Keyboard shortcuts?

Ah, Ok. But do you need special chars like @ at all? Because then you won’t need SDL_TEXTINPUT (to get for example “O” you just have to look if “o” is pressed and then if shift is pressed - like in my example above).

He needs at least [Ctrl]+[o] to open up the options. But you are right: If you don’t need special chars, the check in the code is easier.

Yes, that’s why I wrote that it would be additional work. :slight_smile:

But from a developer point of view such an implementation would be the easiest way, because you have only to deal only with one keyboard layout (and let the player do the other work :slight_smile: ).

I’d like to have them because it would make user key remapping easier, since I don’t have a way for users to specific modifier keys. I’d rather they just used “@” if they wanted to use that key.

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[quote=“Sushi, post:80, topic:718”]
A shortkey to use the phone could come in handy if you want to check out a lot of phone messages.
[/quote]Indeed. Although a button makes more sense, I think. How about clicking on a name or number in the phone book pops up the dial screen, but only when a phone is available, either in the current room, or in the inventory? When hung up, you would return to the phone book page.
Also auto dialing that number might be an option, but that wouldn’t feel like you’re in the 80’s anymore.

First of all, I agree with you. However, and secondly, in my opinion the above is only true to a point. Film and interactive fiction are two completely different beasts with different requirements, motivations, and modes of expression.

When I’m watching a film, I trust that the writer and director conspired to provide just enough information to tell their story, so that experiencing every scene is necessary in order to understand the world and the tale that is being wrought. You see, I am not in control of this, and so I must trust that the crew did their job, and I just tag along for the ride.

On the other hand, in an adventure game and other interactive fictions, the player is in control, to some extent. This point (as I’m sure you are very well aware) is crucial and makes all the difference. The inherent problem in the analogy is that, whereas the movie viewer (or book reader for that matter) experiences a story the way the writers and directors intended, an adventure game player has some agency in the direction – while simultaneously being ignorant to the vision and motivation of the designer. That is, I as a player can control my character to do things and to walk to places, but I am not really sure or aware if that will advance the plot, reach a dead end, is completely misguided, or will reveal anything of value or interest at all.

Consider then, for instance, a movie where a character is going to sneak into a house and steal the family jewels. Whereas in a typical movie the character would surreptitiously enter the scene, sneak his way through the house, finds the locked safe box, opens it, and finally absconds with the loot; imagine instead if the character actually walks around the city aimlessly for 30 minutes reading the signs on the storefronts, then makes his lazy way to the house, walks around the house three or four times, shaking every bush, jiggling every window, eventually opening the door, explores 5 completely unrelated rooms including the kitchen, the attic, and the bathroom, finds nothing, then goes again through the house one more time until finally, 3 hours later he makes it to the locked safe box in the master bedroom, only to discover that he forgot the written combination at the hotel.

Who would want to see that movie? I would most certainly fast-forward through that movie to get to the interesting parts.

Obviously that’s a rather contrived and silly example, but I am sure you will agree that it is precisely this agency the adventure game player has which is the challenge to the designer. Then again it is also what makes the medium so interesting and attractive. :slight_smile:

-dZ.

But this is valid for an adventure game too. I don’t like an adventure …

… where I have to walk aimlessly around for 30 minutes, have to read all the signs, etc.

Both, fast forwarding a movie and skipping scenes in an adventure game, have the same reason: A bad, boring story. If a director, a novelist and the game designer did their job well, there is no need do skip scenes or turn over pages.

(But I for myself as a developer would give the player the possibility to skip dialogs and cut scenes.)

That’s such a tricky one. During a Thimbleweed Park playtest (back with right-click skipped dialog), I watched this person play and skip every single line of dialog, then get horribly confused (and frustrated). Players think they are reading, and they are not. Same goes with important cut-scenes. Players blame the game when they skip stuff and are lost.

It’s not black and white, and I see both sides of this and it’s just as frustrating for me as a designer as it if you players, but it’s not as simple as just let them skip. Because they will and pay no attention.

It’s one of those damed if you do, damned if you don’t situations.

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Speaking for me personally, I´m happy if the option is there because I tend to use it on replays. When I already know the story I usually replay for different reasons and I´m glad to have the option to cut short things I already know.

