Maybe it just doesn't matter - I mean, you do pretty much get used to whatever interface you're using at the time - I even learned to live with that horrible verb coin in The Curse of Monkey Island... but:
Our dev team can't seem to agree on this. Whilst I know a lot of games use the Right Mouse Button = Interact, LMB=Look, to me that has always felt the wrong way round - I MUCH prefer LMB=Interact, RMB=Look.
Does anyone else have a preference? Do you actually care which way round it is? I can't exactly explain why I favour one method so strongly over the other, but my mind will never accept RMB=Interact as being "right".
I agree with you, Left to Interact and Right to Look.
I feel that the Left mouse button is the standard click and that Interact is the standard action. Looking is a secondary action, in my opinion.
I always build any two click interface I make with the left mouse button walking/talking/using/selecting inventory/using inventory and the right mouse button looking/deselecting inventory. This is mostly because that's what feels right to me - in the Windows operating system, the left click is the click of action and the right click is the click of options/indecision. I do not want to be picking things up with indecision - therefore, the right click is for me to indecisively examine things and get a better idea about them, after which I can decisively execute my idea with a confident, enthusiastic interact click (a click which can only be done justice by the left mouse button, I feel).
I vote for LMB=Interact and RMB=Look. If the question is seriously stressing out your team, maybe give the players the option to switch in the game options.
I'm with you Cap'n. In your normal computer usage the LMB is the 'main' button, the one that does all the immediate primary default tasks. The RMB is if you want to do one of the other secondary tasks. For me, in an adventure game 'interact' is the primary verb. It's the one that gets most of the tasks done, so it feels right to have on LMB. 'Look' to me is a secondary verb. Nine times out of ten 'look' achieves nothing but a description of the item. Of course it is sometimes necessary to 'look' at something in order to move the game forward, but nowhere near as often as in the case of 'interact'. So for me 'look' feels more natural on RMB.
[edit] 2 3 new (and more articulate) responses since I typed this
I agree. In that control scheme left mouse button for action is somewhat more intuitive.
If you can't get the team to agree, make it a setting; easy enough to do and a nice configuration option to have anyway.
I do agree with everyone else that LMB = interact/walk/select and RMB = look/deselect is the more natural (and in my experience, the more common) arrangement, and I think that should be the default.
^
What they said
In games with such an interface, I tend to forget that the right mouse button does anything. So the most important function should definitely be under the left button, and that means interacting.
Quote from: CaptainD on Thu 29/08/2013 09:20:02
Whilst I know a lot of games use the Right Mouse Button = Interact, LMB=Look,
I don't think I've ever seen a game that does it this way. Could you name some of those games you refer to?
Quote from: kconan on Thu 29/08/2013 09:35:52
I vote for LMB=Interact and RMB=Look. If the question is seriously stressing out your team, maybe give the players the option to switch in the game options.
This.
Not difficult to make, really.
Who are your team members? I'd like to hear their opinions because the consensus here is that they are wrong wrong wrong (or just left handed).
This came up elsewhere some time ago, and I was really surprised to find out that it is actually Beneath a Steel Sky which uses LMB = Look, RMB = Interact.
But yes: LMB = Interact, but give the player a choice to reverse it. And it's GIF, not JIF. ;)
Edit: The Secret Files games definitely use LMB = Interact, RMB = Look. It's depicted that way right on the mouse cursor.
Edit2: Lost Horizon, being by the same team, also uses LMB = Interact...
Quote from: Radiant on Thu 29/08/2013 10:21:35
Quote from: CaptainD on Thu 29/08/2013 09:20:02
Whilst I know a lot of games use the Right Mouse Button = Interact, LMB=Look,
I don't think I've ever seen a game that does it this way. Could you name some of those games you refer to?
Off the top of my head I think Deep Silver's games - Secret Files, Lost Horizon - used that, and AstroLoco: Worst Contact. I'm sure there are others - Ceville possibly, but I'd have to check. I'll try to give you a proper list later, can't remember them all atm.
Oh, I don't need a full list, my point is that LMB=look is relatively rare. So doing it like that "because lots of other games do" is not a strong argument here.
Quote from: Radiant on Thu 29/08/2013 10:59:46
Oh, I don't need a full list, my point is that LMB=look is relatively rare. So doing it like that "because lots of other games do" is not a strong argument here.
Don't worry, I wouldn't have done it just because other games did anyway! :P
LMB=Interact/walk/talk/any action, RMB=Look
Can't remember a game that switched those buttons as you said ???
Switching them would only and definitely confuse players imho, thus failure...
"Beneath a Steel Sky" had LMB=walk+look and RMB=interact
I had no problem with this setup, for me it felt right. ;)
I was actually surprised that Beneath a Steel Sky had the buttons 'reversed.' I mean, I figured it out, but at times I would accidentally use the wrong click, which got a bit frustrating.
It's just much more intuitive with Left Interact and Right Look.
It's possible that, if the primary (left) button only looks at things, people are quickly inclined to use the second button for other things; whereas if the primary button does all the important things like interaction, people tend to forget the right button also has a (less important) function.
I'm with CaptainD. RMB = look, LMB = interact. The other way round is against the laws of nature. ;)
My only fear with that, is that RMB gets ignored. People just only end up interacting with everything.
Maybe off topic, but- (edit: frenzykitty ninja'd me, making this somewhat relevant! Yay!)
Even better: LMB = interact/walk/talk; RMB = interact/walk/talk
I'm questioning whether adventure games actually need the look function. Ask yourself if it's ever actually useful in your game. Other than comedy games where the game has genuinely funny responses for everything, I'm trying to come up with an example of a game that actually made good use of a look at function. I guess it could be a chance to demonstrate the character's "voice". You learn about the character by the way he/she sees his/her surroundings. But how many games pull that off well?
I guess it makes some sense in games with very low resolutions where you can't see detail in something a few pixels wide. But most of the time (and I'm super guilty of this), the look-at response doesn't really provide any information that a hotspot mouseover label couldn't convey more efficiently.
Quote from: frenzykitty on Thu 29/08/2013 14:13:35
My only fear with that, is that RMB gets ignored. People just only end up interacting with everything.
Possible. Personally, I nearly always 'look' at something before I interact with it anyway (and that is also how I have been training my niece - with proud little nods to myself when she does this). I feel I owe it to the developer for taking the time to write the (often humorous) descriptions in the first place, the least I can do is read them.
So in reality I probably click 'look' just as often as 'interact'. It still feels like a secondary, RMB action though.
If you don't look at everything, and read every response, you're not playing adventure games properly.
Examining objects should provide a level of detail that no art, no matter how high res and detailed, can necessarily convey.
One of the projects I've been working on has LMB for everything, RMB to open the inventory/cancel use inventory. I like to experiment with different control styles.
I think anything is better than the old LucasArts verb thingy anyway.
Quote from: frenzykitty on Thu 29/08/2013 14:13:35
My only fear with that, is that RMB gets ignored. People just only end up interacting with everything.
Yes, that's very likely. And bear in mind that people tend not to read manuals, nor pay attention to tutorials, and that if they don't understand your interface they're likyly to stop playing rather than ask about it.
Quote from: Vince Twelve on Thu 29/08/2013 14:26:22
I'm questioning whether adventure games actually need the look function. Ask yourself if it's ever actually useful in your game.
And this is your answer. Having designed several Sierra-style games, I conclude that the traditional look/touch/talk buttons boil down to
one way of doing something useful with a hotspot or object, and
two ways of making a silly remark about how you can't do that. It simply doesn't add anything. In pretty much all look/touch games I've seen, every hotspot is
either (A) almost all of them do something useful when touched, and provide no useful information when looked at, or (B) the rare exception that does something useful when looked at, and paraphrases "you cannot do that" when touched.
Therefore my preferred control style, as seen in Warthogs, Quasar, Errand, Root of All Evil, and Quest for Yrolg (http://crystalshard.net/?p=5), is simply
left button does everything, right button either speedwalks or opens the inventory-and-save GUI. AND bear in mind that people playing on a tablet won't have a right mouse button in the first place.
Quote from: Vince Twelve on Thu 29/08/2013 14:26:22
I'm questioning whether adventure games actually need the look function. Ask yourself if it's ever actually useful in your game. Other than comedy games where the game has genuinely funny responses for everything, I'm trying to come up with an example of a game that actually made good use of a look at function. I guess it could be a chance to demonstrate the character's "voice". You learn about the character by the way he/she sees his/her surroundings. But how many games pull that off well?
I guess it makes some sense in games with very low resolutions where you can't see detail in something a few pixels wide. But most of the time (and I'm super guilty of this), the look-at response doesn't really provide any information that a hotspot mouseover label couldn't convey more efficiently.
What. :|
First of all, I'd say more than half of adventure games are virtually impossible to beat without reading the hints contained in the examine responses unless you're a clairvoyant and/or a mentalist and/or holding a walkthrough right in front of you. Secondly, any half-decent adventure game offers so much in terms of atmosphere, immersion, and interesting narrative through the looking. I'd ragequit an adventure game that doesn't have the "examine" command in the first three seconds unless it has some other
very impressive elements, e.g. The Last Express, or very cleverly integrates examining into an automatic action, e.g. The Legend of Kyrandia. Hell, one of my biggest discomforts in playing non-adventure games often comes from not being able to examine things. So, I couldn't disagree more.
Quote from: qptain Nemo on Thu 29/08/2013 15:27:32
Secondly, any half-decent adventure game offers so much in terms of atmosphere, immersion, and interesting narrative through the looking.
The point is that you
still give that information when the player clicks on the object. You simply leave out the part where the main character says "I cannot pick that up".
Quote from: Radiant on Thu 29/08/2013 15:39:22
The point is that you still give that information when the player clicks on the object. You simply leave out the part where the main character says "I cannot pick that up".
There is no need for "I cannot pick that up" indeed. My solution would be to come up with at least one interesting action to perform on an object for most of the hotspots. I definitely want more interactivity, not less. Even though, again, admittedly, my favourite adventure game pulls the said control scheme off very well. Then again, The Legend of Kyrandia 2 has so many optional interactions delivered through other means that it fully compensates for that. So it can work well, but still when it comes to controls, I want as much freedom and interactivity as possible.
Quote from: Vince Twelve on Thu 29/08/2013 14:26:22
I'm questioning whether adventure games actually need the look function. Ask yourself if it's ever actually useful in your game. Other than comedy games where the game has genuinely funny responses for everything, I'm trying to come up with an example of a game that actually made good use of a look at function. I guess it could be a chance to demonstrate the character's "voice". You learn about the character by the way he/she sees his/her surroundings. But how many games pull that off well?
Some games actually require you to examine something before you can interact with it. I can't name one off the top of my head, but I'm sure I've seen that mechanic before. Interestingly enough, it often frustrates me. I feel like I already knew what I had to do, but the game wouldn't let me do it until I had the character look at it first.
Radiant also raises an important issue with modern adventure games, which is tablet support. Since there is no right mouse button on a tablet, the 2 click interface is obsolete. Ultimately, I think a single click interface is preferred, and will become more popular as modern adventures become more prevalent.
This is all off topic, though. Since he's asking which set-up would work best for a 2 click adventure, I stand by my initial responses.
Quote from: dactylopus on Thu 29/08/2013 16:31:06
Quote from: Vince Twelve on Thu 29/08/2013 14:26:22
I'm questioning whether adventure games actually need the look function. Ask yourself if it's ever actually useful in your game. Other than comedy games where the game has genuinely funny responses for everything, I'm trying to come up with an example of a game that actually made good use of a look at function. I guess it could be a chance to demonstrate the character's "voice". You learn about the character by the way he/she sees his/her surroundings. But how many games pull that off well?
Some games actually require you to examine something before you can interact with it. I can't name one off the top of my head, but I'm sure I've seen that mechanic before. Interestingly enough, it often frustrates me. I feel like I already knew what I had to do, but the game wouldn't let me do it until I had the character look at it first.
I'm pretty sure The Book of Unwritten Tales did that.
Quote from: qptain Nemo on Thu 29/08/2013 16:22:05
There is no need for "I cannot pick that up" indeed. My solution would be to come up with at least one interesting action to perform on an object for most of the hotspots.
Oh, I completely agree with that. But unless the game comes up with
at least two interesting actions for most of the objects/hotspots, then the interface
doesn't need two interaction modes. And I'm having a hard time thinking of an existing game that does that.
Since (I think) the question has been suitably answered, I hope nobody minds me hijacking this thread for a slightly related topic, which I may have asked ages ago before, but I can't remember the responses except that they seemed to be inconclusive.
Most people say that the two-button interface is the best in terms of simplicity and intuitive design and so on, with one button (usually LMB) for walk to and interact, and the other for looking at. My game features (I dunno WHY I keep designing them like this :D) occasional characters you can both interact with- push, pull, pickpocket, etc- AND talk to.
How would you handle that?
I'd really actually prefer an actual control scheme, but for now I've got it so that each character is actually two characters, and if you click the head, it does talk, if you click the body, it is interact, and I do it for every character, otherwise it becomes too obvious which characters you can interact with.
EDIT: Hahah..I didn't notice the second page with the whole new path to the discussion. In this case, yes, I've seen games with single button does everything (I think possibly the new Sam & Max is like that?), but I definitely prefer having a look. If tablets are an issue with not having more than one kind of interaction, I think that is an issue for tablets to solve (or inventive UI designers).
