Rampant Gaming!

[cowgod]

I'm making a mouse-controlled graphical Rogue-like.

I want to be able open AND close doors with the mouse. I don't want any keyboard controls to be required.

In these sorts of games, you would normally press the left mouse button to do everything - walk, open doors, flip levers, fight, whatever. The right mouse button is mostly ignored, though it might open a context menu or something.

In RTS games, the left mouse button usually moves, and the right mouse button is usually move-then-attack.

If I made the left mouse button be ONLY for walking and the right mouse button be for opening doors, closing doors, talking to people, and everything else, would that make people immediately abandon the game? Would people sit there continually clicking the left mouse button to open doors, think that doors can't be opened, and then quit playing?

The alternative would be using the left mouse button for almost everything. Closing doors would require the right mouse button (perhaps with some kind of context menu). The problem here is that clicking on a tile with an open door would make you walk onto that tile, not open the door.

Having a context menu might be the best solution because that would also allow people to spike doors shut.

I kind of know what the response to this is going to be, but I thought I would post this anyways.

[hanako]

[McTeddy]

While I do believe that the multiple mouse situation would cause me some grief... It wouldn't be enough to abandon a game. Plenty of games involve learning the controls... it just takes time.

That said.. you could always allow some of the functionality on the left mouse button for certain specific situations. For example, if you left click on an enemy the game knows enough to attack. The left click could also be used to open doors because there is little other reason you'd be clicking on a door other than to open it. Anything that is potentially dangerous or especially irritating can be given a context sensitive situation.

But the right mouse button would basically always be the interaction button. If you right click on an enemy you attack... on a door open/close it... talk to a person etc.

By mapping moments that are common enough to the left button you can prevent death by controller. It might take me a few tries to pick up the magic sword... but it won't kill me... and I won't get angry enough to quit.

[cowgod]

[Hajo]

I'd say as long as there is only one possible action, let each mouse button trigger the action. If "open" is all you can do with a door, I see no reason to make that a right button action, while walking is a left button action. Closing an open door is difficult - clicking the open space primarily means "walk there". In one of my old games I let the player click the door posts to close the door. That action was unique again, but it's not entirely intuitive. Players accepted it well, though.

I'd suggest something like this:

- Left button always triggers the primary action of the object or clicked location.
- Right mouse button brings up a menu of all the options that you have with the clicked object or location.

[cowgod]

It might be better to make the default action be done by the left mouse button. Practically everything would have more than one option though - I want the player to have the ability to assimilate (eat) practically any object in the game.

If I'm going to do that, I would probably make the right mouse button get used for selecting characters or anything else. I guess either mouse button could be used to select party members.

This would be more consistent with other games. I suppose someone who never figures out that the right mouse button can be used just wouldn't be able to do certain things that are really cool.

I might put a note about what the mouse buttons do on the front page somewhere.

[Hajo]

I'm somewhat positive that players will try both buttons. There are already games out there that make good use of at least two mouse buttons.

What might be an interesting thing to explore are mouse gestures.

Zig-zag the mouse over something to absorb it. Circle the mouse over something to select. Draw an L shape over something to inspect it.

I assume this will be hard to teach to the player, but could be an interesting experience - and nowadays that touch-devices are so common, the idea of gestures is not so alien anymore to players.

Maybe it's too hard though to make and recognize easy and useful mouse gestures ...

[cowgod]

That sounds interesting, but I don't think that would work too well without a touch screen.

In any case, that's beyond what I would attempt.

I guess you would have to make a bitmap out of the mouse movements and compare it to some kind ideal bitmap. There would have to be some way to tell whether the actual bitmap is close enough to the ideal.

I'm sure there's games like this for the Nintendo DS though.