, so we have three main possible interactions (look, use/pick up, special action), but I'm partial to verb coins either way. The main reason is what Alasdair mentioned - people forget they have a right click if left click does 99% of the "useful" stuff. Hell, I played through almost half of Primordia not realizing I could right click, I was convinced I was playing a single-action adventure game. We're also making a game where you can look at every single hotspot or item at least twice, and we use it heavily as a vehicle for hints, so discoverability is much higher on our priorities list.

I'm a big proponent of examining in adventure games, and the lack of this feature sometimes really cuts into my enjoyment of the game (best example would be Broken Age). I would think twice before removing an interaction that can give hints, contribute hugely to world building and - depending on the game, of course - make everything a lot funnier and enjoyable. And, last but not least - and this is something that's always left out, and I don't understand why, since it's enormously important - it's a great way to provide characterization for your protagonist. Manny will never describe a door the way Bernard or Indie would - everything they say about the environment around them lets us know who they are, what their motivations are and how they're feeling at the moment. It's a very powerful tool to have in your inventory when you're trying to create a connection between the player and the character they control on screen.

In conclusion, it really depends on the type of game and the vibe it's going for, but I personally would rather slightly inconvenience the player from an ergonomic perspective - emphasis on "slightly" - than have them miss out on good characterization, hints or humour. That's my two eurocents thrown into the mix.

[Crimson Wizard]

This is a problem when verbs are non-visible, that they may be missed by player. When there is a list of verbs on screen you cannot miss any, but when you are using 1/2 click, or verb coin that needs certain action to be displayed, you have to teach player and/or indicate the availability of those actions somehow.

It seems that a lot of users never read manual until they are really stuck (and in that case they'd rather ask on forums) .

I can remember when playing Gemini Rue I did not realize I could drag&drop items in notes/phone menu, because there was no visual indication that I could, and I ended up typing them into the parser by hand.

[Radiant]

It seems that a lot of users never read manual until they are really stuck (and in that case they'd rather ask on forums) .

Indeed. An important rule of interface design is that you should not assume anyone reads manuals.

there's a special action for both our main characters, so we have three main possible interactions (look, use/pick up, special action)

All of the GUIs mentioned in this thread would easily allow a special action per character; that's no reason to favor any one of them in particular.

[Mr Underhill]

All of the GUIs mentioned in this thread would easily allow a special action per character; that's no reason to favor any one of them in particular.

Hm? How do you do three interactions with just left and right click, without holding down any of the buttons? I'm not being facetious, just curious what you meant.

[Radiant]

Hm? How do you do three interactions with just left and right click, without holding down any of the buttons? I'm not being facetious, just curious what you meant.

You use the mousewheel or the middle mouse button. Any mouse made in the past decade has at least one of those.

[ThreeOhFour]

Relying on the presence of a mouse wheel or middle mouse button is not great for those who play on laptops with their track pads, something I often do when I travel.

[Radiant]

Relying on the presence of a mouse wheel or middle mouse button is not great for those who play on laptops with their track pads, something I often do when I travel.

Sure. But if your argument against it is that it's awkward to control for a sizeable group of people, well, that's what numerous people have also been pointing out about verbcoins. That means that if you want a smooth and intuitive interface for look/use/special, you should use neither of the two.

[cat]

But if your argument against it is that it's awkward to control for a sizeable group of people, well, that's what numerous people have also been pointing out about verbcoins.

To be honest, besides you, hardly anyone in this thread said that they don't like verb coins. People just said that they don't want to hold down the mouse button to activate them.

And using the middle mouse button as input is 100 times more obscure and unintuitive than using the right mouse button.

[Radiant]

hardly anyone in this thread said

You have evidently overlooked the third post in this thread, among others. Really, you should carefully read the thread before making sweeping statements like that.

[Snarky]

You use the mousewheel or the middle mouse button. Any mouse made in the past decade has at least one of those.

That's a terrible idea. I'm not a fan of verb coins, but this is clearly worse.

Depending on what the "special action" is and how frequent it is, I might devote a special on-screen icon to it (either always-present or as a pop-up menu near the top or bottom of the screen, as part of the inventory), the way Rosa's notebook and Joey's tie are used in the Blackwell series.

[Danvzare]

Hm? How do you do three interactions with just left and right click, without holding down any of the buttons? I'm not being facetious, just curious what you meant.

Easy, inventory item. Just have the special ability be a inventory item, such as "Brute Force" or "Mind Control" or whatever.
It even works with a single click interface.

[Radiant]

That's a terrible idea. I'm not a fan of verb coins, but this is clearly worse.

While I agree that the 'inventory' solution (noted by you and Danvzare) is better, I fail to see what's so bad about using the wheel or middle button on a mouse. Plenty of games and applications use it, after all.

For example, in Heroine's Quest, you can use the mouse wheel to select inventory items. We've had precisely zero complaints about how 'terrible' that is.

[Snarky]

Presumably because everyone uses one of the alternative interactions also provided.

[CaesarCub]

While I agree that the 'inventory' solution (noted by you and Danvzare) is better, I fail to see what's so bad about using the wheel or middle button on a mouse. Plenty of games and applications use it, after all.

Middle buttons are great for shortcuts. But they should not be the only way to access a feature, because some laptops cannot access that input easily.
So, it's great if the mouse wheel let's you pick verbs or inventory faster, but if that is the only way to perform an action, you are making your game unusable for anyone using the laptop's pad.
(Or with a mouse with a faulty wheel, for some reason that is the first thing that breaks for a lot of people at my office).

[Snarky]

Also (though this applies to scrolling, not pressing the wheel to click), I've never gotten the mouse wheel to work properly in AGS. It won't respond to a small roll, and then suddenly make a big jump on a bigger roll.

[ThreeOhFour]

Sure. But if your argument against it is that it's awkward to control for a sizeable group of people, well, that's what numerous people have also been pointing out about verbcoins. That means that if you want a smooth and intuitive interface for look/use/special, you should use neither of the two.

My point was that reliance on the mouse wheel or middle mouse button is exclusive of a common method of input, one that using a verb coin is inclusive of.

[Danvzare]

I fail to see what's so bad about using the wheel or middle button on a mouse. Plenty of games and applications use it, after all.

Name ten games (no matter how popular or unpopular) which requires you to press the middle mouse button to do something and that can't be done another way (IE: it isn't a handy shortcut).
...
That's why.

[Ali]

I agree. The only piece of software I use regularly that has functions which are hard to replicate without a middle-mouse button is Blender. And Blender is not famous for it's user-friendly interface.