Quote from: Babar on Thu 29/08/2013 17:19:39
Most people say that the two-button interface is the best in terms of simplicity and intuitive design
[ citation needed ] :tongue:
Quoteoccasional characters you can both interact with- push, pull, pickpocket, etc- AND talk to.
How would you handle that?
I find that most less-common verbs can be replaced by an inventory item. For instance, rather than putting a dig command on the GUI, give the player a shovel. In the case of pickpocketing, a suitable item could be a sharp coin; this is a coin with its edge sharpened, so that it can be used to cut purses (hence the term "cutpurse").
But I have also been known to code a special GUI with 40+ verbs on it, just to see if it could work :grin:
I definitely want separate buttons for Look at and Interact with. I like the fact that Look at is mostly "harmless" and won't trigger reactions. I can always look at the lever before I know whether to pull it. I can look at a character without necessarily initiate a dialogue. I can look at things just to be reminded of their functions. Also, how else would you de-select an inventory item?
I can understand the reductionist approach to GUIs, and it's become a trend to do away with everything that isn't 100 percent necessary, but I also think there's a risk of streamlining things too far, especially when the result is that all games have identical GUIs.
There's a whole genre of minimalist point-n-click games (that tend to be oddly popular) where all you do is click stuff and watch something random happening, and the task is simply to click at stuff in the correct order. I want proper adventure games to be more than that.
People mention iPads and tablets as a reason to ditch left/right clicks, but so far at least the Android port does a great job of simulating right-click with a two finger touch - I've tried this myself and it's really easy to learn.
Too much in gaming business is about about making stuff easier and quicker and more accessible for a casual smart-phone-app-player, but let's not forget that a lot of people still own proper computers.
It's not so much his team as just me. :-D I have been playfully pointing out the games that break the BASS mold. Let the dog pile commence...
We're not really disagreeing on the interface, but just on what is more important: interacting or looking. I said that whatever is mapped to the LMB must be the most important action. The RMB needs to be the action that takes just a little more effort, and thus, will be often skipped.
So, which is more important? Look first and then act? Act and possibly never look? Does the player want to answer the question, "What's that thing?" before rushing to use it? Is the game more about exploring before taking action, or taking action with optional exploration? I don't think this is a closed-case for every possible game, even if many people are used to one kind of control. I can easily imagine a player being frustrated with the default being "walk over there and pick that up" rather than "tell me what it is first." Unless they've played many of these games and expect this to be their character's first reaction, but then we're back to the question, "Which was really more intuitive?"
Making descriptions for "look" is more expensive in terms of time, effort, and memory (space). We certainly don't want to put most of our expense into descriptions if they are unnecessary or skipped, and we certainly don't want to beg the user to please remember to look at items so that they can be entertained. That would be silly, too. (roll)
As was mentioned in the thread above, I think we're settling on asking ourselves the question, "And why do we even bother with a 'look' button?" We're going to play with some options in a sandbox app and try them out. Either making "looking" entirely obsolete or making it clearly "examine more closely," which would certainly be a more contemplative and optional action. This goes along with making the player aware of which items can be examined and which cannot. This will keep it from being a guessing game for every hotspot, and the game will not seem incomplete when we choose not to include a repetitive description. This certainly beats generic responses for dozens of items, and the nightmare of voicing useless descriptions. Random generic responses also get tiring. Additionally, we are looking at making the player aware of the default action by contextually describing what "interact" means before they take that action, alleviating the frustration mentioned above.
The portability advantages of ditching the RMB are attractive too, even though that's another issue.
The design issue really came to a head with signs and similar objects where "look" is the default rather than the optional interaction. What should be the default interaction with a sign? Probably reading. How is that different from looking at it? Do we need to further describe every sign? Do we simply "read" them with both the interact and look buttons (that was the first idea)? How about reading them with the mouse hover instead since that's a "kind of look?" Do we need to read them *more*? What about pulling them off the wall? Although, shouldn't that be the option that takes more effort (RMB) versus the default action (LMB)? Etc., etc.
Whatever we settle on, LMB will be the default action, and a BASS-style system is our basic model.
Quote from: Vince Twelve on Thu 29/08/2013 14:26:22I'm questioning whether adventure games actually need the look function.
Moderators -- any chance this (and subsequent replies) could be broken out into its own topic? This is a segue into what I think could be a valuable discussion of game mechanics that goes beyond the scope of the original thread subject, and that discussion might otherwise be missed by many members that would contribute.
Onscreen (or popup) buttons for Interact and Look and any other verbs you want. If you left click on one of the buttons, it sets your left click to that action. Likewise if you right click.
This way the user can choose which action they want assigned to which button, OR they can play with the more traditional 2-click system (click the verb, then the object.)
I think adventure games benefit from giving the user a set of tools. A too-condensed range of interaction dulls the immersion, for me.
Quote from: Eric on Thu 29/08/2013 20:07:48
Quote from: Vince Twelve on Thu 29/08/2013 14:26:22I'm questioning whether adventure games actually need the look function.
Moderators -- any chance this (and subsequent replies) could be broken out into its own topic? This is a segue into what I think could be a valuable discussion of game mechanics that goes beyond the scope of the original thread subject, and that discussion might otherwise be missed by many members that would contribute.
I think it'd be too hard to tease apart the two subjects. People have been talking about both in the same posts, and there's no real way for moderators to split individual posts into separate parts. If you think it merits its own thread, just start a new one and mention that the topic came up here.
Quote from: Radiant on Thu 29/08/2013 16:56:31
[...] unless the game comes up with at least two interesting actions for most of the objects/hotspots, then the interface doesn't need two interaction modes. And I'm having a hard time thinking of an existing game that does that.
(nod) Yup, I'm pretty much of the same mind as Radiant on this topic.
Such a controversial standpoint for adventure gamers, though! Let's break into tribes and duke it out!
I love immersion and think that good descriptions from the protagonist is one great way to accomplish this. But I also think that games are getting much better at doing this via other means. And maybe I'm just getting old and impatient (and playing the games wrong, right AGA? :)) But, I almost never use the look-at verb in any game unless I'm really stuck. The Dan & Ben games might be the last time I made it a point to look at stuff.
Adventure games shouldn't try to do anything new! They reached their apex in the mid 90s, and any more modern thinking will only lead to bad things.
Quote from: Radiant on Thu 29/08/2013 17:26:47
[ citation needed ] :tongue:
Well, I meant in terms of minimalism in interface. Every time this topic comes up on the forums, the majority seem to be favouring it. It seems in this thread you're even arguing for a single-button interface?!
..or is it just a vocal minority?! I remember Vince did some sort of GTD thing on interface where he lambasted the Sierra interface (deservedly, I guess :P) and favoured as minimal an interface as possible. What does that guy know, though, right :D? He took 5 years to make 1 game!
Quote from: Radiant on Thu 29/08/2013 17:26:47
I find that most less-common verbs can be replaced by an inventory item. For instance, rather than putting a dig command on the GUI, give the player a shovel. In the case of pickpocketing, a suitable item could be a sharp coin; this is a coin with its edge sharpened, so that it can be used to cut purses (hence the term "cutpurse").
What would be your suggestion for pushing someone off a ledge? Or pulling someone up from one after you've had a stern talking to with them about how they won't be evil anymore?
Quote from: Radiant on Thu 29/08/2013 17:26:47
But I have also been known to code a special GUI with 40+ verbs on it, just to see if it could work :grin:
I think I actually nabbed hat code from that game :D.
If your game features interesting descriptions of everything (and I'm of the mind that LOOK descriptions are a vital part of adventure games!), and then you have an object you can interact with as well, isn't that automatically 2 interactions?
I'd suggest hovering or some such similar mechanism for use as "look", but I get the feeling tablet users will get annoyed with that :D.
Quote from: TheBitPriest on Thu 29/08/2013 18:10:32
So, which is more important? Look first and then act? Act and possibly never look? Does the player want to answer the question, "What's that thing?" before rushing to use it? Is the game more about exploring before taking action, or taking action with optional exploration? I don't think this is a closed-case for every possible game, even if many people are used to one kind of control. I can easily imagine a player being frustrated with the default being "walk over there and pick that up" rather than "tell me what it is first."
For me, it's "look first and then act", but I don't do 'look then interact, look then interact, look then interact' on every hotspot in the room. Rather, when I walk into a new room, I like to do a sweep of the whole screen before I do anything else. I click 'look' on anything and everything, just to get an idea of what is there, what is clickable and what needs doing. Only then do I start interacting, start getting things done. And Left Mouse Button is definitely the 'getting things done' button.
Quote
Making descriptions for "look" is more expensive in terms of time, effort, and memory (space). We certainly don't want to put most of our expense into descriptions if they are unnecessary or skipped, and we certainly don't want to beg the user to please remember to look at items so that they can be entertained. That would be silly, too. (roll)
Understandable. If a game doesn't have descriptions of every object, I as a player won't necessarily miss them, and I can see your reasons for possibly wanting to avoid spending time on them. But I personally do read them (regardless which button they're on), and I'm sure I'm not the only person who does.
As for begging. I have written unique responses for 'look' in my game. There are a few generic ones in there (a door is a door is a door), but there are also (I hope) some quite funny ones, and I
do want people to look at them and potentially be entertained. Without them, the game is less funny, so I'm going to probably have a note in the readme gently urging the player to try looking at everything.
There are big problems with a single action interface.
A. The player can't have a conversation with Nurse Edna before deciding to shove her down the stairs.
B. The player is robbed of that lightbulb-over-the-head moment. Instead of being rewarded for wondering if they can push Edna, they're merely checking to see what would happen if clicked on her, like they do with every hotspot, and the specifics of the resulting action are unexpected. The feeling of control is diluted.
C. Or, as a developer, you've decided from the start that clicking on a character always results in a conversation. Thinking on those terms, it never even occurs to you to make a more physical and entertaining solution. Edna is now talked into leaving her office. Boring.
I'm not advocating that every game needs the full 9-verb lineup, or that you can't combine Use and Pick Up, etc. But you need to encourage the player to have "Oh, what if I tried..." moments, and a selection of verbs gives them options to try other than "clicking on everything once."
Quote from: Snarky on Thu 29/08/2013 21:16:41
If you think it merits its own thread, just start a new one and mention that the topic came up here.
I thought of that, but didn't want to overstep! I guess things are continuing here in new and unexpected directions, so I'll withdraw my request! Thanks, Snarky!
Anyone wanting to make a modern adventure game should avoid using "classic" interfaces. They have aged...poorly, and only continue to make design sense to people who love old adventure games.
As to the original question, left look, right interact. ;-D
I support those who are in the favour of LMB = Interact and RMB = Look. This is the most natural interface I can possibly think of.
I once played a game (can't remember its name properly) which used LMB = Look and RMB = Interact and it was very annoying for me!
As for the question whether look at command should be used or not. Look at command should be a must for adventure games, in my opinion. Only using a single mouse button throughout the entire game is too boring for me! :P
I personally look at everything first and then proceed to interact with it.
Being brought up with scumm and similar systems, LMB as "main" or interaction button feels pretty intuitive. Beneath a steel sky always felt a little backwards to me.
Slightly off topic but not quite: I'm currently trying out a setup using single LMB = walk/select+combine inventory, doubble LMB or single MMB = interact, RMB = look/clear inv item. No verb gui or coin. Just an inventory and mousover text. Is doubble click a good way to go?
I personally don't think, at least in your situation, that it is a good idea. While I can understand issues of wanting a separate USE and TALK, as far as walking goes, it doesn't seem necessary.
If you click on something specific, it generally implies you want to interact with it. If you're just clicking on the path, or on nothing, then it implies you want to walk there. You'll never really want to WALK ON the computer or something, and if you want to show the player walking to an item before interacting with it, you can combine those two into interact: the player first would then walk to the item, then interact with it.
I can't think of a situation where walking on to an object and interacting with the object should produce 2 separate necessary results- Pressure plate, elevator platform, door, etc. would all give the same result whether you WALKED on to them, or USED them.
Quote from: StillInThe90s on Sat 31/08/2013 12:13:02Slightly off topic but not quite: I'm currently trying out a setup using single LMB = walk/select+combine inventory, doubble LMB or single MMB = interact, RMB = look/clear inv item. No verb gui or coin. Just an inventory and mousover text. Is doubble click a good way to go?
I would not recommend that, it's not very intuitive. And not everybody has three mouse buttons.
@Babar: The idea of having separate look, walk and interact clicks was to be able to walk around without accidentally looking at or interacting with things. An annoying thing about later, slimmed games is that I often find myself clicking away text that I already have read or sometimes even solving puzzles by accident, which makes the gaming experience feel a bit unintelligent (i.e. Click everything at least once and you're done!).
QuoteI can't think of a situation where walking on to an object and interacting with the object should produce 2 separate necessary results...
I can. :-D A situation where the player did not want to interact with an object but, for example wanted to walk past it. The game I am working on has use-able snow on the ground, which means that the character would be unable to walk around the scene without a walk function. But I heartily agree with you about not having a separate walk-to-object function 1980:s sierra style: "YOU ARE TOO FAR AWAY TO PICK THAT UP." -Not desirable.
@Radiant: The MMB would do the same thing as a LMB double click. It would just provide an extra alternative.
