Has anyone got any ideas on how it could be possible to create an adventure game that only uses one button? By one button I mean literaly that, no mouse, no cursor keys just one button such as 'space' or 'ctrl'.
If you think this is a stupid request (yes, it does sound stupid reading it back before posting), but I have a reason. There are alot of severely disabled persons in this world who would love to play games but their disabilities dictate otherwise. To cater for these wanna-be game players there is a website called 'One Switch' that offers one button games, but as you can imagine there is not alot of choice and none of them are adventure games.
Disabled persons can play games by using a controller that has a large button mapped to a particular button on a computer keyboard. There is even a controller that registers blinks of the eye. Anyhow, 'One Switch' has teamed up with another website, 'Retro Remakes' in an effort to create more disabled friendly games. This has been done in the form of a competition which has a first prize of a PC plus software with more prizes likely to be donated. The main rule for the competition is to create a game that uses only one button.
I have a feeling that all of the games submitted will be simple arcade games and it feels a shame that there are people missing out on adventure games. So, back to the question I asked at the start of this post, does anyone think it would be possible to create a simple adventure game with this heavy constraint? If so could you post some ideas on how it could be done or better still enter a game for yourselves, after all it is for a good cause. The closing date for the competion is May 11th but 'One Switch' will accept donated games anytime.
Here are the links you might want to look at.
To find out what 'One Switch' is all about http://www.oneswitch.org.uk/
'Retro Remakes' who are hosting the competition http://www.retroremakes.com/
The forum that has all the competition rules, details and prizes etc http://www.retroremakes.com/forum/index.php
Thanks for reading this. I am classed as disabled myself, but not to the extent where I can't use a mouse, keyboard or joystick and I cross my fingers that things will never develop to that.
Andy Mason
The only thing that comes to mind is an interactive movie that pauses when the player has to make choices. Or possibly timed-puzzles like Dragon's Lair. One could make something like that in AGS. The upside is, rediculously easy scripting, can get as involved as you desire. The downside, lots of artwork to be made, the gameplay device is very shallow, but I guess that's inherent to one-click design philosophy.
I don't think you're necessarily that limited. You could have the 'cursor' set to cycle through every hotspot, object and character in the room, and a click brings up a verb-coin type interface. Within the interface, the options (Look at, Use, Talk to, Use Inventory on) are cycled through, as are the items in the inventory. Yes, it'd be frustrating having to wait through the cycle to get to the thing you know you need to interact with, but you could include 'Next Thing/Last Thing' options on the verbcoin, and surely it'd make for a richer game than just one timed puzzle after another. I don't see how that'd involve any more artwork that the average AGS game, either.
I actually kinda wish I could think of a game idea now. Sounds like fun.
Wonder if double click detection would be acceptable, that'd effectively give you two buttons. Perhaps one click would cycle through options, and a double click would select one. That'd be enough to play a lot of hentai games (sorry, can't think of any other "adventure" game that uses such a basic interface).
A double click might be tough for some, perhaps detecting either a short tap or a long press would be easier.
If you limit the user input to 1 button, this means EITHER
a) The user may not make any decisions, they have only 1 potential action, and they are essentially a viewer
b) The 1 button press is interpreted to have different results based on other variables such as timing or context on the screen
c) The user must encode their input using something like morse code (aka, the duration or time between clicks is important)
A game in which you cannot make decisions is not a very fun game.
A game that relies on morse code input (aka, 1 long, 2 short) would be a pain in the ass to play. Not only that, but if someone is SO impaired that they must be restricted to 1 button...I find it hard to believe they would have the dexterity to make double clicks, or sequences of long/short clicks.
This leaves the only viable option being a game that uses the context of the screen.
You have a few options there.
a) time as the variable: not suited so much for an adventure game...something like falling bricks and you have to choose when to shoot for them to collide
b) some other game state as the variable: aka, there is a block that changes color, and your click has different effects depending on the color of the block.
This would EITHER be a twitch-based game, or a very slow to play adventure game...because you'd have to wait for the correct color to come up to represent the action you wanted to follow.
Well, after thinking about it, I think only twitch based games would be viable to make fun with only 1 button, and I also think that anyone who can press 1 button can play a game with multiple buttons. Perhaps they can't use a regular keyboard well, but iif they can slam down 1 button on a special reciever, they could have 2 recievers and bang on them both.
Jeez, Stuh, didn't you read anyone else's responses?
