Hey everyone! I'm new around here, so, hey everyone!
There's this thing that's been on my mind, and I figured the best place to ask was this forum where everyone is into, well, adventure games - it's about object/character interaction in a 2d point and click adventure.
Me and my small crew of other 2 are working on such a game (not in AGS,though), and I've always been interested, with each new adventure game played, on how they'd implement the look at / use stuff. Verb coin seemed at the time of CMI to be THE way to go, but then I think the height of streamlining (and not over-simplification) was the one click look, one click use. But therein lies the question: which is best suited for which?
I'll explain in more detail. In our game, there are lots and lots of observation that the character you're playing is making on the stuff he examins (usually 2, but up to 4). The game's a lucas-y spoof of Lovecraftian horror stuff, so yes, all the feedback you're getting from your character examining stuff goes towards "the funnies". Now, in most games left click is asigned to using, right click to examining. But when you do that - and the example that comes to mind is Primordia - I think 9 times out of 10 the player won't bother to right click, and will go straight to left clicking, since it's apparent that the look at mechanic is mostly optional (even though in that particular game, too, it's essential here and there).
So I'm pretty hellbent on going the other way around: left click examine, right click use. Except I haven't seen that implemented yet, and that's what I'm here to ask you guys: what do you think? Are there other games doing this? Is it completely retarded and forcing the player to look at stuff? (well, examining is essential in our game). It kind of makes sense to me, since examining will tell the player whether it's worth bothering to right click, rather than just going ahead and 'using' everything and seeing what works and what doesn't. Then again, I don't remember seeing this in other games (granted, I haven't played everything out there...).I'm real curious to see what people with experience in point and clicks think, whether it's from a player or a developer point of view, or both. Thanks in advance!
We've had this discussion before and opinion seems to be pretty polarised. I prefer LMB=Interact, RMB=Look, but everyone has their own favourite method. I have verb-coins but have enjoyed games using them (CoMI being a great example!), so I think if you can decide what you as a dev team want to use, just stick with it. You're never going to get a unanimous opinion from the AG community, we all just have different preferences! :grin:
Well, that's a good thing to hear about the polarization, and sorry if this thread's subject has already been covered.
What I'm saying is I'm glad there's not a unanimity one way or the other, that way I guess we'll just take the risk and that's that. Well, people will download the demo and hopefully let us know, that'll be an interesting experiment.
Quote from: Mr Underhill on Mon 15/12/2014 12:37:48
Well, that's a good thing to hear about the polarization, and sorry if this thread's subject has already been covered.
I only really remember because I was the one that asked the question last time! ;-D (& I very much doubt I was the first to do so.)
Bear in mind that you should not take the interface that most people love, but the interface that least people hate. Because nobody is going to play your game specifically for its interface, but people who hate your interface will immediately stop playing your game.
Now while not everybody prefers the left-use right-look interface, nobody seems to have a problem with it either. Conversely, while many people really like verbcoins, many other people hate them with a passion. We could get into details as to why, but the bottom line is simply that verbcoins are polarizing whereas the two-button interface is not. For example, Ali posted that common feedback on Nelly Cootalot is that numerous players don't understand its verbcoin interface.
So the big picture is that using a verbcoin will cost you a fair amount of players.
Quote from: Mr Underhill on Mon 15/12/2014 12:11:06
So I'm pretty hellbent on going the other way around: left click examine, right click use. Except I haven't seen that implemented yet, ...
Beneath a Steel Sky uses the 2 button controls exactly like this. And since most modern adventures with 2 button interface do it the other way around I prefer the switched BASS interface. So the actual game BASS is confusing to get into, but once you did the switch in your head you get used to it and like it.
So do what you like (btw, I hate verbcoins), you can't force the player to play a specific way. I mean, what is stopping the player from always rightclicking to only interact without looking instead of always leftclicking?
I'm one of the people who hates right-click-interact/left-click-look (it's contrary to the basic, standard semantics of the two mouse buttons in practically every application), so I'd strongly urge you not to go that way. Also, I don't buy that people skip looking in Primordia because it's on the right-click (personally I always look at everything, unless the game is particularly, pointlessly verbose; I imagine it's more a matter of individual differences in play-style), and I don't think switching the buttons around is going to make much difference to people's look-inclination: for myself it might even make me less likely to look, since if the UI annoys me I'd like to minimize the number of interactions.