Quote from: Trapezoid on Thu 29/08/2013 22:58:41
B. The player is robbed of that lightbulb-over-the-head moment. Instead of being rewarded for wondering if they can push Edna, they're merely checking to see what would happen if clicked on her, like they do with every hotspot, and the specifics of the resulting action are unexpected. The feeling of control is diluted.
I totally agree. It seems to me that most people here prefer the 2-click interface, and that's OK, but I personally really hate it :angry:. I always feel that all you need to do is just click on anything once (with the same mouse icon) without any real thought other than "lets see what happens": (hmm, lets try clicking on the waiter; will that initiate a conversation, cause the main character to order some more wine, or cause the main character to grab his tie and choke him to death?...click! Lets find out.).
Bah, I guess I just prefer having a little more "control" when it comes to choosing the possible outcome of interacting with characters + environment...plus I like the different little mouse icons for each action, hehe! :grin:
Regarding the question of an interface that might allow multiple potential actions, as in having the option of either talking to or punching a character, I'm inclined to suggest a context-sensitive verb list/coin, similar to the interface that I recall being used in Gabriel Knight 3.
Essentially, interaction would be governed entirely by the left mouse button: When only one action is available, the icon for that action is shown (perhaps attached to the cursor in a third-person game) and a single click performs that action. When more than one action is available, a different icon is used (I think that I used ellipsis ("...") in a prototype that I made once upon a time), and clicking opens a small verb list or verb coin populated with the icons for the available actions; clicking on one of these icons performs the action. The verb list/coin can be closed without action by either clicking some icon -- perhaps in the centre if a verb coin is used, perhaps at one end if a list is used -- or perhaps by right-clicking, or clicking outside of the coin/list.
"Looking" could be incorporated either via right-clicking, or as an available action in the list/coin (although the latter might make the interface a little tedious -- it might be a nuisance to have to open the list/coin if there's only one action besides "look").
I've always been a bit unimpressed by the verbcoin, mainly because they've felt clunky and like an unnecessary extra step between me and my verb, but lately I've been swayed a bit.
I think a simple, well-implemented verb-coin is actually pretty nice as long as it's dynamic and updates according to what I'm clicking at. The ability to customize the verbs is pretty cool - I can both look at a document but also read it, or pick it up. I can talk to a person, or push him, or pick his pocket, or look at him, etc etc.
And when it comes to porting, the benefit of a one-click GUI is pretty obvious.
Knox seems to be in a minority, saying he wants more verbs because he wants to feel that you can do more than just one interaction (or two if you include 'look') on each object/hotspot. Other people are saying What's the point in adding 9 verbs or 4 verbs, when let's face it, each object/hotspot does generally have one interaction, so two-click is better.
What's the problem here?
Perhaps game designers are being too predictable Why aren't we using the extra verbs as part of the puzzle? Boxes and doors don't have to be opened. Levers and ropes don't have to be pulled, NPCs don't have to be 'talked' to.
The older games used to take advantage of this. Not everything would take the most obvious verb; some lateral thinking was involved. In more recent times, games have shyed away from tricking the gamer like this. I think for most people, if 'open' doesn't work on the box they'll immediately consult a walkthrough. Perhaps this is why the two-click interface seems to be the preferred choice: people no longer enjoy playing this guess-the-verb game. And this falls into the designers' favour because they no longer have to think of clever ways to use all those verbs.
I don't think there were many games from the "verb inventory" era that used unexpected verbs with any frequency. Maybe a half-dozen times in one game, at most. In the end, it was such an exceptional thing that it almost felt a bit unfair: like the game was breaking the unspoken rules of how to play it.
Also, verb coins are the devil's own UI. Outside of adventure gamers, no one understands them (http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=48795.msg636466607#msg636466607).
Quote from: Babar on Thu 29/08/2013 22:14:01
Quote from: Radiant on Thu 29/08/2013 17:26:47
I find that most less-common verbs can be replaced by an inventory item. For instance, rather than putting a dig command on the GUI, give the player a shovel. In the case of pickpocketing, a suitable item could be a sharp coin; this is a coin with its edge sharpened, so that it can be used to cut purses (hence the term "cutpurse").
What would be your suggestion for pushing someone off a ledge? Or pulling someone up from one after you've had a stern talking to with them about how they won't be evil anymore?
Probably dialog options. In the first case, I have a hard time imagining a scenario where you know a reason to push a character of a ledge but the puzzle is figuring out that you
should do it, so the challenge would probably be more about either establishing motivation (navigating dialog tree? Using object on character to elicit the remark that causes you to push them over the edge?), or eliminating whatever obstacles there might be (arranging a diversion or simply timing it so witnesses are looking away, figuring out how to get up close, etc).
For the second case, just make the first option in the dialog something like a: "I think you've learned your lesson." b: "While I've got you here..."
I did quite like that they did with Fate of Atlantis (and perhaps others, but that's the game I really noticed) - in that when you were in the dark for instance, you had different verbs reflecting the fact that you couldn't see things very well
Stupot - I think you have a point, but I think from a developer's point of view it's also down to not having thousands of generic responses / having to write multitudinous responses for every mad possible combination of actions and objects that the player might try.
Quote from: Snarky on Wed 04/09/2013 10:12:34
Probably dialog options. In the first case, I have a hard time imagining a scenario where you know a reason to push a character of a ledge but the puzzle is figuring out that you should do it, so the challenge would probably be more about either establishing motivation (navigating dialog tree? Using object on character to elicit the remark that causes you to push them over the edge?), or eliminating whatever obstacles there might be (arranging a diversion or simply timing it so witnesses are looking away, figuring out how to get up close, etc).
It was more: Talk with the guy, he says something that shows he needs to die, say something to get him distracted (or say the same thing again if you missed the window to do it the first time), then when his attention is diverted, push him. So your solution would be "PUSH HIM" as a dialogue option?
But yeah, I hated the verb-coin as well :D.
I actually don't disagree with Knox, I wouldn't dislike multiple possible actions either. When I'm suddenly placed in a situation where I have to start reconsidering this cool puzzle I thought up (or to be honest, the ONLY puzzle I could think up to move the story along :=) because the super-simplified interface won't allow for it, or I have to start thinking of unintuitive alternatives to implement it (I think Radiant suggested using a sharpened coin inventory item as a way to interact with a character who I could otherwise only talk to, so as to be able to pickpocket him), I realise something is wrong, and the interface is not working.
Personally I blame laptops and touchscreens for not having properly implementable middle mouse/scroll buttons. That would solve all my problems (until I come up with ANOTHER interaction mode I want that doesn't have space :P). WE NEED A NEW INTERACTION DEVICE! Or some inventiveness to come up with a new interface. Gestures or something on touchscreens to allow for multiple interactions?
I'm not sure how unintuitive the Sierra Interface is for someone who's never used it, I suppose some ways to make it more palatable would be to minimise the number of clicks required to do something. So maybe have a sort of hybrid Lucas-Sierra interface. Have the 5 interactions somewhere permanently on screen, have keyboard shortcuts, etc.
This trend towards minimalisation is kinda interesting. You originally had the text parser with its theoretically limitless possible actions, then someone said "Hey, technically there's only a fixed number of things you can do, why not have them all in a drop-down list as well?", then from there 12 verb-list, then 9, then 5, then 3, then 2, now 1, and probably at every step of the way, the authors/creators complaining. I remember reading that the Two Guys from Andromeda REALLY didn't want to switch over from the text parser for SQ4, and fought that decision as long as they could, before finally accepting it, but sticking in the almost (game-progression-wise) useless SMELL and TASTE icons there as a response to "You don't need so many verbs, get rid of them".
Hi
I don't think there is anything wrong with using the default walk, look, talk and interact options.
There may be scenes where an extra option could be added such as push, pull etc etc giving the player not only a clue but also other options that can be performed.
Having grown up on games of the 90's people nowadays are bound to strive for better options and stuff but if you can remember way back then it seemed simple but great fun and I think more and more people are out to try and impress us with there new ideas so much that they forget the reason why we all play games in the first place.
Having said that, there are a number of members here that have it sussed :-D
Alright... I think this whole "players today don't understand this and that" is getting a bit, I don't know, presumptuous. The trend now is that everything should be as quick as simple as possible, because apparently people can't learn new rules anymore.
If people can learn how to play games like Dwarf Fortress, or memorize all the gazillion skills in any given mmorpg, I think they can handle an extra click or two on a set of icons. If a game is good, people will learn how to control it.
I think Vince's manifesto has a lot of merit, but a game world isn't an operating system - sometimes it makes sense that the same type of object/character/hotspot should be manipulated/interacted with differently, and in a number of ways. Sure, we can get by with an interact/look GUI, but that's because we've adapted our games so that everything can be interacted with just like that, but that also makes our games increasingly similar. We mainly look at things, pick them up and then combine them with other things.
I have the standard RM/LM for The Ssmaritan Paradox, but there have definitely been moments when I would've prefered a wider assortment of actions - situations I've solved by having an extra GUI pop up (turn the handle clockwise or counterclockwise? things like that).
Mind that I'm not advocating a static set of verbs, like the MI-bar, but a dynamic set, just to give an extra depth to the player-world interaction.
Quote from: Stupot+ on Wed 04/09/2013 09:32:46
Perhaps game designers are being too predictable Why aren't we using the extra verbs as part of the puzzle? Boxes and doors don't have to be opened. Levers and ropes don't have to be pulled, NPCs don't have to be 'talked' to.
The older games used to take advantage of this. Not everything would take the most obvious verb; some lateral thinking was involved.
Except they didn't. At least, not very often. For example, looking at LucasArts' fifteen-verb (Maniac Mansion, Zak McKracken), twelve-verb (Indy TLC, Monkey Island), and nine-verb interface (Indy FOA, Day of the Tentacle), it is actually very very rare that the non-obvious verb does anything. I can probably count on one hand the amount of times that either a door responds to something other than open/close, or conversely that open/close applies to anything that's not obviously a door, box, or cabinet.
And likewise, in a decade of Sierra games, the amount of in-game objects that have a meaningful reaction
both to being touched and being spoken to is pretty much zero; and pretty much all of their text parser games have been rewritten with the look/touch/talk icons without missing anything.
I'm sure there are a few graphic adventure games out there that have done something meaningful with the extra verbs, but
most of them really haven't. And that means that unless the game you're writing right now has a few concrete examples of
actually using those extra verbs, don't put them in.
Case in point: early drafts of A Tale Of Two Kingdoms had plans for an extra verb button on the GUI, "move" (similar to the push/pull buttons on the LucasArts GUI). However, when the puzzles were being designed, the question was how many of them actually made meaningful use of "moving" objects. The answer was two, and one of them could easily work with the "hand" icon as well. So there is no reason for an extra verb if you're only going to need it twice, so I took it out, and I think that was the right decision.
Quote from: Babar on Wed 04/09/2013 10:41:56
It was more: Talk with the guy, he says something that shows he needs to die, say something to get him distracted (or say the same thing again if you missed the window to do it the first time), then when his attention is diverted, push him. So your solution would be "PUSH HIM" as a dialogue option?
Basically, yeah, though you can make it a bit more organic than that. Like he's divulged his evil plot, and says something like "What are YOU going to do about it?" with your response options something like, a: "What? I can't believe it!" (repeat part of conversation), b: "You'll rue this day!" (leave conversation), c: "Throw you down to hell where you belong!" (push him off cliff)
It really depends on the details of the game and of the story, and there are many different ways to do it. I like your idea, but I don't see why you need a separate PUSH verb for it. You have a motive to push him off the ledge, you're in a conversation, you distract him, he turns his back on you and the game gives you control for a couple of seconds... I think just clicking on him to push is quite sufficient in that context.
You might also have the puzzle be to lure him to where there's a loose rock or the railing is broken. Or you could come up with some other way to throw him off the ledge (maybe hide a wire on the ground and yank it to trip him). You could make a minigame out of it: you might have to fight him, or somehow trick him to fall off (I remember in the Greece BJ game you fool a tourist into backing into a restricted area while posing for a photo). More generally, have you enter a different "game context" where clicking means pushing, not talking (maybe if you sneak up on him in some game-defined way, or like your idea with the timed distraction). Maybe you can talk him into suicide. Maybe you toss him some object he craves, and in reaching for it he falls off...
Another possibility that might be an interesting storytelling device is to simply not make it interactive. The villain gives you the motivation to kill him, and your character just does it. We're so used to being in control that this could possibly be a good way to convey blind rage or hatred overruling any reason.
My point is that I do not think that just because there's one or two occasions like this in the game where you might want to offer two different interactions with a character or object, that makes it a good idea to introduce a whole new verb, or complicate the UI paradigm in general. In fact, I think most of the ideas on the list above make for better and more interesting puzzles than simply having the insight "Hey! I should just push him!"
Quote from: Andail on Wed 04/09/2013 10:56:22
I think Vince's manifesto has a lot of merit, but a game world isn't an operating system - sometimes it makes sense that the same type of object/character/hotspot should be manipulated/interacted with differently, and in a number of ways.
Absolutely, and I think I raised that point with Vince at the time. Different UIs for different purposes. Plus, games are often about mastering skills and overcoming challenges, so you don't necessarily
want to make it too easy. (Though adventure games that let you have fun with the UI are relatively rare. Interestingly, I think Vince's games tend to be among them, what with the twin cursors in Linus Bruckman, and the memory interface and all the mini-games in Resonance.)