Personally I think the best option is probably
short press to cycle through objects on screen
long press to select object
short press to cycle through options for object
long press to select option
Well there is allways a option like morse (you know short beep long beep)
Sample: to look: Short short long
(you know what i mean)
Well, as stuh said, that could be really annoying to play and possibly needlessly difficult.
Although, if you included a setup function, to allow users to specify what they'd consider a 'short' press, and avoided complicated actions that relied on precise timing - or adapted them to the player's ability / made them optional - the dexterity side might not be such a problem. And, I suppose, a morse-code based interface isn't that much different from the Loom-type 'notes' - part of the game could be learning the combinations to access different, more advanced 'actions'. You'd probably need to include an on-screen key though, or it would probably be next to impossible.
Is anyone actually thinking of entering this? After looking throught the suggestions on the RetroRemakes site, I'm tempted to try and adapt a Darts game I made a while ago, but that might be a bit obvious. I wouldn't mind chipping in with some scripting if anyone else has an idea, though.
Hi Macon.
Hmmmm, an interesting concept for sure. You've given me some food for thought.
And to make a "One Button" adventure game sure would be a challenge, but, I don't think impossible.
I have a few ideas kicking around now about how might I make an adventure game that could be played using just one button (in my ideas, I was thinking the Spacebar key, as it's one of the bigger & easier to access keys on the keyboard).
I might give this idea a good try when I can find the time, though I'm not sure I would be able to have something done in time for that competition, but, regardless, I'm not so much interested in the competition, but I like more the idea to help share the enjoyment of Adventure Games to people with disabilities like you mentioned, plus as a challenge to myself.
My father has serious disabilities now (He's in advanced stages of M.S.), and my heartfelt prayers and wishes goes out to all people with disabilities.
Well, I'll think on it for a while and try to come up with some good ideas of how to approach and create such a project. I'm currently busy with some other projects, but perhaps soon I'll try to find the time to make a "One Button Adventure Game".
Best regards.
Thanks for all the suggestions.
From your feedback I have decided how I am going to approach this. The game will be in the first person, just a screen background with no visible player character ie. like Myst. The backgound will take up the top two-thirds of the screen with the remainder being a text gui. In this gui will be a description of the current location and what objects are visible. I suppose it will look a bit like how text adventures evolved into graphics and text back in the 80's. This will give the player an idea on what can be interacted with, because with my lack of drawing ability the player wouldn't have a clue.
To interact with the game pressing the key I define will bring up a list box with options for that particular location. The options will be cycled through automatically and the player presses the key when the required action is highlighted.
I've been through the manual and everything I need is catered for though I can imagine that I will end up with a lengthy script full of 'If' statements in generating the drop down menu. So now the next step is for me to create a one room test game to see if things work as I imagine.
Once again thanks for your suggestions.
Andy Mason
What about Gabriel Knight 2? Its been a while since I played it, but I think it was mostly 'one click does it all' and I still found it enjoyable. Course, thats probably 'cos it was long enough for me not to get bored! Still, it might be preferable to timed/cycling GUIs.
QuoteJeez, Stuh, didn't you read anyone else's responses?
..yes I did Steve and my response would not be any different now.
Pelican:
That's not a 1 button interface because you also have a mouse cursor which you can move, which easily allows for an easily infinite set of inputs.
Macon:
I think you've made a good choice.
Also this is kind of irrelevent but since I've just spent the last 6 hours working on a program involving Hamming code...that is a good way of determining a prefix binary code which could be used to encode an infinite set of morse code inputs. But I don't really thin kthat's practical :P
I'm no good at scripting, but the first thing that comes into my mind is an interface similar to 7 days a sceptic.
If you click on no hotspot, the character walks as close to that place as possible.
If you click on an object, hotspot or character, a gui comes up with Walk to X, Look at X, Interact with X, Talk to X, then all the inventory items. Click on "look at X" for example, and it'll describe the hotspot or character or object.
Quote from: stuh505 on Wed 13/04/2005 05:19:03
That's not a 1 button interface because you also have a mouse cursor which you can move, which easily allows for an easily infinite set of inputs.
I think a one button game can easily be acheieved, not necessarily with AGS but those with a good knowledge of the scripting language might be able to back me up here.
Lets say you start with one screen. The scene is viewed from a HIGH angle, though the player character is still quite tall and HIGHLY VISIBLE in the scene. The scene has 200 hotspots, for example.
The player is assigned in initial instructions that ONE press of the game button (be it space bar, return, ctrl etc...) is LOOK. TWO presses are INTERACT.