Anyway, it's pretty easy to make it configurable, so if you're convinced it's a good idea I think you should at least give players the option to switch from your default, terrible mapping to the standard one.
Thanks for the replies, everybody!
@Radiant: good point about not hate rather than love, I'll definitely keep that in mind or write it down or something.
@Selmiak: see, now, there are few ways of telling one's getting old. One of them is not remembering the very mouse scheme one claims hasn't seen implemented is in one of his favorite game (which one hasn't played for 10+ years, but that's no excuse). Just one more reason/excuse to track down BASS and play it again!
@Snarky: I get what you're saying, I only wish I knew how many of you guys are out there :tongue:
+1 to what Radiant sais, when it comes to questions of design it is more important to choose least hated variant, than aim for vague perfection.
And, in such a lucky case when the dilemma is between two mouse buttons, then just let users decide for themselves by adding a switch in game setup. You won't loose much time doing this, and get more people who love you :)
EDIT: There perhaps could be other ways to hint players to look around more than putting Look command on most used button?
Is there? I guess it ultimately boils down to what kind of player you are - I'm not really a completionist, e.g. I left-clicked my way through most of Primordia and ACCIDENTALLY discovered the right click actually did something after quite some time, but I may a) be quite a dimwit, b) not be very representative of adventure gamers. One way of "forcing it" is having the player have to look at something before discussing / using it, even though he did left-click (use) it before. It's really, really oldschool but I like the idea of such throwbacks to more non-streamlined gameplay. Speaking of Primordia, it did that too, only wasn't very evident about it, so I guess most people had to resort to a walkthrough to figure that out (I know I did...).
Anywho, I'm sure glad I've discovered these forums and like-minded gamers and developers, looking forward to discussing everything adventure-related!
I think most experienced adventure gamers will be familiar enough with left-click-interact/right-click-look that they're unlikely not to realize it's available. For newbies, you could add a tutorial (some of the Blackwell games do this), and perhaps make one of the first puzzles depend on looking. (The most obvious way, and in my opinion one of the best, to do this is to only make a certain hotspot available after examination. For example, you examine a desk and find a hidden button. In this case you should probably give a clue if the player simply tries to interact with it.)
I actually managed to design a game that could be completed without using the Look function at all. It wasn't intentional! (I added in a couple of things after that:grin:)
Then it turned out that one of the team members for Troll Song had been play-testing it for ages without ever realising that right-click was Look! (At least with that there was an excuse, since the game uses a verb interface, but still... it was pretty embarrassing to realise you could go through the whole thing without looking.)
One interesting technique that was used in The Book of Unwritten Tales was the the first Interact command was Look, so you couldn't interact with something without having looked at it first. You could still right-click to look again afterwards if you wanted.
Eternally Us go a lot of play outside the hardcore adventure gamer community and many people just didn't understand that you could look at things with a right click(Which is required for a puzzle).
So some kind of tutorial is probably needed for the adventurally challenged in the population.
Quote from: Calin Leafshade on Mon 15/12/2014 16:47:57So some kind of tutorial is probably needed for the adventurally challenged in the population.
Yeah, you can make your game manuals as in-depth as humanly possible -- but most people won't read them, anyway, and use their index fingers to scratch their heads, instead ;) I've devised a slightly more complex GUI for my current game (http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=50973.0) -- with left-click for interactions and right-click for switching between Walk, Look and Interact (all of which are crucial for the gameplay mechanics). So, to avoid having to explain it outside the game -- and the very real possibility that most people wouldn't have a clue how to play it for reasons mentioned above -- I made a short introduction to the GUI in the guise of the main character's simple workout routine.
And speaking of clunky GUI's -- anyone remember different modes in Little Big Adventure? Replayed it just last week -- and it took a while to get used to the running mode being triggered by F2, sneaking with F4 and the very basic ability to punch someone being available only in Aggressive mode under F3. And then, just when I got perfectly used to it, in LBA 2 (which I replayed right afterwards) they switched the hotkeys for said modes from F1 through F4 to F5 through F8 :P
It won't cost you anything to add a display or message box in the first room pointing out that "right button = look, people!" As this thread proves, not everybody finds this intuitive.
Duly noted. Letting people know about which is which as unobtrusively as possible and letting them do the old switcheroo if they feel like it is definitely the way to go, it seems.