Quote from: Andail on Wed 04/09/2013 10:56:22
I have the standard RM/LM for The Ssmaritan Paradox, but there have definitely been moments when I would've prefered a wider assortment of actions - situations I've solved by having an extra GUI pop up (turn the handle clockwise or counterclockwise? things like that).
I think this actually demonstrates that it's better to make a special UI for special cases than to try to fit everything into however many verbs you have.
If you pop up a little close-up of the handle and ask players to manipulate it directly, to actually turn it, that's much more natural, and much more satisfying, than just clicking on push/pull verbs (which are always hard to interpret when it comes to turning handles, anyway); again, it's the whole idea of actually making the UI fun, if only in a small way. And you don't need to clutter the overall UI with these one-time options.
But I don't like the verb coin, even with dynamic verbs, as a general UI paradigm. It feels extremely intrusive to me, always popping up and covering the thing I want to interact with just as I'm trying to interact with it. I don't like it ergonomically, with all those movements back and forth (especially in the versions where you have to hold down a button to keep it up on screen) and the risk that if you overshoot it's going to go away and you'll have to start over. With dynamic verbs it's hard to do keyboard shortcuts, and I think by always having you think about the available options, it actually makes the limitations on what you can do feel more restrictive.
But I wouldn't say "all adventure games should be two-click" or even single-click. Variety is good, as long as it's thought through and motivated by the game. For example, in
Trilby's Notes, the parser interface ties in with the framing of the story, where it's told through Trilby's journals. That sort of thing is neat.
Another way of looking at it is that there's interfaces that are superfluous and interfaces that are intrusive, and whereas the former is acceptable, the latter will likely cost you players. For instance, if you're going to have a LucasArts interface with verbs at the bottom of your screen, then adding an extra verb doesn't really hurt; it is superfluous and you might not use it much, but it doesn't bother anyone. On the other hand, interfaces that get in the way of the user or the experience of the story are a bad thing, and here I'm primarily thinking of verb coins. Verb coins are clumsy (in that they require extra motion of click-move-click or click-hold-drag-release), they get in the way (in that they suddenly overlap the part of the screen you're trying to interact with) and they're unintuitive.
I agree with Snarky that different games/stories require different tools/interfaces, but after reading a few of these threads do yourself a favor and avoid verb coins.
Again, I find myself in complete agreement with Radiant. We should be besties. Wanna come over for hot chocolate and girl-talk?
Quote from: Snarky on Wed 04/09/2013 12:18:42
Quote from: Andail on Wed 04/09/2013 10:56:22
I think Vince's manifesto has a lot of merit, but a game world isn't an operating system - sometimes it makes sense that the same type of object/character/hotspot should be manipulated/interacted with differently, and in a number of ways.
Absolutely, and I think I raised that point with Vince at the time. Different UIs for different purposes. Plus, games are often about mastering skills and overcoming challenges, so you don't necessarily want to make it too easy. (Though adventure games that let you have fun with the UI are relatively rare. Interestingly, I think Vince's games tend to be among them, what with the twin cursors in Linus Bruckman, and the memory interface and all the mini-games in Resonance.)
The comparison was a poor one. I was young and naive. (roll) Plus, things get much more complicated when you actually sit down and hammer the game out, as we all eventually figure out! But the main point stands: If you're going to have a multi-verb interface, you must justify it. And by that I mean having several (don't know how to quantify that) instances where you get unique and meaningful responses from using two different verbs on a single subject. Talking to a person vs pushing them down a hill is a good example of this.
Can we not call it a manifesto?
I quite liked the way The Walking Dead would give you a textual description of the action you're about to take, or the options you have to choose from (even though it offered the player very limited control in places).
One of the frustrating things about 1 or 2 click interfaces is when the character interacts with something in an unexpected way. Then it feels like the game is solving the problem. Somehow, being presented with the option beforehand gives a greater sense of decision-making.
Quote from: Vince Twelve on Wed 04/09/2013 17:29:37
Can we not call it a manifesto?
Manifesto! Manifesto! Manifesto!
You know, talking about getting rid of extraneous verbs, despite what StillInThe90s said, when was the last time walking was part of a puzzle in the game? :P
/says Babar, jokingly, slowly realising with horror that it could actually be an argument to remove walking
:D
So a most appropriate interface, allowing for single-click to do all, could be hovering the mouse over any interactable would bring up all the actions you can perform on that thing around it (making sure not to block the view of anything), at which point you can click any of them!
...of course, then we have the touchscreen users complaining about hovering....
Good point, Babar, walking is absolutely redundant, but still most of our games have a little character walking around (except those that feature a 1st person perspective) so minimalism hasn't completely taken over the genre.
But most 3rd-person games that aren't still using the Sierra or LucasArts interfaces have eliminated "walk" as a separate command.
There's a reason open world games are popular. Players enjoy having a high degree of interactivity with the setting. They enjoy manually moving the player. They enjoy having a selection of weapons, the choice of talking to or attacking NPCs, the ability to knock over barrels and smash windows.
Even the Sims uses a two-click context menu, and nobody has trouble with that.
In adventure games, maybe the problem isn't having too many verbs, but the fact that most verbs are useless for most hotspots. The game world is not as interactive as the interface implies.
If the player wants to push a Coke machine, why not have a generic shoving animation, even if it doesn't accomplish anything?
Too often adventure games limit the player's control. At best, the protagonist constantly has to cosign on everything before doing it. At worst, there's not even dialogue saying "I don't want to do that."
I'm not saying you need to program an animation for every possible action, but the game needs to reward actions whether or not they're part of the solution, at least sometimes. The advantage of having multiple-verb interface is that it makes the player think about different ways to interact with the environment, but only if that thinking bears fruit with regularity. Otherwise, the player will give up on thinking that way.
In short: Any player's thought process can match the complexity of the interface, but ONLY if the gameplay itself does as well.
I agree with everything Trapezoid has said in this thread so far. (Which I find myself doing quite often lately. I daresay it's very nice to meet somebody who in many ways feels similarly about game design. :) )
Extra actions aren't just obstacles in the way of the mythical perfectly slick design where the player's breath makes the game play out and solve the puzzles automatically. They are flesh and blood when it comes to immersion and freedom, and those are tremendously important to some of us.
And yes, having extra actions presents certain challenges. But that brings us to that the arguments about how it inconveniences the player to click on extra appearing menus and verb coins are kinda hilariously ironic in the context of a genre that is about solving obstacles and inconveniences, no? I wouldn't be particularly relieved to learn that most adventure game designers are going to adopt a nice 2 or 1 click control scheme just to then go back to the good old "ok, so let's totally ruin the pacing of our story, and the entire potential of the concept, the world and the cast of characters with this sequence of pointless meaningless puzzles about mundane problem solving for the sake of mundane problem solving, ditch all non-vital interactivity and choices, reject mechanical depth along with narrative depth, and end it with a proper "boss battle" crescendo where only the most exhausting obnoxious solutions would apply" school of design. But hey, I only had to use two buttons to survive through all this! Hooray! No, I'm sorry, I'm more concerned about how the game plays, not how many buttons I have to press. I'd press all the buttons in the world for a great game.
And you don't really have to put the player through anything especially horrible. For instance, employing the keyboard solves a lot of the problems. WASD + mouse kind of setup allows you more than enough buttons to comfortably do pretty much anything without having to press more than two buttons at a time or move the mouse a lot.
Yes, two click control is awesome. I had no problem with it in Beneath a Steel Sky, or Broken Sword, or Deponia, or Memoria. But it's not awesome to the point where it needs to become a law or the only acceptable solution.
I don't think that I agree that a verb coin necessarily obscures a significant portion of the object being interacted with, since I think that the backing "coin" can be left out -- and that doing so may actually improve the interface. Something like this:
(http://imageshack.us/a/img706/9610/sirc.png)
1: A cursor icon shows 2: The player clicks, and 3: The player selects an
that more than one icons animate out from icon and clicks on it.
action is available the object's position
(Indeed, in retrospect perhaps I should have used the term "radial menu" rather than "verb coin" in my previous post. ^^; )
A radial menu does seem to me to have the weakness that a large number of icons would likely be come cluttered, and tiered menus could be unintuitive to navigate; that said, I suspect that if that many buttons are called for it may be a good idea to look at reducing the number of verbs for the object in question.
As to missing the buttons, or having the menu close accidentally, one needn't make the menu disappear on release; for adventure games, perhaps it might be better to have a single-click open the menu (perhaps with the icons animating out from the position of the object, to strengthen the connection between the icons and object), and have that stay open until the player closes the menu by clicking a button, closes the menu by right-clicking, or selects an option.
In all fairness, the version that I put together was intended for use with a first-person view (a-la the Frogwares Sherlock Holmes games), in which a given object might take up a rather larger portion of the player's view when close enough for interaction than is the case in third-person games.
QuoteWith dynamic verbs it's hard to do keyboard shortcuts, and I think by always having you think about the available options, it actually makes the limitations on what you can do feel more restrictive.
Do you mean that they restrict the creativity of the designer, or make the restrictions of the game more apparent to the player?
If the former, perhaps -- I can see that one could inadvertently fall into a rut of using the paradigm where another UI might be better. That said, I'm hesitant to throw out a potentially useful UI for fear of that happening.
If the latter then, for myself, at least, I think that it's at the least better than a set list of verbs (as in the 9-verb interface) or the "left-click to interact" interface. A set list of verbs, I think, tends to expose the limits of the game by virtue of finding that many of the actions to have little effect on many hot-spots, even when they might be expected to have some effect. "Left-click to interact", on the other hand, leaves one with only a single action and thus less room to explore available actions.
While an alternative UI or good conversation scripting will indeed likely better a verb-coin in at least some cases, I'm not sure that they're not overkill for others.
For example, if I have a plate of food, I might want to smell it, eat it or pick it up. If these actions are very important, an extra UI might be a good idea, but if they're there to add a little "flavour", so to speak, or intended for bonus points, it might not be worth the time and effort. A conversation, on the other hand, feels a little artificial to me in this situation. An unobtrusive dynamic verb menu seems to me to work better here than either of the other options.
Regarding keyboard shortcuts, I'm not sure that I've ever used them -- what
are the standard keyboard shortcuts for some of the common interfaces? (Since tone can be tricky to convey online, let me say that I ask sincerely -- I'm honestly unfamiliar with using keyboard shortcuts for standard adventure game interfaces, that I recall offhand.)
That said, I think that Snarky does have some good ideas; I really do like the conversation laid out for the "push a character" scenario, and agree that for the "turn a wheel clockwise or counter-clockwise" scenario an alternate UI, perhaps showing the wheel in close-up, is likely one of the better choices (and very likely better than a verb coin), in part by likely feeling rather natural.
Finally, I think that I agree with Ali on the point of adding some description to a single-click interface (whether text, cursor-icon or both): doing so should at the least significantly reduce the ambiguity that seems to be one of the weaknesses of the system.
Quote from: Trapezoid on Wed 04/09/2013 21:35:39
There's a reason open world games are popular. Players enjoy having a high degree of interactivity with the setting. They enjoy manually moving the player. They enjoy having a selection of weapons, the choice of talking to or attacking NPCs, the ability to knock over barrels and smash windows.
In adventure games, maybe the problem isn't having too many verbs, but the fact that most verbs are useless for most hotspots. The game world is not as interactive as the interface implies.
If the player wants to push a Coke machine, why not have a generic shoving animation, even if it doesn't accomplish anything?
Too often adventure games limit the player's control. At best, the protagonist constantly has to cosign on everything before doing it. At worst, there's not even dialogue saying "I don't want to do that."
I'm not saying you need to program an animation for every possible action, but the game needs to reward actions whether or not they're part of the solution, at least sometimes. The advantage of having multiple-verb interface is that it makes the player think about different ways to interact with the environment, but only if that thinking bears fruit with regularity. Otherwise, the player will give up on thinking that way.
We're moving away from UI design to game design here.
But I would say that on the one hand, I agree that a certain level of interactivity in the game world is important for it to not just seem like a static backdrop for puzzles, and that it's a good thing to have a few fun, non-essential activities (Easter eggs, pointless but fun actions, optional minigames, activities that can be repeated even after they've been completed, other gameplay mechanics, ways to collect extra points or achievements, etc.) around the edges of the game, so to speak. However, I do not believe that going for maximum interactivity by adding lots of possible actions that are unrelated to the puzzles makes for a better adventure game.
That's because not all game genres are the same, and what works in an open-world game doesn't necessarily work in an adventure game. In a game like The Sims, just tooling around in the world and seeing what happens is what the game is about. In a standard adventure game, it's about experiencing a particular story by solving particular puzzles. Cutting away extraneous elements is key to making that work. (I feel like the argument in favor of making adventure games open-world is like saying movies shouldn't be edited together into just the important scenes, but should film absolutely everything happening to the characters 24 hours per day, and allow audiences to decide which parts to watch. Or like saying that because building a rich and detailed world is a plus if you're writing a multi-novel fantasy series, it will also improve any joke you're telling.)