You are searching for something. The player is computer controlled, and walks about the screen. Near areas of interest he/she either looks towards objects (though thats quite advanced) or perhaps stops at each place etc and the player has to press once or twice depending on what they decide to do.
That is part one of my idea part II arrives tomorrow after sleep. :P
I imagine the interface something like this:
- One click cycles the focus around the screen (maybe a little star like in BS3)
- Click and hold will bring up a verb coin that will rotate by itself. When the right interaction is selectd you single click again.
- Inventory interaction could be done by having an inventory button on the verbcoin that when clicked would bring up a cycling inventory.
If you have a lot of items in the inventory for the game you could do it by first having to select the Y postion and then the X position of the item on a square GUI.
As for non-disabled players it would simply be a matter of disabling the cycling and play normally with a mouse.
The two drawbacks with a one-button interface is that the player can't walk freely around on the screen, and that it will be slightly more time consuming to control.
You would also need to limit the amont of hotspots so that navigation would not be too frustrating.
I'll take a stab at it.
Click: Cycle through game objects
Hold: Bring up cycling verbcoin.
Release: Select option on verbcoin.
If there are sub-menus (like an inventory screen), click cycles and hold confirms.
If you really want to get down and dirty with the scripts you could have an "inventory wheel" that pops up when you choose inventory on the verbcoin, just a selction of items surrounding the coin. 1 click moves the wheel, the focus item is always displayed at top.
However, I would point out that most severely disadvantaged folks use a headmouse a sip-suck switch to play games, so they can actually do most of the things needed for adventure games just fine. In fact, when someone asked slashdot (http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/02/22/018230id=4id=10) about playing games when you're paralyzed from the neck down, adventure games were a very quick suggestion.
I still think a 1-button game would be a pretty cool idea - if nothing else, to show what you can do with such a limited interface.
I decided to have a go. I made a totally different interface from those mentioned in which you can only carry one item at a time. An "finished" portion of my WIP can be found below. Comments? Suggestions?
http://pinkclip.tripod.com/1button.zip
EDIT: Oh, and btw its not made in AGS. Does that mean anyone will download it now...?
I think I might have a go at this, I have a disabled uncle, though he can very slowly use a mouse, about 20secs to move and click it, I think he would like a 1 click game.
I'm thinking double clicks might be the way to give a choice of input, any idea what sort of rate would be acceptable for most disabled people to achive consistantly ?
Hi everyone. I'm dragging this post up to say a big THANK YOU.
I've submitted a one button adventure into the competition and I was motivated by two factors.
1. I took a look at the early entries and I wasn't impressed with what I saw (though I am aware that the big boys don't enter whilst the last minute).
2. More importantly the feedback and bouncing of ideas in this thread made me keep saying to myself 'You can do it, go for it'.
Unfortunately I was only able to submit the game with seconds to spare and as a result it is not complete as such. So there is no instructions, splash screen or credits thanking you lot for ideas. But once my entry has been judged I will upload an updated version correcting this.
To take a look at what I've done look in the completed games forum at this page
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=20826.0
Once again thanks for all your ideas and suggestions.
Andy Mason.
I'll post here because it's more to do with the theory than the actual game.
I'd just like to say congrats. I was very skeptical about the whole thing - I didn't think it would be possible to implement what you were suggesting and still make it playable. I thought that it would be too boring to just wait for the proper action to be highlit, especially if there were many hotspots and many actions. However, your game, which is wisely a simple one in terms of hotspots and actions, pulled it off admirably. So - congrats.
I also made an adventure game for the competition... Although mine is more of an engine since I did one puzzle and then ran out of ideas for the rest, and the deadline was approaching oh-so fast. Well, it's still pretty good. Graphically nice and all that. It's called WEEM and you can get it from the link below...
http://pinkclip.tripod.com/weem.zip
Comments would be appreciated, mainly about the interface.
Hi all.
Just in case anyone is interested, the competition has now been judged and my Invincible Island entry came 4th. It's a shame the game is not complete with instructions, intros etc. or it may have done better.
It was one of only two adventure games submitted the other being Surges's entry which the judges could not download and therefore judge.
Once again thanks everone for the bouncing of ideas.
Andy Mason
I'm curious, could you link us to the games which entered the comp and tell us which won 1st place?
Ist place was a Manic Miner/Jet Set Willy clone.
Anyhow, here is a link to the top 40.
http://www.retroremakes.com/forum/showthread.php?s=hreadid=4368
Andy