Mouse control in ToMI
This one is for the Telltale Team,
I know that you guys usually tweak the controls/graphics until the last day of production, I was wondering if is it possible for you to change the a little bit how the mouse controls behave when you want to move Guybrush around.
Right now to move you need to click and drag, and if you want to run you need to hold shift, so the only way to run using just a mouse is to double click on a object, but for example when you're moving in the noisy jungle you can't run in most instances because there are no objects to click over on some screens.
If you click on an empty space nothing happens.
Could you change it so if you click on a blank (objectless) space Guybrush moves there and if you double click he runs?
It would be like in the old games only adding the option to run if there are no objects to click on the screen.
In my opinion that change would make the mouse only option really viable for people like me that play in our living room systems.
What do you guys think about that?
I know that you guys usually tweak the controls/graphics until the last day of production, I was wondering if is it possible for you to change the a little bit how the mouse controls behave when you want to move Guybrush around.
Right now to move you need to click and drag, and if you want to run you need to hold shift, so the only way to run using just a mouse is to double click on a object, but for example when you're moving in the noisy jungle you can't run in most instances because there are no objects to click over on some screens.
If you click on an empty space nothing happens.
Could you change it so if you click on a blank (objectless) space Guybrush moves there and if you double click he runs?
It would be like in the old games only adding the option to run if there are no objects to click on the screen.
In my opinion that change would make the mouse only option really viable for people like me that play in our living room systems.
What do you guys think about that?
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Comments
In my opinion just clicking and moving would really improve the control scheme.
Ummmmm.... you barely have to move the mouse while dragging to make Guybrush move. Once you have dragged to the direction you want, he will keep going in that direction while you hold the mouse button down, until you move the mouse again. I played on a small mouse pad on the couch in front of the big screen TV without any problem.
Like the other user said, double-click then drag to run, or hold down shift or the right button while dragging to run.
And to all the other people in the other threads that say it is too strenuous to keep holding the mouse button down while dragging... I ask how hard are you pressing the button? And do you realize that when you say the keyboard is easier and less strenuous, that you are also holding a button down while moving?
Drag to move is not the Evil people are making it out to be. But no mouse movement at all, such as W&G, was. I just fired up S&M 101 and found myself wanting to drag Sam around, but I had to keep clicking over and over to get Sam to move across the room.
But to each their own. This has all be discussed many times. I like the new mouse control. I would not mind P&C, but I would not buy the game with no mouse control at all if it worked like W&G again. Gamepads are OK, but I do not like toggling thru onscreen items to select, and using the second analog control as simulated mouse to select items is too awkward to control.
there is a way to include point and click control in a game like ToMI, i guarantee you
That is because the games are 2D. The game knows you are not trying to walk on air or walk into the water. It is harder to do that in a 3D enviroment. Every scene at every angle would have to be pre worked out if you wanted to click in the air to move in 3D. This takes time away from actually working on the game.
I recommend people to play the game all the way through with the mouse drag movement. They might find they begin to like the precise control offered. Trying it for 5 minutes and not liking it is not a great evaluation. I thought dragging worked great in the jungle.
I do agree that it worked ok in the jungle. Unfortunately by that point I was already used to using wsad due to the poor camera angles in the previous environments.
If you are saying... should TTG add an pop-up arrow at the edges of the screen to allow you to click to move that way, then yes, I think that's a good idea. But the right side inventory pop-up might confict with that.
Myself, after years (and years) of playing point&click games, I found I actually liked the drag to move and have no problems with that replacing P&C. Welcome to the 3D world.
I agree, the click and drag was awkward. I used the keys with no problems but I would like to see a point and click interface as it's much more efficient. Consoles dictate most game development these days and it's not easy to swallow when they have an overbearing impact on perfectly legitimate PC features.
Edit: Revolution returned to point and click with Broken Sword: The Angel of Death after users voiced their disappointment. Needless to say it worked fine.
It only takes a tiny drag in any direction to start Guybrush moving and then only tiny left or right movements of the mouse to turn. So you don't need a giant mouse space to use it. My mouse pad is tiny. Although actually I have a laser mouse which is pretty accurate.
I was even using the mouse control to run after someone mentioned above that it only takes a right click while Guybrush is already moving. It was so liberating!
Don't bash the control system just because you need more practice! I actually didn't need any - I was able to use it right away because it felt natural and intuitive. Maybe you are just to used to WASD or gamepads or point and click to easily adapt. I've played lots of different games over the years though with wildly different controls so maybe that's why I didn't have any problems.
Some other examples from games with different controls (a God sim, a people sim and another popular adventure game series):
Black and White - the grabbing and dragging of the ground to move was interesting. Strenuous too if you needed to move a lot.
The Sims - aside from moving the mouse to the screen edges to move, you could also hold right mouse and drag the camera around. So obviously holding down a button and dragging is not some wild new concept.
Broken Sword 4 - there was direct WASD control and also point and click, but that meant that every scene had to have the floor on display to accommodate. In Broken Sword 3 there was keyboard only control.