So sure, if you want to add a feature to your game that lets your character choose different hats to wear, then go for it! If you think it would be fun to give players the option to play pranks on various NPCs, sure, why not? If you see some part of a room and think "players are definitely going to want to interact with that thing," add a response or maybe even an interaction for it, even if it's not part of a puzzle. But if you end up spending more time adding pointless interactivity to your world than things that are part of the gameplay, then not only are you not really moving the game development forward, you're quite possibly making the game worse.
(Breaking this into multiple posts to reply individually)
Quote from: qptain Nemo on Wed 04/09/2013 22:34:21
And yes, having extra actions presents certain challenges. But that brings us to that the arguments about how it inconveniences the player to click on extra appearing menus and verb coins are kinda hilariously ironic in the context of a genre that is about solving obstacles and inconveniences, no?
No. Because we're not talking about meaningful, fun challenges. We're talking about pointless tedium standing in the way of fun.
You can certainly create fun challenges around UI elements. Guitar Hero is basically all about mastering the controller: you know exactly what you want to do, it's just a matter of getting your fingers to do it quickly enough and at the right time. Or something like Labyrinth, where the fact that you have to control the ball by tilting the board provides the challenge. Or fighting games where you're trying to chain the right commands together to unleash combos.
There are a few examples of things like this in adventure games, but they're mostly minigames or one-offs; none of the major UI paradigms (except perhaps for text parsers) really provide much sheer fun just in terms of using the interface. The best you can hope for is usually amusing mouseover descriptions.
And if you can't make it fun, at least make it transparent, nonintrusive, not-a-pain-in-the-ass-to-use.
Quote from: qptain Nemo on Wed 04/09/2013 22:34:21
I wouldn't be particularly relieved to learn that most adventure game designers are going to adopt a nice 2 or 1 click control scheme just to then go back to the good old "ok, so let's totally ruin the pacing of our story, and the entire potential of the concept, the world and the cast of characters with this sequence of pointless meaningless puzzles about mundane problem solving for the sake of mundane problem solving, ditch all non-vital interactivity and choices, reject mechanical depth along with narrative depth, and end it with a proper "boss battle" crescendo where only the most exhausting obnoxious solutions would apply" school of design. But hey, I only had to use two buttons to survive through all this! Hooray! No, I'm sorry, I'm more concerned about how the game plays, not how many buttons I have to press. I'd press all the buttons in the world for a great game.
People should not make boring games with boring puzzles. This is a thread about interface design, though.
Quote from: qptain Nemo on Wed 04/09/2013 22:34:21
Yes, two click control is awesome. I had no problem with it in Beneath a Steel Sky, or Broken Sword, or Deponia, or Memoria. But it's not awesome to the point where it needs to become a law or the only acceptable solution.
No one is saying it should "become a law or the only acceptable solution." We're saying people should think through what they're trying to do with the UI, and whether there's really any good motivation for picking a more complicated, intrusive, or tedious-to-operate UI. If they have a compelling reason, that's great. (Experimentation or just plain variety is a valid, compelling reason.) If not, then the one/two-click design is the most streamlined, transparent and efficient mode of control yet devised for traditional 3rd person, 2D point-and-click adventure games.
Quote from: qptain Nemo on Wed 04/09/2013 22:34:21
And you don't really have to put the player through anything especially horrible. For instance, employing the keyboard solves a lot of the problems. WASD + mouse kind of setup allows you more than enough buttons to comfortably do pretty much anything without having to press more than two buttons at a time or move the mouse a lot.
To me, this again comes down to a question of what's fun (I think I've talked about this before as the "Fun Principle": games should be fun).
If moving around is fun in your game, then having the player move the character around manually (whether WASD or whatever) is probably a good idea. There are many games that build a lot of their fun from the task of moving (let's just take Prince of Persia as an example). But if moving around
is not fun (and I think that applies to games like Grim Fandango and Dreamfall, for example), then requiring the player to manually move the character around is just a tedious chore.
Quote from: Thaumaturge on Thu 05/09/2013 01:43:10
I don't think that I agree that a verb coin necessarily obscures a significant portion of the object being interacted with, since I think that the backing "coin" can be left out -- and that doing so may actually improve the interface. Something like this:
(http://imageshack.us/a/img706/9610/sirc.png)
1: A cursor icon shows 2: The player clicks, and 3: The player selects an
that more than one icons animate out from icon and clicks on it.
action is available the object's position
(Indeed, in retrospect perhaps I should have used the term "radial menu" rather than "verb coin" in my previous post. ^^; )
I see several problems with this verbcoin version. First, what happens if you click on something closer to the edges of the screen? Seems like the buttons might appear outside the screen so you couldn't click on them. Second, if I understand you correctly, you have to click inside the button in order to activate the action? So that requires a large mouse movement to hit a small target. According to Fitt's Law, this will be a slow action, and it requires both physical effort and concentration. That delay and that effort adds up for every action, and makes the interface tedious to use over time.
If the set of verbs is different for each object, you also have to wait, look all around the screen, and interpret each icon before you can start moving the cursor towards the action you want. If the options are static and always in the same location of the screen or relative to your cursor, on the other hand, you can memorize them and turn the movements into muscle memory, which makes it much faster and requires less attention. (This is a general problem for dynamic menus, and one of the reasons they're unpopular in Windows applications.)
A relatively minor, fixable problem is that there's no indication of what you clicked on (none of the screens show a hotspot name), so you can't be 100% sure that you're acting on what you think. (In the screens, am I clicking on the plate or on the food, for example?)
Quote from: Thaumaturge on Thu 05/09/2013 01:43:10
QuoteWith dynamic verbs it's hard to do keyboard shortcuts, and I think by always having you think about the available options, it actually makes the limitations on what you can do feel more restrictive.
Do you mean that they restrict the creativity of the designer, or make the restrictions of the game more apparent to the player?
The latter.
Quote from: Thaumaturge on Thu 05/09/2013 01:43:10
If the latter then, for myself, at least, I think that it's at the least better than a set list of verbs (as in the 9-verb interface) or the "left-click to interact" interface. A set list of verbs, I think, tends to expose the limits of the game by virtue of finding that many of the actions to have little effect on many hot-spots, even when they might be expected to have some effect. "Left-click to interact", on the other hand, leaves one with only a single action and thus less room to explore available actions.
What I'm arguing is that the object-verb order of commands in the verbcoin paradigm tends to put more attention on the list of commands that are available, and especially so if the commands are dynamic. In the 9-verb interface, after a while it starts to fade into the background: You know push/pull don't really do anything on most things, so you can pretty much ignore them. And in a two-click UI the limitation is built right into the mechanic of operating the game in such a fundamental way that you don't necessarily even notice it, except when you face some situation where you can't make the game understand what you want to do (which is going to happen in any UI). It's like when you're playing a 2D platformer, you don't really miss the third dimension: the fact that you can only move left and right, up and down is such a basic part of the game that you just accept it and get on with playing.
But if in an adventure game, every time you click on an object you are presented with "this is the explicit list of things you can do with this object" which is different for each thing, that puts it much more front and center, makes the limitations more obvious and more obviously arbitrary. Sure, it has benefits as well (particularly if you are good at coming up with the right mix of specific and general interaction options), but I believe it's wrong to assume that just because you're giving players more interactive options, it's therefore going to seem less limiting.
Quote from: Thaumaturge on Thu 05/09/2013 01:43:10
For example, if I have a plate of food, I might want to smell it, eat it or pick it up. If these actions are very important, an extra UI might be a good idea, but if they're there to add a little "flavour", so to speak, or intended for bonus points, it might not be worth the time and effort. A conversation, on the other hand, feels a little artificial to me in this situation. An unobtrusive dynamic verb menu seems to me to work better here than either of the other options.
You don't need a verb coin for this.
Smell: Look at food (right click)
Eat: Use fork on food
Pick up: Use doggy bag on food
Or alternatively (depending on how the food is going to be used in the game)
Eat: Click on food
Pick up: Click on plate
Quote from: Thaumaturge on Thu 05/09/2013 01:43:10
Regarding keyboard shortcuts, I'm not sure that I've ever used them -- what are the standard keyboard shortcuts for some of the common interfaces? (Since tone can be tricky to convey online, let me say that I ask sincerely -- I'm honestly unfamiliar with using keyboard shortcuts for standard adventure game interfaces, that I recall offhand.)
LucasArts had particular letters for particular verbs. From memory:
W: Walk
L: Look
U: Use
P: Pick up (or possibly T for Take?)
G: Give
S: Push (I think; possibly P)
Y: Pull
O: Open
C: Close
Knowing the keyboard shortcuts made things much quicker and less tedious.
Sierra let you use some combination of Enter, Space and Tab, but they weren't shortcuts as much as alternatives for the mouse buttons, I think. Similarly, A two-click UI hardly needs keyboard shortcuts except perhaps for opening the inventory (I would try Tab), other menus, or picking dialog options (the number keys). I don't think there's any consistency when it comes to verb coins.
Quote from: Snarky on Thu 05/09/2013 07:50:55
However, I do not believe that going for maximum interactivity by adding lots of possible actions that are unrelated to the puzzles makes for a better adventure game.
That's a very clever misdirection, but the trick is the expression "a better adventure games" is extremely ambiguous. What does that mean? It's clear you sort of imply that a better adventure game is something that sticks to the core of its traditional gameplay as much as possible. However, that is hardly the only possible interpretation. To me a better adventure game is a more interesting, a more limit-defying, a more narratively rich, a more surprising, unusual adventure game. The Vacuum, The Last Express, Blade Runner, Culpa Innata all made moves away from the traditional and are all I'd call "a better adventure game". You appreciate puzzles in adventure games. That's cool. But I always appreciated the quality of narrative and interactivity first and foremost. Adventure games used to have the level of interactivity absolutely unmatched in other genres. That's what important to me a thousand times more than some inventory puzzles that I also happen to like a bit. You're essentially proposing sacrificing my priorities for yours. Which is fine, actually, I don't care much for the claim of the name "adventure games" in particular that you're trying to conquer, but when you start labelling it "a better way to design"...
Quote from: Snarky on Thu 05/09/2013 07:50:55
(I feel like the argument in favor of making adventure games open-world is like saying movies shouldn't be edited together into just the important scenes, but should film absolutely everything happening to the characters 24 hours per day, and allow audiences to decide which parts to watch. Or like saying that because building a rich and detailed world is a plus if you're writing a multi-novel fantasy series, it will also improve any joke you're telling.)
I'm sorry, but this comparison is a trainwreck. First of all, there are plenty of movies that don't leave the impression that were actually composed out of important scenes at all. Secondly, why would an open world be inherently analogous to random viewing of a lot of mundane footage is beyond me. It'd be only mundane and pointless if it's badly designed. The comparison of a novel with a joke doesn't make any more sense, because jokes aren't highly flexible interactive experiences where you can naturally insert open worlds to a huge benefit. How does any of this disprove the simple idea that you could make some very good adventure games with a more open structure than the traditional linear sequence of puzzles with only one solution to each I don't know. To me a more appropriate comparison would be for example a hybrid of Legend of Kyrandia 2 & 3 multi-solution approach to puzzles and Little Big Adventure semi-openness. Not so hard to imagine I'd say.
Quote from: Snarky on Thu 05/09/2013 07:50:55
In a standard adventure game, it's about experiencing a particular story by solving particular puzzles.
Again, this is very elusive ambiguous statement. While, it's quite factually true, what is it you're arguing for specifically? That more freedom&interactivity focused games are inferior design? Or that they need to REALLY distinguish themselves from "adventure games" and never ever again dare call themselves that? Or what? It's not quite clear what fate you're proposing for "non-standard" adventure games.
Quote from: Snarky on Thu 05/09/2013 07:50:55
But if you end up spending more time adding pointless interactivity to your world than things that are part of the gameplay, then not only are you not really moving the game development forward, you're quite possibly making the game worse.
Not only you label it pointless, you then imply it's not gameplay in itself and that it's inferior to it. That's three highly arguable suggestions, and I can tell you right away I disagree with all three.
Quote from: Snarky on Thu 05/09/2013 07:53:49
To me, this again comes down to a question of what's fun (I think I've talked about this before as the "Fun Principle": games should be fun). If moving around is fun in your game, then having the player move the character around manually (whether WASD or whatever) is probably a good idea. There are many games that build a lot of their fun from the task of moving (let's just take Prince of Persia as an example). But if moving around is not fun (and I think that applies to games like Grim Fandango and Dreamfall, for example), then requiring the player to manually move the character around is just a tedious chore.
Well, you know, exactly. If something in the game is fun, I'd say it's usually worth doing. I don't know why unreasonable lengths of making it easier should be reached. Moving my mouse cursor towards the actions list with occasional extra actions in Death Gate was totally worth it. But I'm all for making things better and easier when it's reasonable. And hey, what do you know, Broken Sword 3 had almost arbitrary sets of up to 4 actions that you could perform absolutely effortlessly without moving any extra muscles anywhere. I thought that was great. But considering ditching extra actions when you actually could make them fun (and only if, I do agree that if you don't need it, then you just don't) because you're scared that selecting something from a menu or pressing an extra button is too much work for the player is doing it backwards in my opinion.
Incidentally, I mostly liked walking around in Dreamfall.
