[mrLOL]

Perhaps not much of a discussion needed, I think it's pretty clear that all those ridiculous buttons for pull/push/etc/etc that the older LucasArts games had was cute for maybe 1-2 puzzles and then totally redundant,
and that everyone was happy when adventure-games just replaced that scheme with a simple 'examine' & 'interact'.

However in the Gray Matter thread I noticed some ppl complaining about that, which was like "WTF?!" for me, so rather than stealing that thread I would love to hear people's opinions about it here.


Does anyone still prefer all those buttons?
If so then is there perhaps some sort of middle-ground that can be reached where the UI isn't quite that clumsy but still has that essence?

Do you remember any puzzles where all those buttons actually made the gaming experience much improved where a standard examine/interact would ruin it?

How many (and which) buttons do you think the perfect adventure-game should have?

[kate me]

Even if I find them many times annoying , they do have their funny uses sometimes, that Sierra or Lucasarts made, put a little more dialog, or a funny scene ,for exemple use something on the main character and get a funny line that are rare this days with just the right and left click nowadays.

But yes, I do find a lot of "What stupid button should I use now!?!?!" monologue many times .
Or geting suck a whole lot of time at a scene in the game at them, where with the modern right/left click you get past more easy, and it isn't so .

So, yes, I do prefer just the right/left click !

"How many (and which) buttons do you think the perfect adventure-game should have? "
Well, besides the left/right click...
I liked the MI 3 system .It is like a crossover of those 2. And the buttons changed often. For exemple if you didn't have use , because it changed to eat. And it was more obvious.

[Lucien21]

The genre has undergone a dumbing down/User friendly streamlining (Delete as appropriate) process for years.

It started as just a blank canvas which fooled you into thinking there was unlimited possibility.

>

However you soon learned that it was only as unlimited as the parser behind it.

That was distilled down to 9 options in early lucasarts games, then to verb coins with maybe 4 choices, then to the two mouse button approach of look/examine to the more regular one button does everything approach that we see today.

Personally I think it went too far when it went down to the two mouse button stage and should have left some choices.

The one button does all approach limits the puzzle solutions.

I think there should me more options. Maybe I do want to push that character and not just talk to them.

[cbman]

I agree with the OP. All of those Taste / Touch etc options are totally redundant and are not missed by me. In fact I won't play a modern game that has them because it is wilfully archaic and nostlagic.

To say that improving the interface is 'dumbing down' is a contender for stupid statement of the week.

[Lucien21]

Originally Posted by cbman

To say that improving the interface is 'dumbing down' is a contender for stupid statement of the week.

If it was, then you just topped it.

[harald]

On the other hand, I think it's pretty dumb that you can 'pull', 'open' and 'close' people. The two-button approach works well in most cases (interact or examine). But in some games - or, rather, with some puzzles - it's good to have 'talk' and 'interact' separated, since sometimes it makes sense to physically interact with a character (such as push them).

[SuperEdy]

Having started with the text parser I miss the more complicated interfaces.
Return to Zork has the best interface IMO, when you click on an object, it shows a dynamic menu with every possible action you can do with that object

[Collector]

The only thing that I didn't like about the parser is that sometimes you had play 20 questions trying to guess what word(s) that the designer wanted you to use. Granted, this was only an issue if the game did not have a large enough vocabulary to recognize all of the most likely verbs/nouns, but occasionally some games did not. I can only imagine how frustrating it could be for a non-native English speaker.

My favorite remains the Sierra SCI VGA interface with walk, take/use, look and talk. If you wanted to more closely examine or manipulate an object you could could, once it was in your inventory. You could access each of these icons by clicking on it in the auto hide toolbar or by cycling through them by a right click. Too many specialized actions can start to become cumbersome. Separate push, pull, open, take, use, etc. is a little over kill. There are ways to add extra functionality for specific objects without overloading the main interface, i.e. the spell book in KQ6.

