Messages

Cassiebsg: 2pts

Watch out

Ooops, sorry, Kumpel of course.

Cassiebsg: 9pts

Wait, so this was correct? I'll think of a new rule.

Edit: Ok, let's go!

Cassiebsg: 1pt
Cassiebsg: 1pt
Stupot+: 1pt
Cassiebsg: 5pts
Kumpel: 5pts
Cassiebsg: 3pt

Thank you, Mark, for the kind words and for your work as a moderator!

I'm sorry I didn't reply yesterday evening, I was busy playing Tales...
I hope that you, guys and gals, behave well and I don't have to do that climb-swooping-thing a lot because it might lead to serious injuries on my side.

@Andail Too bad it's two weeks too late for that...

Thank you for your kind comments, Chicky and josiah1221!

And another sprite for the pet parade:

[imgzoom]http://www.clowdergames.com/pics/competition/CB_pet_fish.png[/imgzoom]

I just discovered a Russian Let's Play of Toffee Trouble:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6C7ivDqM5yA

Sadly, I don't speak any Russian, but the players seem to enjoy it

Solution: Words containing the letter 't'

Words containing the letter 't'

But if your argument against it is that it's awkward to control for a sizeable group of people, well, that's what numerous people have also been pointing out about verbcoins.

To be honest, besides you, hardly anyone in this thread said that they don't like verb coins. People just said that they don't want to hold down the mouse button to activate them.

And using the middle mouse button as input is 100 times more obscure and unintuitive than using the right mouse button.

I was also remembering LSL7 where the verb coin is a drop down menu that has access to the inventory as well for quick "use with" interactions.

Interesting. I only found this screenshot here, is this what you mean?

I think that cascading context menus are hard to use (even in a windows environment).

As pointed out before, it's not the amount of verbs that has a "huge impact on gameplay", but the amount of meaningful interactions.

Absolutely. However, the GUI you are using has to -in one way or another- support those interactions. If your gameplay mechanics make good use of the look AND use interactions, it could be hard to implement a one-click interface.

The point I want to make: The UI should not only depend on the input device and how convenient it is to use, but ideally should be closely wired to the game mechanics.

Basically, you have two opposing UI goals:

• Make the UI fit to your gameplay
• Make the UI fit the device

I think it's difficult to fulfill both, you have to make some concessions.

For example, you can limit the number of platforms you support. By going PC only you immediately remove all issues caused by touch devices. Or you focus on touch and e.g. make stronger use of gestures in puzzles.
On the other hand, you can make the gameplay simpler. When a hotspot only has one meaningful interaction, it does not matter what device you use, it can be easily implemented in a UI.

A third option would be, to make several versions of a game. A touch version could use gesture based puzzles, while a PC version might require you to input text with a keyboard. Of course, this immensely increases development effort...

After all, there might be strong economical reasons for a lower common denominator.

You already have an impact on gameplay when suddenly you lose the keyboard and the second click, and any hover functionality you could have.

That's what I meant with my earlier post.

I have a friend that once proposed that the LOOK verb to trigger on hover, so you could read all descriptions and leave the clicking for the actions. I'm not crazy about that, but it's an interesting concept.

Again, please have a look at http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/game/1359/ which uses something similar.

I've found it kind of boring to routinely click "look" at every single hotspot in a room, just to read/listen to the author's attempt at dressing all these objects in interesting or humorous descriptions.

This makes me think about another option: what about not making the character look at an object and then telling what he saw to the player, but instead have the PLAYER take a closer look by providing closeups? I've seen this in various games and it is very exiting. Of course, this also means a lot more work for the artist...

But honestly I think this is a mistake. If your game is going to be published in different platforms, you should give each the best UI controls they can have, instead of going for a lower common denominator.

I can only partly agree. The interface is not only a mean of communication with the game, it has also a big impact on the game design itself. So, while of course it is reasonable to do some adjustments for touch application (larger hotspots and buttons, verbcoin instead of sierra style verbs,...) or M&K (keyboard shortcuts, use right mousebutton to deselect inventory,...) there HAS to be a common denominator.

For example, the number of verbs/actions has a huge impact on gameplay. If you have a left-right click interface on M&K and switch to touch using only single click, you will loose a lot of content. Of course you could go one step further and also make different gameplay for different devices, but at one point the question will arise: How much effort is this worth to put into?

I can see at a tree and then decide I want to lay behind it, climb it or just look closer at it. I don't immediate think "I want to look at..." and then scan to see decide what I want to look at... This is at least how my brain works.

This is a very interesting aspect that I think is very true and is probably language independent.


I was at AdventureX last weekend and saw and tried many different new and upcoming games that were showcased.
Guess what, none of them used either left-right click or LA-verbs (let alone that terrible Sierra GUI). They were all using either single click interface or verb coin (and I think those two were distributed about 50:50 for point and click adventures. Of course, most of them were also showcased on mobile devices.

My conclusion: Single click or verb coin is the way to go for the next years.

We started playing two days ago and so far are really enjoying it! Looking forward to continuing tonight.

@Frodo: Isn't Humble DRM-free? We have Tales from Steam, but I bought stuff from Humble before and had no issues with DRM.

Happy Birthday, Andail!

Guys and gals, you are awesome!

What an amazing event! It was great to see it grow in number of people but also in scope and topics.
It was a pleasure to see everyone again and also being able to put a few new faces to names.

Tom, Rebecca, Ali: You did a fantastic job, thank you so much for your hard work!