Personally I still prefer a sierra/verb coin system, rather than left/right click, for some reason the left/right click games always feel like "easy" to me... Guess I just enjoy the redundancy that makes talking to a person different than using a person. ;)
But on the mouse clicks, I rather have the left for walking/interact and right for look. This thus comes to the point that CaptainD discovered; the possibility of going through the game without even looking at things. Or clicking in a hotspot by mistake because all you wanted to do was walk there and not pickup something up... I "solved" that problem of accidental picking/interacting by adding a check to make sure the player had looked at the hotspot prior to interact with it.
Giving the possibility to switch is a good one, since I also get annoyed if the mouse buttons are working "the wrong way"... try switching your Windows mouse buttons, and see if you like it. ;)
Make sure the Icon at least changes when you hover over a 'Pick-Up' hotspot as apposed to a 'Walking' area! I feel so cheated, probably like Cassiebsg, when I go to walk somewhere and miraculously solve a puzzle I didn't know existed (wrong)
But the suggestion of having a simple puzzle right at the start that requires you to 'Look' will likely train the user for the rest of the game, IMHO.
Hehe, well the first thing the player picks up could be some sort of bomb or other equally hazardous device. If you look first you learn what it is and what is required to safely interact with the device. Otherwise you eventually meet with misfortune. It only need be done once; the player will learn quickly! ;)
Having a 'look' button is a bit of a trap. The player thinks they don't need to use it because it just gives funny but pointless descriptions, and the designer thinks they just need to provide funny but pointless descriptions. Some games refer to it as 'examine' which is much healthier for all concerned. We should get into this habit. Players will want to use it as it is part of the exploration/investigation process, and designers will think more about how to justify having that button in the first place.
Well, of course it's going to serve both purposes - provide hints about possible puzzle solutions, or relevancy to said puzzles, and one-liners. The thing is, I have this kooky ambition to write down a different line for almost every description and inventory on inventory / inventory on screen puzzle. That's pages and pages of text for the 3 room-demo alone, and I'd hate to see it go to waste since it's supposed to both tell you stuff about the world and the main character and provide some clues as I mentioned before.
I'm also thinking of implementing something the absence of which has baffled me throughout gaming history (and now I'm expecting someone to contradict me, but here goes): I never understood why your character had to walk all across the room towards the object if all you issued was a 'look at' command. I mean, of course, I can sort of see two reasons - one is "I have to get closer to examine it" and the other is "you're probably gonna wanna do something to it, so I might as well already be here for it", but in most cases it's just something that's there for world building, a funny observation or just to not only have puzzle-relevant hotspots. What do you guys think of that? (Where "implement it" = see if I catch the programmer in a good enough mood to suggest it", ahem).
If I'm not mistaken, AGS already has allowances for exactly this situation. There's a flag you can set in the Game Settings Pane called "Walk to hotspot in Look mode", which allows you to handle it however you wish.
There is another way of handling these situations, which is to use a 'dynamic cursor'. This changes when over a hotspot to an icon that indicates what action the player can take (eg. an eye for look-at, a hand for pick-up or use). The action is always instigated by a left mouse click. You can then have the 'look-at' icon to start with, which changes to another action icon once the player has looked at the object and read your 'funny'. I have used this system in my own games.
Good luck,
Elen
You know, you can't really force the player to play your game the way you designed it. There will always be those that just want to got from A to B and don't care about the middle stuff, there'll be those that want to explore every single pixel before they move o, and then there are those that do things that "break" your game... (roll) (or in other words, want to do something in a order you did not predict).
As for walking to the hotspot, it's really up to you, if you wish to move the player closer by. You can always use Look once = look from afar, Look twice = move closer and examine, or just leave the player where he is if you just going to look at it. And Move the player closer if he's going to give a close up look/examine.... this could give the player a hint that this hotspot has more to it, than just a look...
It's really up to you and how you design your game. ;)
Yeah, I mean you just need to think how it would be in real life. If you think the character can see the object from where they are standing them you don't necessarily need to have him walk all the way across the room, but if the object is something small, they're probably going to want to get a bit closer. It's not rocket surgery.
Quote from: Stupot+ on Tue 16/12/2014 16:36:48
It's not rocket surgery.
