I think seguso's document is interesting. It is not the final word on the matter by any stretch, but that may not be a bad thing. Some things he's right about, some things he's probably wrong about. When he is right, that's great. When he is wrong, others will point out the correct answer, and that's great too.
In any case, it is just one point of view, one way of doing things (or at least thinking about doing things). Yeah, I agree that the tone comes across as arrogant and pontificating, but that may be a language/cultural thing. My Italian friends are the same way.
Ã, Hopefully, this too may serve a purpose, if it motivates others to articulate their alternative perspectives.
That's why I think it's so unfortunate that this discussion is starting to descend into a flamewar.
There hasn't been a lot of innovation in adventure game interfaces lately, and I for one am happy to see any fresh ideas. And to be honest, I think the proposed interface isn't half bad as an updated parser UI. It doesn't really do much to resolve the deeper problems with text interfaces, though, as highlighted by the hilarious statement: "there are usually only a few ways to express an action".
Ã, Still, I'd quite like to see a game that used this interface. (Or should I say another game? Anyone played LSL7?)
Some of the disagreements I had with the document...
Most of the reasoning is based on the assumption that players should approach the game as if it was real life, and that anything else is "cheating". To me, this is as absurd as insisting that people should be forced to play chess as if it was a real war.
Adventure games are games, and they're meant to be fun. What's right for an adventure game is what makes it more entertaining and more interesting. Meta-reasoning is only bad when it leads to tedious try-everything-with-everything attempts to solve a puzzle, or makes everything just too easy.
The idea that games should be fun, which I'll call the Fun Principle (TM pending) also leads me to criticize the whole direction of the argument. Adventure game puzzles shouldn't be more like lateral thinking puzzles, because lateral thinking puzzles aren't fun. OK, a small minority of enthusiasts think they're a great hoot, but for most people something like "The music stops, and a woman dies" is not a fun puzzle.
To the idea that animated backgrounds lead to increased immersion, which presumably leads to more FUN, I have to ask: Doesn't this imply that live-action movies should be more immersive than animated movies? After all, animated movies look fake, while live-action movies look very real (with shimmering lights and all). Yet I found The Lion King more immersive than, oh say The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
Also, the claim that by acknowledging that the game isn't real, players will be less involved in the game is pretty bold. Someone like Shakespeare filled his plays with sly references to the fact that they were mere theatre ("All the world's a stage..." etc.), and he's generally pretty well regarded. On the other hand, he put jokes into his tragedies, which clearly makes them LESS SAD, so what did he know?
But I ramble... Let me conclude with this: Fitts's Law does not state that "buttons that are often used should be either very large, or located along the edge of the screen." It merely gives a formula for the time it takes to point at a target in terms of its size and distance. Specifically, MT = a + b log2(2A/W).
In any case, it is just one point of view, one way of doing things (or at least thinking about doing things). Yeah, I agree that the tone comes across as arrogant and pontificating, but that may be a language/cultural thing. My Italian friends are the same way.
Ã, Hopefully, this too may serve a purpose, if it motivates others to articulate their alternative perspectives.That's why I think it's so unfortunate that this discussion is starting to descend into a flamewar.
There hasn't been a lot of innovation in adventure game interfaces lately, and I for one am happy to see any fresh ideas. And to be honest, I think the proposed interface isn't half bad as an updated parser UI. It doesn't really do much to resolve the deeper problems with text interfaces, though, as highlighted by the hilarious statement: "there are usually only a few ways to express an action".
Ã, Still, I'd quite like to see a game that used this interface. (Or should I say another game? Anyone played LSL7?)Some of the disagreements I had with the document...
Most of the reasoning is based on the assumption that players should approach the game as if it was real life, and that anything else is "cheating". To me, this is as absurd as insisting that people should be forced to play chess as if it was a real war.
Adventure games are games, and they're meant to be fun. What's right for an adventure game is what makes it more entertaining and more interesting. Meta-reasoning is only bad when it leads to tedious try-everything-with-everything attempts to solve a puzzle, or makes everything just too easy.
The idea that games should be fun, which I'll call the Fun Principle (TM pending) also leads me to criticize the whole direction of the argument. Adventure game puzzles shouldn't be more like lateral thinking puzzles, because lateral thinking puzzles aren't fun. OK, a small minority of enthusiasts think they're a great hoot, but for most people something like "The music stops, and a woman dies" is not a fun puzzle.
To the idea that animated backgrounds lead to increased immersion, which presumably leads to more FUN, I have to ask: Doesn't this imply that live-action movies should be more immersive than animated movies? After all, animated movies look fake, while live-action movies look very real (with shimmering lights and all). Yet I found The Lion King more immersive than, oh say The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
Also, the claim that by acknowledging that the game isn't real, players will be less involved in the game is pretty bold. Someone like Shakespeare filled his plays with sly references to the fact that they were mere theatre ("All the world's a stage..." etc.), and he's generally pretty well regarded. On the other hand, he put jokes into his tragedies, which clearly makes them LESS SAD, so what did he know?
But I ramble... Let me conclude with this: Fitts's Law does not state that "buttons that are often used should be either very large, or located along the edge of the screen." It merely gives a formula for the time it takes to point at a target in terms of its size and distance. Specifically, MT = a + b log2(2A/W).