Quote from: Thaumaturge on Thu 05/09/2013 01:43:10
I don't think that I agree that a verb coin necessarily obscures a significant portion of the object being interacted with, since I think that the backing "coin" can be left out -- and that doing so may actually improve the interface. Something like this:
Technically true, but that doesn't solve the other issues with verb coins, i.e. that extra actions are needed to perform a simple task. The player now has to (1) click, (2)
wait for the animation, (3) move the mouse to the right icon, and (4) click again. Frankly, an interface like this would make me quit the game within minutes.
Quote from: Thaumaturge on Thu 05/09/2013 01:43:10
Regarding keyboard shortcuts, I'm not sure that I've ever used them
You should definitely consider them. They only take 10 minutes to implement, and give the player an alternative way to control everything. Some players
really appreciate that, and people that don't want keyboard shortcuts will simply ignore them, as they're never intrusive. Frankly any Lucasarts-based GUI becomes
much faster in the hands of a non-novice player if it has keyboard shortcuts.
And that's the point of an interface, after all: being fast, convenient, and non-intrusive.
Quote from: Radiant on Thu 05/09/2013 09:31:47
Technically true, but that doesn't solve the other issues with verb coins, i.e. that extra actions are needed to perform a simple task. The player now has to (1) click, (2) wait for the animation, (3) move the mouse to the right icon, and (4) click again. Frankly, an interface like this would make me quit the game within minutes.
I think there could be an alternative:
- Short click: default verb (open door, pickup item, look at for RMB);
- Long click: display additional verbs.
If long click is hard to use (to determine a time period needed), it may be "hold and drag to the side" - which opens menu at the place defined by drag direction. Or just double-click.
Quote from: qptain Nemo on Thu 05/09/2013 08:43:02
Quote from: Snarky on Thu 05/09/2013 07:50:55
However, I do not believe that going for maximum interactivity by adding lots of possible actions that are unrelated to the puzzles makes for a better adventure game.
That's a very clever misdirection, but the trick is the expression "a better adventure games" is extremely ambiguous. What does that mean? It's clear you sort of imply that a better adventure game is something that sticks to the core of its traditional gameplay as much as possible. However, that is hardly the only possible interpretation. To me a better adventure game is a more interesting, a more limit-defying, a more narratively rich, a more surprising, unusual adventure game. The Vacuum, The Last Express, Blade Runner, Culpa Innata all made moves away from the traditional and are all I'd call "a better adventure game". You appreciate puzzles in adventure games. That's cool. But I always appreciated the quality of narrative and interactivity first and foremost. Adventure games used to have the level of interactivity absolutely unmatched in other genres. That's what important to me a thousand times more than some inventory puzzles that I also happen to like a bit. You're essentially proposing sacrificing my priorities for yours. Which is fine, actually, I don't care much for the claim of the name "adventure games" in particular that you're trying to conquer, but when you start labelling it "a better way to design"...
It sounds like you've completely misunderstood what I was saying, as demonstrated by the fact that I value and appreciate all those games you list, and personally really enjoy several of them. (I've praised The Vacuum as one of my favorite AGS games numerous times.)
But Trapezoid wasn't talking about alternative gameplay elements. He was talking of interactivity that doesn't tie in to the gameplay at all, that doesn't accomplish anything:
Quote from: Trapezoid on Wed 04/09/2013 21:35:39
If the player wants to push a Coke machine, why not have a generic shoving animation, even if it doesn't accomplish anything? [...]
I'm not saying you need to program an animation for every possible action, but the game needs to reward actions whether or not they're part of the solution, at least sometimes.
Quote from: qptain Nemo on Thu 05/09/2013 08:43:02
Quote from: Snarky on Thu 05/09/2013 07:50:55
In a standard adventure game, it's about experiencing a particular story by solving particular puzzles.
Again, this is very elusive ambiguous statement. While, it's quite factually true, what is it you're arguing for specifically? That more freedom&interactivity focused games are inferior design? Or that they need to REALLY distinguish themselves from "adventure games" and never ever again dare call themselves that? Or what? It's not quite clear what fate you're proposing for "non-standard" adventure games.
I'm saying I think the qualities of "open world" games are largely incompatible with the qualities of adventure games, and that you need to strike a (fairly conservative) balance when it comes to "pointless interactivity": while a little bit is great, adding more and more random, non-goal-oriented crap to do in an adventure game pretty quickly just dilutes the actual game, making it worse.
Quote from: qptain Nemo on Thu 05/09/2013 08:43:02
Quote from: Snarky on Thu 05/09/2013 07:50:55
But if you end up spending more time adding pointless interactivity to your world than things that are part of the gameplay, then not only are you not really moving the game development forward, you're quite possibly making the game worse.
Not only you label it pointless, you then imply it's not gameplay in itself and that it's inferior to it. That's three highly arguable suggestions, and I can tell you right away I disagree with all three.
I didn't label it pointless, Trapezoid did, by saying "it accomplishes nothing" and "isn't part of the solution."
Quote from: qptain Nemo on Thu 05/09/2013 08:43:02
Well, you know, exactly. If something in the game is fun, I'd say it's usually worth doing. I don't know why unreasonable lengths of making it easier should be reached. Moving my mouse cursor towards the actions list with occasional extra actions in Death Gate was totally worth it. But I'm all for making things better and easier when it's reasonable. And hey, what do you know, Broken Sword 3 had almost arbitrary sets of up to 4 actions that you could perform absolutely effortlessly without moving any extra muscles anywhere. I thought that was great. But considering ditching extra actions when you actually could make them fun (and only if, I do agree that if you don't need it, then you just don't) because you're scared that selecting something from a menu or pressing an extra button is too much work for the player is doing it backwards in my opinion.
Again,
no one is saying that! If you think having certain actions in the game will be fun, by all means put them in! But then think carefully about the most effortless, least intrusive, least complicated and easiest to learn UI you can design to carry out those actions (I include in this concept of UI the possibility of accessing the actions through special inventory items, dialog options, etc.): and the answer will, in my opinion, almost never be a verb coin.
Quote from: qptain Nemo on Thu 05/09/2013 08:43:02
Incidentally, I mostly liked walking around in Dreamfall.
Ummm... why? It's not like there was any gameplay to it: you couldn't jump, you couldn't fall, it wasn't really interactive since you couldn't really
do anything; mostly the levels were so linear you were simply walking forward from Point A to Point B (very little exploring), and apart from a couple of extremely poorly implemented chase/stealth sequences, there was no challenge or skill to it. It was only a chore you had to perform in order to play the game.
I remember one level as literally consisting solely of walking up a hill, without any opportunity for interaction.
Again, I'm not saying walking/moving can not be a fun thing, even in an adventure game. That's what Journey was all about, right? But it's something you have to design for. In Dreamfall, it seemed like they'd only thought "Oh, it's 3D so we have to do direct control. Hey, people love Tomb Raider so they'll love this, right?" without given any deeper thought to why moving around is fun in Tomb Raider.
EDIT: removed
Quote from: Trapezoid on Wed 04/09/2013 21:35:39
In adventure games, maybe the problem isn't having too many verbs, but the fact that most verbs are useless for most hotspots. The game world is not as interactive as the interface implies.
If the player wants to push a Coke machine, why not have a generic shoving animation, even if it doesn't accomplish anything?
If the game designer tries to make various responses/animations to most hotspots for almost every verb, adds hotkeys to each verb (walk, talk, interact, inventory)...then is a Sierra-Style interface "acceptable"?
I think that one thing is being missed regarding my suggested dynamic verb menu UI: that UI only shows up when there are multiple actions available on a given object. In cases in which only one action is available, it falls back to a one-click system, albeit one that displays an icon for the action that will be taken (which should, I think, at the least reduce the ambiguity that has been mentioned as present in some one-click systems).
Quote from: SnarkyFirst, what happens if you click on something closer to the edges of the screen?
The simplest solution, I think, would be to place limits on the position of the interface to prevent buttons from being placed off-screen; it seems as though it would be simple enough to prevent this from causing the buttons from overlapping the object, perhaps by placing the UI next to (or above or below, depending on which screen edge was involved) the object in that case (with the animation again helping to maintain the connection between the two).
QuoteSecond, if I understand you correctly, you have to click inside the button in order to activate the action? So that requires a large mouse movement to hit a small target. According to Fitt's Law, this will be a slow action, and it requires both physical effort and concentration. That delay and that effort adds up for every action, and makes the interface tedious to use over time.
First, as mentioned above, the radial menu appears only for objects that have multiple actions, and which -- going with what you said earlier -- haven't been deemed to be better served by a different interface (such as your example of turning a wheel). Thus it (hopefully) wouldn't become tiresome. I also think that you overestimate the slowness, effort and concentration involved -- although I'll admit that it may be wiser to risk overestimating such things than underestimating them.
As to the size of the buttons, their hot-spots could perhaps be made bigger than their apparent size to allow for imprecise clicks on the part of the player.
QuoteA relatively minor, fixable problem is that there's no indication of what you clicked on ...
True, but that's an oversight in my example, rather than a flaw in the interface, I think: I was perhaps concentrating on portraying the radial menu, at the expense of thinking about other elements of the interface.
QuoteWhat I'm arguing is that the object-verb order of commands in the verbcoin paradigm tends to put more attention on the list of commands that are available, and especially so if the commands are dynamic. ...
Hmm... I think that this may be a matter of individual response, because I think that my own experience in playing adventure games has been to the contrary: to me, dynamic verbs make the world feel more reactive, more open to varied interactions, than with other interfaces.
A good example, I think, might be the interface used by Gabriel Knight 3 (which used a list rather than a radial menu, and didn't include animations). It remains one of my favourite interfaces, I don't recall it ever becoming tedious, don't think that I ever felt that the buttons were too small and feel that the inclusion of dynamic verbs actually made the game world seem more open than most games as a result of providing options not usually available.
QuoteYou don't need a verb coin for this.
Smell: Look at food (right click)
Eat: Use fork on food
Pick up: Use doggy bag on food
Hmm... To my mind, the inventory item solution feels clunky: it clutters my inventory with objects that may have no other use, and means adding yet another for each such action. If there's a bowl of soup as well we add a spoon, and so on as other actions on other objects become available.
To me the dynamic list feels more elegant in this situation.
Further, how would you apply that concept to allowing the player the options both to sit in a chair (so as to do some writing, for example) and to move the chair (to get something from a high shelf, perhaps)? I suppose that you could make the action dependant on the time, or game events (such as having the character move the chair when it becomes relevant, and then not again), but that doesn't seem to be easily communicated to the player, or you could introduce another object to do the work of the chair when moved, but then you're bending the game around the interface.
If you mean having a separate hot-spot for the fork, then I think that it's all too easy to miss that they're separate hot-spots (even with tooltips, a quick mouse-movement can easily jump over the "plate" bit unless the developer has bothered to include a close-up of the plate), making it easy to miss that both actions are available.
QuoteOr alternatively (depending on how the food is going to be used in the game)
Eat: Click on food
Pick up: Click on plate
As a player, I'm not a huge fan of this, myself: as mentioned above, it can be all too easy to miss a small, nearby but separate hot-spot, I feel.
QuoteLucasArts had particular letters for particular verbs. From memory:
...
Wow, to my eye those LucasArts keys look horribly unintuitive.
Nevertheless, thank you -- while on reflection I'm familiar with such shortcuts as "tab" for the inventory, and do now remember a few games in which I've used shortcuts for one or two other things, I don't think that I knew about either the Sierra or LucasArts shortcuts that you mentioned.
(Still regarding shortcuts)
Quote from: RadiantYou should definitely consider them. ...
You make some good points; I'll hopefully try to keep shortcuts in mind -- thank you. ^_^
QuoteQuoteI don't think that I agree that a verb coin necessarily obscures a significant portion of the object being interacted with, since I think that the backing "coin" can be left out -- and that doing so may actually improve the interface. Something like this:
Technically true, but that doesn't solve the other issues with verb coins, i.e. that extra actions are needed to perform a simple task. The player now has to (1) click, (2) wait for the animation, (3) move the mouse to the right icon, and (4) click again. Frankly, an interface like this would make me quit the game within minutes.
Really? To my mind it seems less onerous than most other UIs, excluding only one-click (which limits the available number of actions or calls for additional UIs or potentially-shoehorned inventory items or conversations. Bear in mind that the animation needn't be long -- 0.1 seconds, perhaps 0.2, I would imagine. However, this could easily be a matter of personal preference.
Again, the interface used by Gabriel Knight 3 (as described above) stands out in my memory as one of my favourite adventure game interfaces, as mentioned above. Similarly, I recall very much enjoying the radial menus used in Neverwinter Nights. (In fact, as I recall, those two games were my inspirations for this UI.)
Quote from: General_Knox on Thu 05/09/2013 17:42:02
If the game designer tries to make various responses/animations to most hotspots for almost every verb, adds hotkeys to each verb (walk, talk, interact, inventory)...then is a Sierra-Style interface "acceptable"?
Yes. They're all acceptable. But is it the best choice? What I advocate is that the "various responses/animations" should be
meaningful in order to justify the interface.
If I click "Talk to" + "Brick wall", it doesn't matter to me if the player character says "I can't talk to that." or if he walks over to the wall and attempts, humorously, to engage in conversation with it while gesturing wildly. Neither of those responses are
meaningful (though one is more entertaining than the other) and they don't justify the interface.
To justify the multi-verb interface you must satisfy at least one of the following two conditions on at least one puzzle. Obviously, doing these on many puzzles is preferable.
