course in alternative interface design

[Goldmund]

Almost all independently designed adventure games have an interface that is based either on Sierra, Lucasarts or a verb-coin. The way of conducting dialogues is also extremely similar in all titles: you select a sentence and a character says it.

The reason for these types to be so widespread lies probably in the fact that the most famous games used such GUIs.
I also copied a typical Lucasarts interface without giving it any thought.

THIS IS BORING!!!

Why don't we give some thoughts to the question of interface now?
Remember that the interface, as a means through which the player operates in the world of a game, must have a big impact on the player's reaction to your product.

For me, the success of Bestowers of Eternity lays mostly in the innovative use of the notepad. Masterful stroke. Genius.

In this thread, I would like to tell you about some of my favourite adventure games that have GUIs different from the most popular, yet they work very neat.
Most of them are quite old and are made for Commodore 64 -- the reason for their interfaces being so different is probably that the famous best-selling games weren't there to copy them. I encourage you to download an emulator and try them out, most of them can be found on www.c64games.de

I really think that we can use some ideas or get inspired by these titles to try new, alternative interfaces.
These oldies, though almost forgotten, are much more innovative than newcomers!

PART 1: Neuromancer


This, ladies and gentlemen, is Neuromancer on C64. The game has a PC version, but it's graphics is greatly inferior to the C64's one.

The most fascinating thing about Neuromancer is that the game takes place on 3 levels: one is the real world, in which you walk, talk with people, buy and sell hardware and software, and even at some moment take a space trip.
Second level is the world of databases, message bulletins, media coverages, banking systems etc. in the "internet" to which you connect with your computer. This part is text-based. You may send messages, download and upload software, try to access higher levels of police or banking sites, use passowrd decryptors and even play in a chess tournament.
Third level is the Cyberspace, the virtual representation of the Net, data clusters, black ice and AIs that protect the most important data clusters.

The controls are with joystick or keyboard. The upper row of icons is: 1) toggle the info displayed on the bar above (money, time, energy); 2) access inventory (and do stuff with it), 3) access Public Announce System (banking, news etc.), 4) talk to characters that are in the room.
The lower row: 1) Use Skills (great feature, used mostly for fighting with AI, but also in the real world - like playing music; you upgrade those with special chips), 2) Walk - you control the protagonist to move between rooms, 3) ?don't remember??, 4) load/save/exit etc.

You should really try how smooth the gameplay is.
And this is the best, most involving cyberpunk/hacking game ever made. For a computer of 64 kb. Year? 1988. Thank you. What happened since then? Bloodnet and Uplink. Thank you.

PART 2: Frederic Pohl's Gateway

For people, who (like me) are too lazy to really play all Interactive Fiction games, I propose 2 Gateway games and Time Quest, all of them by Legend, all of them at Underdogs.
The most interesting thing about these games is that they appeared in a period of technological advance in terms of graphics and music before IF became obsolete.
They have animated graphics, sound and cutscenes, yet you control the protagonist with text parser.
A perfect combination if you ask me, and the way that I will definitely follow after I finish Donna.
The player doesn't need to stretch his/her imagination too far, because of attractive graphics and music. The gameplay and puzzles are immensly enriched! You cannot just "use" things, you have to think what to do with them! You type yourself what you want to say! Unforgetable experience, feeling of freedom (because many things aren't shown in graphics, the designers could allow a lot more actions that in P&C), very satisfactory - especially if you finish those games by yourself.
You also have a compass to move, list of basic commands for the lazy, and a map.
Check Legend's games for PC at http://old.the-underdogs.org/Legend.htm

PART 3: Captain SniffPants in Mines of Doom

LOL, okay, everyone knows what game this is. Dowload it for free from my site (along with free porn) ;-)
I think that the lack of a separate GUI vastly increased the player's immersion in Grim Fandango. A set of commands or icons always, in a way, prevents us from believing that what we see is a real world.
Notice that the only time that the convention was shattered was the save/load/exit gui. The fact that you could walk with keys, not click, somehow made us more keen to believe that it is US who walk these streets, not some kind of a remotely steered puppet. Even handling inventory didn't shatter the illusion, you didn't have a separate screen with items, Manny took them out of his coat one by one.
I believe that - apart from the story - this was a very important factor that decided about the fame of GF.
Nomad Soul boasts a similar approach, although the convention is shattered more often (inventory gui, stats screen, etc.)