[rayvio]

I much preferred having more options, although I will admit some of them were just too much
firstly, as mentioned already, a lot of games had extra bits of funny dialogue if you tried different actions on different things
secondly, reducing the number of options also reduces the amount of possible combinations which makes using trial and error a much more viable way of solving puzzles. sounds like a good thing, right? except that if trial and error is so reliable the developers have less incentive to make the puzzles actually make sense since they don't have to depend on gamers being able to figure it out, just on them being able to click on the right item. it also makes it much more difficult to make a puzzle actually be challenging

and finally it reduces possibilities. if right click is always examine and left click is always use an item or talk to a person then you can no longer do things like push a person or have a puzzle where the solution relies on taking a slightly less obvious action on an item

having push, pull, turn off, turn on, poke, prod, examine, feel, smell, taste, wear, remove, etc is too much, but reducing it to just look and use is far too far the other way
in my opinion games like Monkey Island 2 and Indy: Fate of Atlantis had the options about right

[Captain Blondebeard]

I've actualy never seen this discussed before. I'm shocked.

Carry on.


/slowly slips back out of the thread.

[laffer]

It's all about striking a balance... as has been mentioned, early Lucasfilm games such as Monkey Island put more verbs in there than is necessary and it really just unneeded clutter.
But then again, having merely a cursor that changes depending on what you hover it over makes it much too simplistic.
If I had to pick between those two extremes, I would prefer the first.

The early 90s Sierra games had a nice amount of icons, I find something like that quite ideal.

[mrLOL]

But in some games - or, rather, with some puzzles - it's good to have 'talk' and 'interact' separated, since sometimes it makes sense to physically interact with a character (such as push them).

Yes! I didn't want to push my own oppinion in the first post since I really wanted the others oppinion on the matter (uninspired from mine) but I'm really glad that 3 ppl in this thread have now stated the 3-verb system of interact/talk/examine which is exactly the system I'm using in my next game

Return to Zork has the best interface IMO, when you click on an object, it shows a dynamic menu with every possible action you can do with that object

Aha now that's interesting, one reason why I dislike the many verbs is that when you FINALLY reach a puzzle which requires them you don't think about them since you've assume they are just there for decoration, but the idea of dynamic verb-menu depending on object sounds pretty cool, I will keep that in the back of my mind.

a lot of games had extra bits of funny dialogue if you tried different actions on different things

Aha you probably hit the nail on the head on that one, personally I like playing and making very serious realistic adventure-games so for me the many-verbs-system seemed just totally stupid for a while, partially because of all the time you have to waste writing extra meaningless dialogue,
but now I'm realizing that the system was probably created mainly for humour games, where the extra meaningless dialogue is actually where most of the humour of the game is.

push, pull, turn off, turn on, poke, prod, examine, feel, smell, taste, wear, remove, etc is too much

looooool I forgot there was THAT many

I don't personally agree with Lucien21 that this is a example of a dumbing down trend, but that's exactly why I created this thread as I realize some people see it exactly as that.


I have long since forgotten how the MI3 interface (that kate me recommended) worked but found this on wikipedia:

The SCUMM engine was also used in this Monkey Island installment but it was upgraded to a "verb coin" (modelled after Full Throttle), an intuitive interface that consisted in a coin-shaped menu, with three icons: a hand, a skull and a parrot, basically representing actions related to hands, eyes and mouth, respectively. These icons implied the actions Guybrush would perform with an object. The hand icon would usually mean actions such as picking something up, operating a mechanism or hitting someone, the skull icon was most used for examining or looking at objects and the parrot icon was used to issue Guybrush commands such as talking to someone or opening a bottle with his teeth. The inventory and actions were thus visible on click, rather than on the bottom of the screen as previous point-and-click games by Lucasarts.

Interesting, so it's similar to the "interact/talk/examine"-system suggested by many, except that for example mouth doesn't nessesarly have to mean "talk" it can mean "open bottle with mouth".

[laffer]

One thing I forgot to mention is that regardless of how many icons/verbs/whathaveyou available in a game, I always liked it when developers had them go off screen when not in use... like Sierra did.

I was never a fan of leaving it up on the screen at all times, such as in many Lucasfilm games... as this obviously means the game window itself has to be smaller, less room for background images.

[orient]

I agree -- we're past verb lists now. They were acceptable for the time, not so anymore.

Even having 4 options in Gemini Rue felt cumbersome. The first problem is usability. Having to click on an object and choose the correct verb from a menu (or vice versa) is simply slower. The player is forced to communicate their choice of action even when what they want to do is blatantly obvious. Good interfaces are non-intrusive -- they don't make you choose from lists every 10 seconds to perform simple tasks.

That's why we have context-sensitive icons when mousing over objects nowadays. It solves most problems. The only thing you lose is the illusion of freedom. I understand the pleasure of discovering hidden animations and lines of dialogue, but I also understand the frustration of I can't do that!