I'm curious... How does a rocket surgery is performed? Has science gone too far and I failed to follow up? ;)
(http://www.serkworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/rocket-surgery.jpg)
Haha! I noticed that too but I figured it for a joke. It made me smile either way :cheesy:
Quote from: Mr Underhill on Wed 17/12/2014 11:51:30
Haha! I noticed that too but I figured it for a joke. It made me smile either way :cheesy:
You figured right. If I'd used 'brain surgery' or 'rocket science', I'd have come across like a grumpy smart-ass dick. Which I am... After all, you can't teach an old leopard new spots.
Quote from: RickJ on Mon 15/12/2014 19:40:26
Hehe, well the first thing the player picks up could be some sort of bomb or other equally hazardous device. If you look first you learn what it is and what is required to safely interact with the device. Otherwise you eventually meet with misfortune. It only need be done once; the player will learn quickly! ;)
Unless it's the mid 90s, I don't think players will appreciate this. It's punishing the player for not knowing something you haven't told them, which most people (other than Sierra-Masochists) will find frustrating. I love Verb Coins, but as Radiant says - players of contemporary games just don't know how to use them (and don't click on buttons marked HELP for instructions either).
If you make right-click interact, then you're trying to trick players into reading every examine dialogue. But the player will quickly learn and will stop examining if they don't want to. (Plus you'll have irritated everyone except the most committed Blender3D users.)
Yup, you make a fair point. At the same time, do you think it'd still be irritating if you present them with the option of easily switching the mouse button functions?
Quote from: Stupot+ on Wed 17/12/2014 12:19:22
Quote from: Mr Underhill on Wed 17/12/2014 11:51:30
Haha! I noticed that too but I figured it for a joke. It made me smile either way :cheesy:
You figured right. If I'd used 'brain surgery' or 'rocket science', I'd have come across like a grumpy smart-ass dick. Which I am... After all, you can't teach an old leopard new spots.
Ah, so the 'rocket surgery' is the new joke. I naively assumed that perhaps your phone 'auto-corrected' science with surgery (since you seem to be working with 3G these days ;)).
Thanks are due to you too, Radiant! :grin:
To not to derail this thread further: While I do like the two click interface for adventure games on PC, I don't think the same approach can work well with touch based mobile devices. I see a good potential for the adventure games in the mobile apps' market. Due to this, I personally believe that 9-verb interface (or an interface similar to that) would work better both on PC (with keyboard shortcuts) and Touch based mobile devices.
The LSL1 remake provided another creative solution. Not only it shows the default Sierra interface, it also incorporates a Verb Coin. You can call either of them, depending on your preferences.
Quote from: Adeel S. Ahmed on Wed 17/12/2014 14:59:21(with keyboard shortcuts)
Please, everyone, add more keyboard shortcuts to your game. It costs the developer all of 15 minutes to put in so it's probably the easiest way to expand your audience.
(fun fact:
all classic LucasArts games had extensive keyboard shortcuts
for everything!)
Quote from: elentgirl on Tue 16/12/2014 12:45:59
There is another way of handling these situations, which is to use a 'dynamic cursor'. This changes when over a hotspot to an icon that indicates what action the player can take (eg. an eye for look-at, a hand for pick-up or use). The action is always instigated by a left mouse click. You can then have the 'look-at' icon to start with, which changes to another action icon once the player has looked at the object and read your 'funny'. I have used this system in my own games.
Good luck,
Elen
I am more and more comfortable with games that use a dynamic cursor, however I implemented them as having up to two choices in Breakage (one for the left and one for the right button), so it wouldn't be just clicking, but give the player some choice. And at one point I had a situation where looking, and not using, was the right thing to do. And I also added an achievement for looking around at minute things. Just to reward those who play that way. Some variants of dynamic cursors, like The Book of Unwritten Tales' first click is look, following clicks might be interact, and sometimes just looking several times is the required thing, rubs me the wrong way (when not hinted at is what should be done). I basically want some variation, but not a bundle of verbs, which produces a lot of dead ends, and grows the need to give the player logical feedback.
Quote from: Etumretniw on Wed 17/12/2014 19:54:16
And at one point I had a situation where looking, and not using, was the right thing to do. And I also added an achievement for looking around at minute things. Just to reward those who play that way.
That sounds confusing if it's done in the same game... first you reward the player for looking, but then you make a puzzle that requires NOT to look? ???