I say they should keep the new click-drag system. After all, just because you don't want to use it doesn't mean others won't, and also you don't need to if you don't want to because there's also keyboard - so why are you against it? If you don't like it , don't use it! I'll use it instead.
I didn't think of the items menu popping out when you click to the right, but it could be solved by summoning the menu by clicking on the mouse wheel.
I'm just saying that point and click feels more natural and would make my life easier, the actual scheme is not a deal breaker but I would really appreciate to have a few options for different playstyles : )
...or maybe I will because the minimal practice I have to put in is worth the reward.
I wouldn't call using a keyboard and a mouse tricky because you seem to be able to use them to operate this website. I would call it "using more than one thing at once" which is something we do all the time. It's not as simple but any added complexity is not inherently evil. The controls are in no way complex or configured in an awful way. It's just not as exceptionally basic. They're certainly not something you fight against.
Another thing that also bugged me was item combining. Why do we have to put both items in predefined fields, instead of just clicking one item and place it on top of the other.
To show that item combination can be done. I think it was aimed at people who have only really played Telltale's other adventure games in which item combination is not possible. I for one don't mind it. Ok it takes a few more seconds to combine items but it works well & looks cool.
As was already mentioned, you don't need to keep dragging the mouse to make Guybrush move. The mouse movement is not being directly mapped to his movement. What's going on behind the scenes when you use drag-to-move is that the cursor is being (invisibly) constrained to a circle, where the cursor's position in that circle is treated like a joystick vector. This gets represented as the position of the red arrow in the ring around Guybrush. Try dragging very slowly for a moment to get a feel for what is happening.
For the record, I can move Guybrush with not much of a problem using the current click and drag scheme, but I would really prefer to have the option to just point and click.
I'm not asking them to change the default controls.
But it's not just controlling Guybrush that has recieved some odd changes, but also the inventory. The right mousebutton doesn't seem to do anything in the game except making Guybrush run if you drag the mouse. Why can't we just push the right button to open up the inventory. And if not, at least make the right button examine stuff or items. And combining items shouldn't be as tedious as this. Maybe it's to stop people from aimlessly trying every combination, or maybe it's just a design choice. If it's because they wanted to show players that you could combine items, I don't see why that just couldn't be explained in the opening sequence - like it already is. Pick up the item, place item above other item, job done.
It's almost as if they change stuff to take more time, just to drag out the game. Or as I said earlier in the post, just for the sake of change or being "modern".
When that's said, this doesn't happen in just adventures - it seems games are getting less and less intuitive. I've heard people complain about the menu system in SWOS - but it's the easiest and most streamlined system in the entire history of football games, for crying out loud!
Oops, long post. Sorry about that. Either way, I don't really care that much if they're a lot less intuitive than they could've been, because nothing can keep me from Monkey Island (TM). But I can't help wondering "why?" in cases such as this one.
I agree on the inventory. Combining items should be as simple as picking up an item and clicking on another item. THAT'S IT!
Also, what is SWOS?
But overall, I don't have a problem WASDing my way around.
That doesn't sound very intuitive to me. I found the click drag very intuitive. As mentioned above, you don't need to keep dragging the mouse after Guybrush starts walking - the mouse movement is constrained to a little circle that steers the direction of movement. I was quite annoyed playing The Secret of Monkey Island Special Edition by all the clicking on the ground and no running!
The problem with 3D point and click movement is that unless you have the ground to click on, it doesn't work. If you clicked near the top of your screen, does that mean stay close to the camera and go upwards or does it mean walk off far into the distance? Or does it mean both go up AND far off into the distance?
I like how Telltale games handled it. There's tried and tested WASD controls for those who don't like the mouse drag and there's the mouse drag for me without harming WASD people. Why complain about removing it and spoil my fun?
Why keep saying that point and click games were perfected in the 90s? IF that was true then why did they all die off? Things don't need to stay static, they need to keep evolving. Early point and click games had tons of verb commands and they evolved, removing bits and changing to eventually the Sam & Max one click does all situation today.
Now with the addition of direct control either by WASD or mouse, nothing bad has been removed from the gameplay - lots of things are added like cinematic scenes, and a more interactive experience with character movement. You also get new ways of solving puzzles like the walking around calendar thing mentioned above.
It would work similarly to the way click and drag already does except you wouldn't be holding the mouse button down to do it.
Yeah, they're things that've been annoying me. The middle mouse button opens up the inventory, but it's not very well documented, I only found out by accident.
The examination and combination methods are probably to make it obvious to new players that both things are possible [edit: whoops, beaten to the punch on this point earlier in the thread], but I still don't get why there's no shortcut ways to do them. (In Telltale's Sam and Max games, you could right click to examine inventory items, so I don't understand why that wasn't brought across.)
First, SWOS is short for Sensible World of Soccer.
Anyway, is the camera system and/or engine so different from Sam and Max? Because pointing and clicking works great in that game.