- At least two of the verbs must have different meaningful responses on a single item. For example you can "Push" a heavy chest to block a doorway when someone is chasing you, but you can also "Open" the heavy chest to find a useful item inside.
- A verb must be used in an unexpected or non-intuitive situation. For example, you have to "Talk to" that brick wall because it's actually a magical brick wall that can talk, and figuring that out is part of the puzzle. "Talking to" NPCs or "Interacting with" light switches does not satisfy this condition.
I think that if your game doesn't do at least one of these two things, and maybe even if it does these things but doesn't do them
enough, you probably would have been better off with a simpler interface.
(Exceptions allowed for games that just have really funny responses to multiple verbs, even if they're not actually meaningful.)
Quote from: Thaumaturge on Thu 05/09/2013 19:16:58
First, as mentioned above, the radial menu appears only for objects that have multiple actions, and which -- going with what you said earlier -- haven't been deemed to be better served by a different interface (such as your example of turning a wheel). Thus it (hopefully) wouldn't become tiresome. I also think that you overestimate the slowness, effort and concentration involved -- although I'll admit that it may be wiser to risk overestimating such things than underestimating them.
I think this underlines the fault in your reasoning. An interface is not there to look cool or be pretty. An interface is there to
seamlessly let the user interact with the game. The question of
how much concentration is needed, the issue is that
any concentration is needed in the first place. The player should be concentrating on the story you're trying to tell, not on getting the interface to work.
If in this thread here, five or six people suggest not to use something (in this case a verbcoin) you'd better believe there's five or six
thousand people outside this thread but that also won't play your game if it has a verbcoin, so using a verbcoin would just cut a huge chunk away from your target audience. After all, there are tens of thousands of free games on the web, so if your game has an interface that they don't like or don't understand, they'll go play the next one. Sorry if that sounds harsh, but that's the way it works.
Quote from: Vince Twelve on Thu 05/09/2013 20:33:06To justify the multi-verb interface you must satisfy at least one of the following two conditions on at least one puzzle. Obviously, doing these on many puzzles is preferable.
- At least two of the verbs must have different meaningful responses on a single item. For example you can "Push" a heavy chest to block a doorway when someone is chasing you, but you can also "Open" the heavy chest to find a useful item inside.
- A verb must be used in an unexpected or non-intuitive situation. For example, you have to "Talk to" that brick wall because it's actually a magical brick wall that can talk, and figuring that out is part of the puzzle. "Talking to" NPCs or "Interacting with" light switches does not satisfy this condition.
Yes. It's hard to steer away from game design on this topic, because the biggest difference between one-click and multi-verb is the potential for interactivity. One-click tends to become a "click on everything" game. Multi-verb doesn't automatically avoid this problem, either, but if you flesh out the game environment well enough, every action/hotspot combination becomes a
Schroedinger's Cat of meaningfulness. You want to encourage the player to think "what if I..." instead of merely clicking everything. Maybe I was getting a little crazy with my suggestion of making an animation for every action, but my point was that having multiple verbs is only preferable when they don't feel extraneous.
I think DOTT is a great example of this. First thing you do in the game is open the clock. In order to discover the secret passage, you have to wonder if the clock is openable. A little specificity helps put you in the game. That game's loaded with objects you need to push and pull and open and close. (And, incidentally, most of the time when you try to push/pull/open/close something, the protagonist actually walks up to it and *touches it* before saying "I can't move it." This simple gesture helps reinforce that there ARE things that can be moved, and that the protagonist won't automatically shoot down all of your ideas.)
Quote from: Snarky on Thu 05/09/2013 10:36:01
It sounds like you've completely misunderstood what I was saying, as demonstrated by the fact that I value and appreciate all those games you list, and personally really enjoy several of them. (I've praised The Vacuum as one of my favorite AGS games numerous times.)
I'm sorry, I stand corrected then. Rather merrily, in fact, because I'm glad to hear you appreciate those games and The Vacuum in particular. Let's clarify it then!
Quote from: Snarky on Thu 05/09/2013 10:36:01
But Trapezoid wasn't talking about alternative gameplay elements. He was talking of interactivity that doesn't tie in to the gameplay at all, that doesn't accomplish anything:
Quote from: Trapezoid on Wed 04/09/2013 21:35:39
If the player wants to push a Coke machine, why not have a generic shoving animation, even if it doesn't accomplish anything? [...]
I'm not saying you need to program an animation for every possible action, but the game needs to reward actions whether or not they're part of the solution, at least sometimes.
Fair enough. However, I'd like to note in the part you're quoting he says "reward actions whether or not they're part of the solution". I'm not sure it's fair to equate "reward" to "not acomplishing anything".
Quote from: Snarky on Thu 05/09/2013 10:36:01
I'm saying I think the qualities of "open world" games are largely incompatible with the qualities of adventure games, and that you need to strike a (fairly conservative) balance when it comes to "pointless interactivity": while a little bit is great, adding more and more random, non-goal-oriented crap to do in an adventure game pretty quickly just dilutes the actual game, making it worse.
Can't say I agree at all. Again, you perceive it as "non-goal-oriented crap", and I perceive it as precious non-goal-oriented bits. I don't remember ever being dissatisfied with an adventure games for having too much interactivity. Not in Legend entertaiment's games, not in Edna and Harvey. You call puzzle-solving "the actual game" and it makes me wonder why would interactivity for the sake of interactivity or for the sake of immersion, or even just for fun not be a part of the "actual game". Let alone that it can as well actually severely affect the game's world and the characters and the story, and that many open-world games are actually terribly goal-oriented (there's nothing really to do in Skyrim other than just to perform quests or randomly kill everything you see). The only reason I can find is viewing games and adventure games in particular through challenge-centric priorities, where challenges are virtually the only thing that really matters.
And I can understand different priorities, and how they make certain things less appealing, but I don't really see how optional interactivity can ruin the experience for somebody who doesn't care for it much. It will if it makes puzzles much harder simply merely by its presence, by increasing the numbers of things you can try, but that in turn will mean that the puzzles are illogical and rely too much on guessing correctly and bruteforcing through all available actions, and that's bad design anyway in my book. And if you ask me, that kind of thing plagues adventure games design
way more than excessive interactivity.
So, in other words, I can't relate/understand why you say it will make adventure games worse. I have noted that you're proposing balance not eradication though. Also I suppose you wouldn't treat interactivity that affects the world and the game state significantly even if it's not goal-oriented per se the same way as interactivity that is "pointless" and mostly superficial? Or? What about interactivity that has a point but its only point is to increase immersion? Again, I remember you said "balance" but it's hard to guess where you draw the line when you say "non-goal-oriented crap"...
Quote from: Snarky on Thu 05/09/2013 10:36:01
I didn't label it pointless, Trapezoid did, by saying "it accomplishes nothing" and "isn't part of the solution."
First of all, "isn't part of the solution" isn't exactly the same as "pointless" unless puzzles are the only thing that matter at all in adventure games. But even then, you're still claiming it's not a part of the gameplay. I disagree. A lot of fun of playing well made text adventure games is being able to screw around. It can yield great fun. But if you're excluding this sort of thing out of the gameplay, you're making the enjoyment of that sound akin to playing the main menu of Doom (http://youtu.be/cITeIrcGVXw).
I agree that puzzle-solving is one of the core components of adventure games and their gameplay. But I don't think that it's all there is to them. I love cozy utterly linear puzzle-centric adventure games, otherwise I wouldn't be praising the hell out of Revolution, Daedalic and Pendulo for excelling at exactly that. But I don't agree with labelling any deviations as (potentially) bad design.
Quote from: Snarky on Thu 05/09/2013 10:36:01
Again, no one is saying that! If you think having certain actions in the game will be fun, by all means put them in! But then think carefully about the most effortless, least intrusive, least complicated and easiest to learn UI you can design to carry out those actions (I include in this concept of UI the possibility of accessing the actions through special inventory items, dialog options, etc.): and the answer will, in my opinion, almost never be a verb coin.
I have a very hard time imagining how the hell can you make selecting an item from your arbitrarily-sized inventory significantly easier to perform than selecting an additional action from whatever, assuming both implemented as reasonable as possible. :) And "Verb coin" is a dangerously ambiguous term I feel. Those things that you have to summon by holding the mouse button in are abominations. But if you just click on a thing and a small menu (possibly consisting of icons)appears nearby, is that a verb coin? Or is it just a context menu?
And actually come to think of it, why is selecting from an inventory/dialogue window somehow so drastically different than selecting from an instant verb coin/context menu? You choose an item from a selection of items. It's the same process?..
Quote from: Snarky on Thu 05/09/2013 10:36:01
Ummm... why? It's not like there was any gameplay to it: you couldn't jump, you couldn't fall, it wasn't really interactive since you couldn't really do anything; mostly the levels were so linear you were simply walking forward from Point A to Point B (very little exploring), and apart from a couple of extremely poorly implemented chase/stealth sequences, there was no challenge or skill to it. It was only a chore you had to perform in order to play the game.
I remember one level as literally consisting solely of walking up a hill, without any opportunity for interaction.
Again, I'm not saying walking/moving can not be a fun thing, even in an adventure game. That's what Journey was all about, right? But it's something you have to design for. In Dreamfall, it seemed like they'd only thought "Oh, it's 3D so we have to do direct control. Hey, people love Tomb Raider so they'll love this, right?" without given any deeper thought to why moving around is fun in Tomb Raider.
Ah, and yet again we return to what "gameplay" is. Yes, I'd definitely prefer if Dreamfall was a billion times more interactive. However, it still had a really nicely realized world, very pretty and quite immersive. And since I was immersed, the mere act of walking through a nice world and looking at some things was a pleasant experience. If it allowed for more interactivity and exploration, walking in it would be tremendously more pleasant, as well as if it was enhanced some way as you say. But even as it was, it was pleasant to act on being immersed even by just walking. It's a chore, if you think about it as of a task that you have to accomplish, but if you think of it as walking through nice places, it's pleasant.
So to sum it up, how I see it, you really care about the distinction between "pointless" and "non-pointless" interactivity (and maybe further between "non-pointless" and "goal-oriented"?). And I, frankly, don't. I want as much interactivity as I can get. But of course the more consequences it bears, the sweeter it is. It doesn't mean it has to be in the form of adventure games, true, but I'm still to see a compelling argument as of why would it spoil and taint adventure games so badly to have the level of interactivity they once had in their finest examples (again, I point you to Legend entertainment, whose best games in my opinion
dwarf most of Sierra's and Lucas' offerings in terms of quality of adventure gameplay as well as content) or maybe even more. And you still didn't say what fate do you propose for the "non-standard adventure games".
Quote from: SnarkySecond, if I understand you correctly, you have to click inside the button in order to activate the action? So that requires a large mouse movement to hit a small target. According to Fitt's Law, this will be a slow action, and it requires both physical effort and concentration. That delay and that effort adds up for every action, and makes the interface tedious to use over time.
On reflection, I think that you may actually have a point here. I think that I see a way to fix the problem, but I fear that it won't work well near the screen edges. (I do think that it would work well in first-person adventure games, however.)
So, what about a linear list of dynamic verbs, likely as icons with tooltips? It seems to have worked for Gabriel Knight 3: for all that's been written about that game, for or against, I don't seem to recall ever seeing criticism of the verb list. It should also be very easy to prevent the list from either covering the hot-spot or placing buttons outside of the screen, and in terms of hitting the buttons one need only navigate to them once, after which moving along the list should be fairly simple.
Quote from: Radiant on Thu 05/09/2013 20:35:28
I think this underlines the fault in your reasoning. An interface is not there to look cool or be pretty. An interface is there to seamlessly let the user interact with the game. The question of how much concentration is needed, the issue is that any concentration is needed in the first place. The player should be concentrating on the story you're trying to tell, not on getting the interface to work.
I'm not convinced that there's likely to be any interface that requires
no concentration; it's then just a matter of
how much is called for. Even a single-click interface calls for enough concentration to hit the (sometimes relatively small) hot-spots in the world, which I believe that Snarky pointed out as a potential problem for the radial menu.
QuoteIf in this thread here, five or six people suggest not to use something (in this case a verbcoin) you'd better believe there's five or six thousand people outside this thread but that also won't play your game if it has a verbcoin ...
On what do you base this? I sincerely doubt that the posters in this thread make a terribly representative sample (it seems to me that it's likely skewed by a handful of elements), and as a sample it's far too small to likely be useful; if you're suggesting that I defer to expertise then the number of people responding doesn't seem terribly relevant. The numbers that you posted may seem scary, but I don't currently see a basis for them.
Those arguments aside, are you opposed to the radial-menu format specifically, or any form of dynamic verb list? If the former, see my new response to Snarky above: I've conceded that a radial menu may well be poorly-suited to a third-person adventure.
Overly small hotspots are also a flaw in game design, yes.
Anyway, I object to this kind of radial menu. I'm not principally opposed to dynamic verb lists, but I do think verb coins of any kind are not a suitable interface by the standards of this decade.
Quote from: Crimson Wizard on Thu 05/09/2013 09:41:55
Quote from: Radiant on Thu 05/09/2013 09:31:47
Technically true, but that doesn't solve the other issues with verb coins, i.e. that extra actions are needed to perform a simple task. The player now has to (1) click, (2) wait for the animation, (3) move the mouse to the right icon, and (4) click again. Frankly, an interface like this would make me quit the game within minutes.