Quote from: Cassiebsg on Wed 17/12/2014 20:07:01
Quote from: Etumretniw on Wed 17/12/2014 19:54:16
And at one point I had a situation where looking, and not using, was the right thing to do. And I also added an achievement for looking around at minute things. Just to reward those who play that way.
That sounds confusing if it's done in the same game... first you reward the player for looking, but then you make a puzzle that requires NOT to look? ???
Looking was the right thing to do :)
Ah, okay, makes sense now. :-D
Somehow my brain read it as "not looking and not using"... (roll)
Going back to the original dilemma: I saw two let's plays of 9 months in where the the players seemed unaware they can right click to look. They missed vital clues and it was very frustrating to watch.
Now, those were experienced gamers, mind you (maybe not adventure gamers, but still quite shocking)!
Switching the button scheme won't help because those same people will still fail to left click and get stuck quite early in the game. Plus this will annoy a lot of adventure gamers (me included, and I never got used to this scheme in BASS, otherwise a great game).
A tutorial is an option, but if it's mandatory it will annoy the existing adventure gamers (again, me included) who just want to start playing, and if it's optional a lot of newbies will skip it, not knowing what's good for them.
So, my attempted solution for THAT DAMN DOG was this: start a timer at the start of your game. If the player doesn't right click within a few minutes then (and only then) show a "did you know you can also right click, you dumbass?" (Not exact phrasing), or some more extended tutorial.
Did it work? I have no idea...
Let the player choose which mouse button does what. I made an AGS template for that.
I am a total noob in adventures, but intuitively, I'd use left-click (select = look) and double left-click (action = use).
It's not even mentioned here, am I missing something?
Quote from: tzachs on Thu 18/12/2014 13:18:17
A tutorial is an option, but if it's mandatory it will annoy the existing adventure gamers (again, me included) who just want to start playing, and if it's optional a lot of newbies will skip it, not knowing what's good for them.
A tutorial doesn't have to be that explicit. You could simply have a story-point advancing "puzzle" that requires looking as well as interacting, right at the start of the game, and have a message pop up like "RIGHT CLICK UNDER THE BED TO LOOK THERE", and when the player does that, "LEFT CLICK ON THE BOOK TO GET IT OUT FROM UNDER THE BED". And there, that is it.
You know Babar... this "tutorial" it's fine if not abused... I stopped playing BttF because it kept telling me what to do! And I couldn't find a way to turn it off. It annoyed me so much that I don't even feel like playing it anymore.
I like tzachs's solution with the timer... just as long as it only does that once, maybe twice...
Alberth... don't think any of us think of double click that way, maybe cause we grew up with Adventure games before windows created the double click... (roll) I seem to have a faint idea of some games using the double click as a "run" option though.
Quote from: Cassiebsg on Thu 18/12/2014 17:54:38
You know Babar... this "tutorial" it's fine if not abused... I stopped playing BttF because it kept telling me what to do! And I couldn't find a way to turn it off. It annoyed me so much that I don't even feel like playing it anymore.
It wouldn't be constant, of course. It'd literally be for just the first puzzle in the game, which would be the first two interactions in the game. It doesn't really require a lot of teaching and tutorialing to explain that left click uses and right click looks.
Yeah, I think the tut would be fine as long as it's disguised into a joke. People will be okay with a tutorial as long as they don't realise what it is, or at least if they do they'll appreciate you put in the extra effort of going "hey, I hate tutorials too, let's just both get this damn' thing over with so we can move on to the good stuff". Although I'm not sure how appropriate this approach would be in a dead serious psychological thriller AG :P
I've just started working on a little one-room Escape game. Those games are generally made in flash or are made for mobile devices, so they don't have a right click. But a lot of them have a 'look' button on the screen, so that you click on that first if you want to just look at something (that something is usually just an item you are carrying, but there's no reason why it can't be used for looking at other other objects and surroundings). In fact, I'm going to use this approach and see how it goes.
This has the dual bonus of being obvious to all players from the outset but also being skippable for players who can't be bothered to use it (until they need to, but when that time comes the button will be there on screen so if they don't think to click it then they don't deserve to play the game).
I had a start-up screen that told the player what the symbols showing left and right of the dynamic pointer meant, and that they were connected to the left and right mouse button (as well as inventory being available through the mouse wheel). With pictures. Felt it was the right thing at the time. I'm a sucker for clarification, though not time consuming ones.