[Sky Warrior Bob]

Shortly after playing Dreamfall, I came up with an idea for a new sort of adventure game engine, which I'd like to share. But beyond that, I'd like to talk about what you think would be a better adventure game engine. To get things started, I'll tell you about my idea...

First of all, it requires a scroll mouse. That's because the scroll mouse it intergral for control in the fully 3d enviorment.

See, just like Dreamfall, my dream engine would be fully 3d. However, unlike Dreamfall, I came up with a way to make it exactly like the point & click games of years past. This is done by using the scroll button on the mouse to control 360 degree movement. After that, the game operates exactly like adventure games of years past (well except for a fully 3d enviorment).

If you want to get even fancier, the 2nd mouse button could be used to switch to a first person perspective, much like the Metal Gear Solid games.

I think I once discussed an eariler idea of having a Metal Gear Solid type-engine, except you'd be able to pull up a mouse icon with the 2nd control stick, but all things considered, I think this new idea functions even better.

Feel free to lambaste me, expand on my idea, tell me its a stupid idea, or just call me stupid. At any rate, I'd like your views.

SWB

[RLacey]

The big problem that I see with use of the scroll wheel/button thing is that actually clicking the wheel is annoying, while using a scroll wheel would be awkward because you'd be pushing the wheel forward or back to rotate the camera left or right.

Don't give up, though .

[Steve Ince]

Originally Posted by RLacey

a scroll wheel would be awkward because you'd be pushing the wheel forward or back to rotate the camera left or right.

I agree. Interfaces are very difficult to design and if you introduce anything that's counter-intuitive you'll start to struggle from the off.

If you want to have camera movement on the mouse you could do it by holding down the right button and then moving the mouse around. This gives you the ability to look aound in all directions, not just left and right.

I do like the idea of using a wheel mouse - the wheel could be used to cycle through options when the cursor hovers over an interactable object (talk, use, pick-up, look, etc.)

[Number6]

Another issue with the mouse wheel is (correct me if I'm wrong) it's pretty
coarse-grained, with about 24 stops to a revolution. So, you'd have a
trade-off between fluid motion or spinning the wheel like mad.

There are certainly good uses for the wheel in games, e.g. cycling through
options as Steve said, or setting zoom levels/camera distance.

With regard to point and click in a full 3D environment, the closest I
have seen (not having played Dreamfall or Farenheit) is Arachronox. This
interface kept things simple by having the camera fixed relative to the
player character (above and behind). In addition, it used a zonal cursor
- in the inner screen zone only the cursor moved, while in the outer
zone both cursor and viewpoint moved.

Whilst this game used direct control, I believe the system could be
adapted to point and click; I just don't know if it's a good idea.

#6

[hermes]

Originally Posted by RLacey

The big problem that I see with use of the scroll wheel/button thing is that actually clicking the wheel is annoying, while using a scroll wheel would be awkward because you'd be pushing the wheel forward or back to rotate the camera left or right.

Don't give up, though .

I think that whatever horizontal direction you chose for either up or down-scroll would work fine - you would get used to it real quick - I mean that's the cool way the brain works.....

About the idea in general I think it could be quite annoying - I have this feeling from other games that moving the camera around and then move - would lead to irritation ... it all depends on how it was executed of course... but this two-fold action to do something as simple as moving around the game world could needlesly remove ones feeling of control....

[RLacey]

Originally Posted by hermes

I think that whatever horizontal direction you chose for either up or down-scroll would work fine - you would get used to it real quick - I mean that's the cool way the brain works.....

Yes, I'm sure that most people would pick it up quickly. But does it make sense to design an interface when you know that it's going to have that learning curve, and when you know that a not insignificant number of people are going to think that it's a bad idea? Particularly as you might as well just have a button that you hold down in order to then be able to pivot the camera around...

[Sky Warrior Bob]

Yeah, there are flaws, but personally I'm willing to take them over current systems. I mean, I'm not a big fan of having hotspots only be items directly in front of you, Monkey Island 4 tried to get around that by having a PgUp/PgDw feature, but that still felt wrong.

I don't understand why people are against using the scroll button to turn 360 degrees, as that's not much worse than having to use the keyboard for the pseudo 3d games like GF, BS3, & MI4. I really did like Dreamfall's better usage of the mouse & full 3d compared to those games, but it still didn't get away from the eye level hotspot mentality, which I find bothersome.

SWB

[Sage]

I'm not a fan of third-person games, but your scroll wheel idea might have uses for a first-person game. In addition to the usual mouse left to turn left, right for right, forward for up and back for down, using the scroll wheel to control travel by a fixed distance in whatever direction you're facing might be nice...say, a metre or so per click. Maybe even shorten the per-click distance for interior rooms and lengthen it for wide open spaces outside?

[Brandon]

There was a day when mouses had three buttons. I believe this was before the scroll wheel, and I don't know if such mice are being made anymore?

But, I'm pretty much with those on more traditional use of the scroll wheel, such as scrolling through options and the like, and not as a clicking button.

[Number6]

Here's a simpler idea, inspired by the original...

Sticking with pre-rendered backgrounds, the wheel is used to select a view from 2 or 3 different camera positions. This allows some of the immersion of
full 3D, but with (presumably) a lower budget.

#6