I think there could be an alternative:
- Short click: default verb (open door, pickup item, look at for RMB);
- Long click: display additional verbs.
If long click is hard to use (to determine a time period needed), it may be "hold and drag to the side" - which opens menu at the place defined by drag direction. Or just double-click.
I like this. This option allows the convenience of giving the player a default interaction on the one button/one touch/LMB, and it also allows for more complex contemplative interaction. While the verb-coin circle (mentioned in other posts above) is creative, it's been done many times before, and I don't think it's ever taken off for many of the reasons cited. My vote: It just gets in the way. To implement Crimson's long-click idea, I think I'd make a pop-up/slide-in verb coin bar on one of the the edges of the screen with a limited amount of useful (and used!) verbs.
I don't like it; having a difference between short-clicking and long-clicking is very unintuitive. It's basically a verbcoin that only displays if you hold the mouse button down long enough.
Okay, with all these restrictions created to keep in mind the touchscreen mobile user, I'm curious...aside from single button (with not even mouse-hover text possible, it seems?), what would be an appropriate mobile device interface? I've never had one, so I'm a bit in the dark here. Andail mentioned something about two-finger touch simulating right-click?
Quote from: Crimson Wizard on Thu 05/09/2013 09:41:55
I think there could be an alternative:
- Short click: default verb (open door, pickup item, look at for RMB);
- Long click: display additional verbs.
If long click is hard to use (to determine a time period needed), it may be "hold and drag to the side" - which opens menu at the place defined by drag direction. Or just double-click.
I like this idea too. However I'd let the player choose how they want the additional verbs to be displayed in the options (double-click, long-click for "x" amount of time, etc). If you double-click on a hotspot or hold down of "x" amount of time, the additional verbs could be displayed as a semi-transparent list or just alpha text labels, as small as possible so it wont bug the player too much.
Man, now Im thinking of going back and offering 3 modes to choose from: Sierra classic, verb coin and 2-click.:shocked:
Quote from: Radiant on Sat 07/09/2013 19:10:42
Anyway, I object to this kind of radial menu. I'm not principally opposed to dynamic verb lists, but I do think verb coins of any kind are not a suitable interface by the standards of this decade.
Why is a dynamic verb menu appearing nearby the point of interaction so much worse than a dynamic menu appearing elsewhere in a fixed place? I sort of prefer the latter too, but still.
Quote from: qptain Nemo on Sun 08/09/2013 20:04:37
Why is a dynamic verb menu appearing nearby the point of interaction so much worse than a dynamic menu appearing elsewhere in a fixed place? I sort of prefer the latter too, but still.
It's not about where the menu appears, but about how many actions you must take in sequence in order to activate the verb.
But I don't see how it's possible to decrease the said amount of actions for dynamic verbs to less than 2. You need to select the subject and then you need to select the verb. You could like make it so it's enough to hover over the hotspot and then you can select the verbs with WASD or the mousewheel, and I like that idea, but it doesn't really appear all that radically different from a verb coin that acts like a graphical context menu.
Well, for both a one-verb game and a "left to use, right to look", it is one. And for a verbcoin it's three actions, which is more than necessary.
Quote from: Radiant on Sun 08/09/2013 20:44:09
Well, for both a one-verb game and a "left to use, right to look", it is one. And for a verbcoin it's three actions, which is more than necessary.
What? So basically you say you're not against dynamic verbs, just against the verbcoin, and then I ask you well, how would you implement the dynamic verbs, and you respond by saying well, you just don't? (wtf) Errr...
I don't see you asking how to implement dynamic verbs, I see you asking why a verbcoin is worse than a menu in a fixed place, and then asking how a game can require less than two user actions to select a verb. Hence my response.
Ok. So let me clarify: do you see any way to make selecting a verb from a dynamic list any easier than with two actions or my "one and a half action" proposal?
And to be fair, I did specify I was talking about dynamic verbs. I said "I don't see how it's possible to decrease the said amount of actions for dynamic verbs to less than 2".
Wouldn't verb coins work pretty well on a tablet? 'Click on hotspot to open verb coin and click again to choose your action'. I get the impression it wouldn't be so bad. I do like the BASS style system, myself, but I really don't see all that much flaws with a verb coin.
I get the whole 'let's make things easier for the player thing', but honestly, I'd hate to say the day where adventure games lose the sense of an open world and all the interactive possibilities become almost 'verboten'. I get the impression that many feel that the player should just look at the screen and it say "Well done, completed the game!".
Whilst I can see casual players preferring the two click system, I can also see the traditionalists liking more possibilities. I guess it's just finding a common ground?
On the case of verbs in general, I do find 'verb lists' a little more fidgety.
Quote from: Sunny Penguin on Sun 08/09/2013 22:33:38
I guess it's just finding a common ground?
I'm not sure it's what we need. There are clearly (at least) two schools of thought here: many possible actions vs "left to use, right to look". And both have their merits but they are hardly combinable. I think it'd only enrich the genre and gaming in general if both would remain and prosper, independent of each other and yet united.
Quote from: Sunny Penguin on Sun 08/09/2013 22:33:38
On the case of verbs in general, I do find 'verb lists' a little more fidgety.
But what is the difference between a dynamic verb coin and a dynamic verb list of the same size as you see it? I feel it's essentially the same thing.
Quote from: qptain Nemo on Sun 08/09/2013 22:49:26
But what is the difference between a dynamic verb coin and a dynamic verb list of the same size as you see it? I feel it's essentially the same thing.
If I understand correctly, it's the static verb lists that I find fidgety. As for the dynamic verb lists and the coin comparison - if they appear in the same place and ultimately do the same thing, yeah, it's the same. I just think the possibilities are there to make the coin look more aesthetically pleasing with nice 'pretty' pictures. Doesn't even have to be a coin, could be a triangle? Or bubbles? I think the verb coin has gotten some bad rap. A list
would suffice though, you know what I'm saying?
Yeah, I see. And I agree, if you can make it prettier then it's even better for sure.
This might be a good place to share the interface I've made:
http://www.neilcic.com/testgame.zip
It's basically a bunch of crap I've scripted purely for fun over the past year or so. I'm not even working on any specific game. There are definitely bugs, and the code is probably in no way understandable or releasable, sorry.
It uses an onscreen interface. I prefer the bottom-third method, but it could definitely be less obtrusive, semitransparent, etc.
Clicking on the verb icons with either mouse button will assign that verb to the mouse button clicked. The ampersand button assigns the context menu feature.
This way you have quite a few options as to how you want to play. If the player wants "left click use, right click look", they can quickly set it to work that way. Or they can play LucasArts/Sierra-style (click the verb, then the object, "constructing a sentence" style.) OR they can use the popup context menu (which remembers your last chosen verb to minimize scrolling.)
edit: Oops, forgot audio.vox
One way to eliminate the whole problem is to just implement a voice-command "interface". Just tell the game what you want to do, hehe! :=
Quote from: General_Knox on Mon 09/09/2013 03:34:34
One way to eliminate the whole problem is to just implement a voice-command "interface". Just tell the game what you want to do, hehe! :=
Why not go the whole way and link it to
thought commands? :grin:
Interesting discussion, this.
What it boils down to for me is what kind of interaction interface I enjoy in a game, and that would have to be a verbcoin/radial menu/thing, like the one in Full Throttle with "hand/eyes/mouth/foot". That's why my game has such a menu although it's not quite as elaborate looking (looks just like a D-pad).
There's some talk about redundant actions that end up not being used since they are used so rarely. That's fine. For instance, the "foot" action is rarely used, which gives the player that "ah-ha, I forgot about that!" moment when they remember to try it on something the other actions won't work on.
I don't see the point in freaking out over having to press twice instead of once to do something in an adventure game, even if it's a whooping 100% extra action that needs to be taken. People aren't so lazy it's going to be a dealbreaker. Also, what's wrong about holding the button down to have a menu pop up? This is second nature to people today what with the smartphones and tablets that have saturated our lives.
We can keep shaving milliseconds off here, and cut a click out there, but I feel some of the thoughts in this thread border a little bit on the absurd, like it's from Zynga's playbook where the idea is to hook as many people as possible, remove any and all obstacles, and keep them playing by making it as easy as possible. But it's just absurd to me because I try to make a game that I would enjoy playing, and that doesn't mean a user interface that's simplified down to one click that could be anything.
Not saying I can't enjoy a two-button interface. The Blackwell games are very enjoyable, but it makes up for the lack of interface by having two characters that need to interplay to solve puzzles, and sometimes there's a notebook that you can use in various ways.
Quote from: David Ostman on Mon 09/09/2013 11:27:39I don't see the point in freaking out over having to press twice instead of once to do something in an adventure game, even if it's a whooping 100% extra action that needs to be taken. People aren't so lazy it's going to be a dealbreaker. Also, what's wrong about holding the button down to have a menu pop up? This is second nature to people today what with the smartphones and tablets that have saturated our lives.
I'm not a fan of holding down a button. Clicking is decisive, you can get fast at it. CMI-style verb coins involve waiting for the interface. I'd rather click twice.
Clicking and dragging, on the other hand, isn't that bad. Sort of like gestures. I think that would more comfortable on a tablet than a mouse, though.
Quote from: CaptainD on Mon 09/09/2013 08:46:19
Why not go the whole way and link it to thought commands? :grin:
Haha yes! I'll get to work on that right now actually.:=
Quote from: Trapezoid on Sun 08/09/2013 23:49:43
This might be a good place to share the interface I've made:
http://www.neilcic.com/testgame.zip
It's basically a bunch of crap I've scripted purely for fun over the past year or so. I'm not even working on any specific game. There are definitely bugs, and the code is probably in no way understandable or releasable, sorry.
It uses an onscreen interface. I prefer the bottom-third method, but it could definitely be less obtrusive, semitransparent, etc.
Clicking on the verb icons with either mouse button will assign that verb to the mouse button clicked. The ampersand button assigns the context menu feature.
This way you have quite a few options as to how you want to play. If the player wants "left click use, right click look", they can quickly set it to work that way. Or they can play LucasArts/Sierra-style (click the verb, then the object, "constructing a sentence" style.) OR they can use the popup context menu (which remembers your last chosen verb to minimize scrolling.)
edit: Oops, forgot audio.vox
OMG! Trapezoid, this control scheme is brilliant! I love it. :) The scrolling menu alone is pretty damn great but combined with the ability to reassign buttons it's simply amazing. I'm assuming you don't mind it being reimplemented by others?
edit: Also I loved all the random jokes in the demo. I literally LOL'd. ;-D
Quote from: David Ostman on Mon 09/09/2013 11:27:39Also, what's wrong about holding the button down to have a menu pop up?
It's both excruciatingly frustrating and unneccesary. As apparent from this thread I'm a fan of extra options but making me both put so much effort into activating it and
wait an arbitrary amount of time for no good reason whatsoever every time I interact is on the verge of being insulting and humiliating.
Quote from: qptain Nemo on Tue 10/09/2013 07:52:11OMG! Trapezoid, this control scheme is brilliant! I love it. :) The scrolling menu alone is pretty damn great but combined with the ability to reassign buttons it's simply amazing. I'm assuming you don't mind it being reimplemented by others?
edit: Also I loved all the random jokes in the demo. I literally LOL'd. ;-D
Haha, thanks. Feel free to steal ideas from it. I wish I could share the code, but I'd probably need to rewrite it completely to make it sane-looking.
I love your system, Trapezoid. I like the fact that the menu options move around your cursor rather than your cursor moving up and down the menu. This way, your cursor remains trained on the actual object/hotspot that you are interacting with. I would like verbcoins a lot more if they also did this.
Quote from: Stupot+ on Tue 10/09/2013 22:38:32
I love your system, Trapezoid. I like the fact that the menu options move around your cursor rather than your cursor moving up and down the menu. This way, your cursor remains trained on the actual object/hotspot that you are interacting with. I would like verbcoins a lot more if they also did this.
Cool! I like it too, heh :)
I'm a little late in returning to this thread (for which I apologise), but I'd like to add that I, too, rather like your prototype, Trapezoid. I think it worked very well, and found it to be rather intuitive. ^_^
I'll confess that I think that in the context menu I'd prefer to move the mouse to each option rather than moving the option to the mouse, but given other opinions to the contrary I daresay that this is simply a matter of personal taste.
There were a couple of mentions of games of other genres back there, and it got me thinking how utterly different the situation can be elsewhere. Coming to the Diablo games (I've played the first two) from a traditional CRPG direction, I sneered at their oversimplified "click on everything to do the only thing you can" interface while at the same time enjoying them greatly. But if you compare an interface like that with what's been discussed here, it's actually absurdly complicated. You have dozens of special abilities, plus some items, for which you have to half build the interface yourself by assigning quick keys. And then you have to learn to use it, in combat, with a split-second reaction speed, while moving and clicking around at the same time. But once you get the hang of it, it barely ever gets in the way, and it's also pretty awesome.
I guess this reinforces the point that if there's something meaningful to do with the interface all the time, it can be arbitrarily complicated, at least provided it isn't pointlessly slow. However, there's probably a difference to adventure games in that in them, there's much less freedom as to how to overcome obstacles, because the obstacles aren't just enemies whose hit points need to be reduced to zero somehow.