Mouse Keyboard Control Questions

Started by Dualnames, Wed 26/09/2007 17:23:25

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Dualnames

In a game I'm currently working on(lone Case 3 that is) I decided to enable the player to either select keyboard or mouse controls(mouse is the default.) I've been checking things and it's perfect. You can change anytime to keyboard or mouse. But I think that the default keys for actions might give trouble to players.
I'm having a custom GUI where you can see
listing of controls but should I make a GUI whereas people can change their controls to whatever they want?
Or just give me some advice on which would be the best keys to use?
The Default are
Q:Talk
W:Interact
E:Look
R:Uses current inventory item if any
Tab:Inventory
A:Cycles items
F1: Opens GUI with listing of controls
F5:Saves
F7:Loads
F12: Sets control back to mouse.
The mouse control method is CMI-like(Curse of Monkey Island)

Worked on Strangeland, Primordia, Hob's Barrow, The Cat Lady, Mage's Initiation, Until I Have You, Downfall, Hunie Pop, and every game in the Wadjet Eye Games catalogue (porting)

Radiant

If there's only a handful of options (e.g. Sierra'esque) it's easier to use T for talk, U for use, and so forth. I'd use + and - for cycling through items both ways, and add the cursor arrows to move the character around.

Aside from that, there's really no reason to disable the mouse to use keyboard controls, or vice versa.

Dualnames

Probably not. But I remember myself wanting to play Grim Fandango on mouse. I'm using the arrow keys to move the character of course. Plus I always wanted to make a keyboard based game and a CM interface and now I can make both.
Worked on Strangeland, Primordia, Hob's Barrow, The Cat Lady, Mage's Initiation, Until I Have You, Downfall, Hunie Pop, and every game in the Wadjet Eye Games catalogue (porting)

zabnat

I agree with Radiant that there is no reason to disable the mouse to use keyboards controls or vice versa.

In fact I feel that too few AGS games ever use keyboard shortcuts in addition to mouse interface.
Last time I played CMI I didn't use the verbcoin even once. I only used keyboard for commands.
And as Radiant said, I too would use E for look (examine), T for talk and U for use. Those are the same as in CMI iirc.

Radiant

Quote from: zabnat on Wed 26/09/2007 18:21:48
And as Radiant said, I too would use E for look (examine)
I said L for look :) but in case of doubt, use both. ATOTK allows that, and1, 2, 3, 4 for the four "modes", and mouse-wheel support, and whatever else we thought might be useful.

The single worst thing you can do to a good game is ruin the experience with a poor interface.

daveisdavid

Why not make your games to enable both keyboard and mouse controls? For instance when I play Warcraft 3, knowing the keyboard shortcut is an advantage because I can give commands much faster than to click on the commands.

Dualnames

Worked on Strangeland, Primordia, Hob's Barrow, The Cat Lady, Mage's Initiation, Until I Have You, Downfall, Hunie Pop, and every game in the Wadjet Eye Games catalogue (porting)

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