I suppose the one-button solution limits player creativity, but in practice it makes very little difference because adventure games rarely allow players to be creative and experiment. They're about deduction and solving a problem in a very precise way.

[Weare6]

Originally Posted by rayvio

I much preferred having more options, although I will admit some of them were just too much
firstly, as mentioned already, a lot of games had extra bits of funny dialogue if you tried different actions on different things
secondly, reducing the number of options also reduces the amount of possible combinations which makes using trial and error a much more viable way of solving puzzles. sounds like a good thing, right? except that if trial and error is so reliable the developers have less incentive to make the puzzles actually make sense since they don't have to depend on gamers being able to figure it out, just on them being able to click on the right item. it also makes it much more difficult to make a puzzle actually be challenging

and finally it reduces possibilities. if right click is always examine and left click is always use an item or talk to a person then you can no longer do things like push a person or have a puzzle where the solution relies on taking a slightly less obvious action on an item

having push, pull, turn off, turn on, poke, prod, examine, feel, smell, taste, wear, remove, etc is too much, but reducing it to just look and use is far too far the other way
in my opinion games like Monkey Island 2 and Indy: Fate of Atlantis had the options about right

Couldn't agree with you more. I do miss having options (not for all games). I have fond memories of Monkey Island, Zak Mackracken, Indy: FOA. It seem to work for them very well but I know games have changed and the systems they use now work well but it would be kind of cool if we saw a new adventure with these multitude of interactive options. I like the Dynamic Menu idea from Return
to Zork which 'SuperEdy' mentioned. That could work with many games. cool discussion!

[Fantasysci5]

Interesting topic.

I liked the many different things you could pick like taste, pick up, etc, and the funny little lines the character would give, but it does get bogged down to doing that with every item. I like the look/examine way, with maybe a difference between talking to a character and looking at a character, like 'The Longest Journey'.

[Arial Type]

Originally Posted by orient

I agree -- we're past verb lists now. They were acceptable for the time, not so anymore.

Personally I don't see how those two things - interface and time period - are linked, except for the fact that adventure games became dumber. Those who play RPGs or strategy games never had problem with complex interfaces and tons of stats. Only adventure gamers always complain about six verbs being unacceptable for their genre in XXI century. Why?

I always found interaction to be one of the key features of adventure genre. And it strongly depends on the interface. My ideal interface is the one met in early games by Legend Entertainment (Gateway 2 and Eric the Unready in particular). The developers put so much effort in those masterpieces. You could spend a lot of time just exploring their rich gameworlds. And it also influenced the puzzle design and the length of the titles for sure.

With those one-clickers we have nowdays I often feel like I'm forced to do what designers came up with. Like my character (and myself) being too silly to have his own view on the problem. With cheap animation and clumsy 3D characters it usually end up with something painful for my eyes to watch at. Leave the animation, leave the 3D characters, but give us more freedom, more feedback from the gameworld. At least give us something to have fun with while we try to crack just another slider or labyrinth.

[cbman]

Originally Posted by Lucien21

If it was, then you just topped it.

I know you are but what am i? Poor riposte

[cbman]

Originally Posted by Arial Type

Personally I don't see how those two things - interface and time period - are linked, except for the fact that adventure games became dumber. Those who play RPGs or strategy games never had problem with complex interfaces and tons of stats. Only adventure gamers always complain about six verbs being unacceptable for their genre in XXI century. Why?

But people who play RPGs expect complexity; it is a part of the culture of those games, not just on computer but in their original Dungeons & Dragons format.

Most adventure gamers expect simplicity. Not in terms of gameplay but interface. It should be entirely instinctive.

[mrLOL]

Originally Posted by Arial Type

Those who play RPGs or strategy games never had problem with complex interfaces and tons of stats. Only adventure gamers always complain about six verbs being unacceptable for their genre in XXI century. Why?

The stats in RPG's are a big part of what makes them RPG'ish,
whereas all these verbs IMO is not ONLY kinda irrelevant for adventure-games but even sometimes makes them LESS adventure-game'ish, as it provides a oppertunity for the developers to create more silly puzzles that has nothing to do with the story,
for example if you have a door in a 2-verb system then the door is less likely to be counted as a puzzle and most likely you'll just open it and walk in, whereas the more verbs you have the easier it is for the developer to justify a puzzle out of it, like some doors in Geminie Rue where you had to do a sequence of hand/kick/hand/kick/inventory-item/hand just to get through the door.