I don’t suppose you could make SHIFT-S the undocumented “Smell” verb so that TWP is compatible with the Smell-o-Vision3000 interface?

:reyes: If by “Look At” you mean “Smell”, I’ve already done that!

YES!!!

  • Dragging items onto a character’s thumbnail image to share items with them (like in Day of the Tentacle).

  • (An option to allow) keeping all the character icons open, so it you don’t have to open that sub menu to see them all.

  • Infinite save slots!!! (Like adventure games used to have!)

In a game with no dead ends, a very few chances to die (and only if you literally/figuratively want to), there’s no need for infinite save slots.
One is enough :smiley:
Ok, two, at most.

Yes, this is a (huge) problem. And for me it seems that a lot of players have a shorter attention span then a few years ago. So they have basically a problem to follow the/a complex story.

But if you don’t allow the players to skip dialogs and/or cut-scenes, …

… the players will blame the game too. Especially if they (have to) replay a part of the game. Another question is: How many people are skipping the dialogs and actually get confused? Ron, you have watched a lot of people playing TWP. How many of them skipped the dialogs regularly?

A compromise for the dialogs could be to allow only the setting of different/faster text speeds. And what about making skipping annoying? For example, if the player hits the dot, you could fast forward the text and the voice, like on an old (VHS-)cassette player. (If the scene is longer you could even allow to rewind the scene ;)) But I don’t know if and how the players would accept this.
(/edit: Another way: When the player hits the dot for the first time, show a warning that skipping the dialog is very dangerous and that he shouldn’t blame the developer if he can’t follow the story. :slight_smile: )

With cut-scenes I don’t see a problem: If one wants to skip a cut-scene, he is aware that he is going to miss a part of the story. (And if he isn’t, he probably shouldn’t buy an adventure game … ;))

Same here. :slight_smile:

I hope the boxed versions for the backers will include these wonderful Scratch-and-sniff-cards. I loved them in “Leather Goddesses of Phobos” and Larry 7 :slight_smile:

No. I would like to save different states of the game to come back later and experiment with different things. For example in TWP: If you are at a certain point in the factory, you can’t walk back to the city. If I finished the game, maybe I would like to explore the city again and try the man-eating-plant gag that I have missed in my first play-through. So with only one save slot I have to replay the whole first half of the game.

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How many slots do you want? ∞ ?

It doesn´t have to be more than now, but overwritabilty would a nice addition. As of now only the autosave states are overwritten.

That depends on the game. :slight_smile: In TWP I needed maybe 20 or 30 slots.

In TWP you can overwrite a save state, just click on the slot. Or do you want that the autosave uses different slots?

No no, I thought I tried exactly that and wondered why my voluntary saves where piling up. But maybe I´m just mixing things up.

I have overwritten the save games several times, so it should work. :slight_smile:

Yeah, pretty sure I must have to. Maybe I confused it with another game, my mistake.

Edit: I remember now I was thinking of the Cat Lady. I didn´t see an option to overwrite savestates there and they were piling up and I had to name each several time, so often in fact that in the end I only went with numbers.

What the hell! What’s wrong with you!!? :scream:

For adventure games in general 100 or 99 save slots should be enough.

For TWP those 8 slots aren’t enough even for a single playthrough, and then you have to multiply it with number of modes (currently two). I normally make saves before or after special events so I can quickly go back in time to test stuff (e.g. flashbacks etc.).

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There are at least two different save modes:

  • The improved-oldschool-one like in TWP or ScummVM: There is one autosave but generally you have to save manually (more flexible and you can easily branch). Also having autosave doesn’t make it mandatory to have “save before you quit” warnings.
  • The modern-one where you select a save slot when starting a new game (which is often in the range of 1! to 3 save slots) and then it autosaves to this one. It’s often not possible to prevent saving or duplicating the save state.

The drawback of the variant used in TWP is that if you don’t save manually (e.g. because you don’t know you should do it) then every new game you start will erase your current save state (the autosave).
(I remember one report citing that the son started a new game and so the father’s playthrough was lost. He wasn’t happy about it)

Maybe this could be prevented by creating a new autosave slot every time a new game is started and keeping the last X of those.