Verb Coin template: adding menu buttons

[Crimson Wizard]

I am bit conflicted about where to post this... But I need an advice.

There's a problem about BASS and Verb Coin templates: although they include save/load dialogs, there's no way to bring these on using just the mouse; you can only do this by pressing F5/F7 on keyboard. This is not working for all platforms (does not work for mobile device), and not obvious either (makes users think there's no save/load functionality in these templates).

I am currently trying to bring BASS and Verb Coin to some consistency with Sierra-style template, in terms of options menu. Porting the missing menus is not a big deal, but there's a question of design: how to present the buttons that open these menus.

For BASS template I simply replaced the existing "Quit" button on a Inventory Bar, making it look like this:

(I also replaced up/down inventory arrows with left/right, because I thought that maybe it's more convenient to scroll it step by step rather than whole item row at once.)

The Verb Coin is a problem, because it did not have any existing bars. It has a verb coin with verbs called by holding LMB, and an inventory window called by clicking RMB.
For a test I added a dropping menu bar like this:


But I don't know if that's suitable for Verb Coin. What is expected from Verb Coin, does this style allow any "bars" on screen?

Alternatively, I have these thoughts:
- Show this menu bar only when Inventory is on screen; so player will call both Inventory window and menu bar using RMB.
- Replace the 4-button menu bar with only 1 "options" button in the top-right corner, shown only when cursor moves to the corner (not just up), similar to how Tumbleweed template did this.

[Cassiebsg]

Why not just place a always visible bar at the top with these options, and let the dev decide later on how he/she wants it to behave?
After all, these templates are just a starting point, and most devs will end up customizing everything anyway... and those that don't won't mind the bar.

Don't think we need to over complicate things... just my opinion.

[Danvzare]

For the Verb Coin, have you considered just copying Deponia?

Have a little handle at the top of the screen, you click it and it brings down the inventory, and there's a little floppy disk in the corner that lets you access the save/load menu.


EDIT:
Alternatively, you can just put in the same inventory screen as the BASS template.
I mean, there's no rule that says that the inventory for the Verb Coin HAS to be brought up with a right mouse button. If anything, having the inventory be consistently at the top of the screen for all of the templates, might be just what you're looking for.

[Crimson Wizard]

For the Verb Coin, have you considered just copying Deponia?

I've never played Deponia, so could not consider it. The last non-AGS Verb Coin game I played was Monkey Island 3 probably. Maybe this is where "right click to show inventory" was taken from too.

I can do it any way, but I wish there were some consensus about how it should be, because I do not want to remake this several times.

I can also wait and let people here discuss what would be the convenient templates look, and then just do it how you say.
I'm not good at making these decisions. It's one thing if this were for my personal game then I'd do it how i want, but it's not.

[Crimson Wizard]

I'm sorry, I think i did a mistake.

I'll just go with the minimal changes for now, and leave the rest to whoever will be maintaining templates in the future.

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