If you like this thread, I will post more games with alternative interfaces. Learning from them could really enrich the genre, by copying or - even better - having more courage to invent own interfaces.
Also, please post your own examples that could teach us something new.

[Las Naranjas]

I'll belie the length and complexity of the initial post by providing a short and somewhat derivative reply.

I think Dave consciously adapted the notebook interface from Discworld Noir [a game that mingled genius and travesty], which I'm fairly sure he enjoyed, and if he hasn't played it [which I severely doubt] I'm sure he would. The notebook was innovative and successful and well worthy of adaptation.

Another example of genius was the elimination of a visual interface for Captain Sniffpants. The decision to add menus at the bottom in EMI [like much of that game] was inexplicable except to allow designers to be less thoughtful in their placement of objects and perhaps to isolate the player, at which the game succeeds tremendously.

If absorbtion into the game is a goal, then minimalisation of graphical interface is a must. Thus Myst proved absorbing despite the excruciating stupid puzzles and lack of player character integration in the story, which is mainly uncovered rather than developed.

Which is why The Last Express, with a similar interface, but good writing, character interaction, non linearity, rock awesomeness, proves even more absorbing still, despite obvious flaws.

[DGMacphee]

I think the interface in Loom was a masterstroke.

I say this because the "verbs" were something you had to collect through the game (open, fill, turn straw to gold).

Instead of an inventory, the player would roam the land collecting such "verbs" to complete tasks that further the quests.

And collecting such "verbs" were only half the task; you also had to listen carefully to record such verbs in your notebook and then play them back to use them.

So, not only does the interface require observation, but also aural skills too -- and I think that such an interface is unique in that it allows a greater degree of interaction throught one's listening skills.

Plus a certain degree of logic is required, as the player must also reverse the notes of such "verbs" to create an opposite effect (i.e. reversing the notes for "open" creates a "close" verb.)

And that is why I think the interface in Loom is unique somewhat -- even though it continues the same verb-subject formation (e.g. "open egg", "untwist hurricane", etc), it establishes such a formation in a method different to any other adventure.

[MrColossal]

Not to toot my own horn but my GUI in Spellbound while not totally unique [Loom did something similar as DG points out] I think is still good.

Instead of having an inventory object that was "Fire Spell" you actually had to cast the spell with a motion of your hand over the stone. This was important to me when designing to game, I wanted the player to feel like she was actually casting magic and not just clicking an inventory object on an inventory object.

First Person Shooters have been integrating the GUI into the game more and more. Deus Ex 2 has the GUI as an image in your eye, various FPS games have the GUI as a display in the visor of your helmet [a la metroid] Granted it's still the same old GUI but at least it isn't just a bar that stretches over the top of the screen and lists what gun you're using.

To answer your question as to why don't we give more thought the easiest answer is "HARD!" and that isn't really a cop out. If you just want to make a game for fun and to be fun, spending forever brainstorming/scripting new GUIs will take the wind right out of your sails. But I think you knew that answer already.

[Kweepa]

One of the reasons for the helmet in Metroid was to "brand" the screenshots, so that anyone looking at any screenshot wouldn't confuse it with anything else: "that's Metroid Prime".

Loom's find verbs, use them (possibly backwards) system is similar to the magic system of Dungeon Master, Ultima Underworld etc. I liked Spellbound's system, but of course it's very like Arx Fatalis.

I think GUIs have mostly gone downhill since Monkey Island 2. There are a bunch of verbs in there, so you can't rely on use. The inventory is easy to access and interact with. Classic.

As for GF, I agree that it had immersion, but at the cost of ease of use and functionality. It was cool that Manny pulled the objects out of his coat one at a time, but slow, and whatever happened to combining objects?

[DGMacphee]

I think the combining objects issue wasn't a problem because the designers made GF so that you didn't need to, while keeping all puzzles logical within the gaming world.

Why bother implementing a combine function when there are no puzzles that need a combination of objects merged together?

[Kweepa]

On the other hand, perhaps the designers started with the edict "no combining", and the puzzles developed from there.

Either way, it's a limitation which wasn't in previous games.

And it's not just about "a combination of objects merged together", which makes it sound like an unusual thing to want. There's always "use lemon juice on note, then put note on radiator", or "use knife with bar of soap, then use gunmetal paint on soap gun" type puzzles.

GF was great, but I don't want to see that interface wipe out the more functional interfaces of the past.

[DGMacphee]

I do agree that it's a limitation, but I also believe that it's so minor that it doesn't hinder the gameplay one iota.