Once again: The reason we dropped Point+Click was because it limits the camera angles to shots that show the floor, which are never really used in any serious cinematic product. We added direct control with WASD and arrow keys in Wallace & Gromit, and I added Click+Drag to ToMI at the 11th hour out of consideration for several forum members who expressed frustration with keyboard controls for health reasons &c..
There was never any internal comparison between Point+Click or Click+Drag, because Point+Click was already excluded based on our design requirements. If you need further clarification, please do a search. There are several control scheme threads floating around with 15 or so pages of comments each.
I think it is quite possible to to make a control scheme that does meet your requirements AND makes moving around as easy and pleasant as the classic point & click.
A commonly used method for mouse pointer use on a small touchscreen is having the pointer move in the same DIRECTION as your finger swipe on the touchscreen, NOT to the same DESTINATION as your swipe.
You want the pointer to move up, swipe up, regardless of where the pointer is and regardless of where you started the swipe.
You want the pointer to move left, you swipe left, regardless of where the pointer is and regardless of where you started the swipe.
In other words, your input is interpreted relative to the screen center, not relative to the pointer.
It should be quite possible to use the same concept for your games.
If you want your hero to move left a lot, you click the left edge of the screen.
If you want to your hero to move up a little bit, you click somewhere just above the center of the screen, regardless of where he is on screen.
Now just add some graphical aids, like that click&drag compass you already have, so it is less likely the player gets confused.
The arrow key scheme can stay as a backup and for console compatibility reasons.
Well, not completely. There's two instances where I hate that game every time I play it (all two of them so far!), and surprisingly, neither of them are Monkey Kombat. I'm talking about the scene after the Mysts o' Tyme Marshe when Guybrush gets off the raft (for me, Guybrush puts down the stick and then it suddenly appears back in his hands and he rows in place instead of getting off), which I suppose makes me hate the Marshe, because as clever as it is, I don't like having to do it 50 times. The second time I played, though, I was smart and made a save immediately after getting off the raft.
And the other one is the boulder puzzle. Screw the branch "indicators", the only way I ever manage to solve that one is with a stopwatch.
I recently played through EMI and I had that exact same problem at the marsh. The marsh had one of my favorite scenes in it, the part where Guybrish meets his future self who gives him a whole bunch of items and then a few minutes later he meets himself from the past and gives all those items back, begging the question WHERE DID THEY COME FROM? (Also, notice how I didn't use spoiler tags )
The branch indicators where enough to get me through the boulder puzzle but admittedly it took a few more tries then I care to say.
I'm sorry but I hated Monkey Kombat. It was insult sword fighting without any of the wit or clever lines. It was such a chore and it was needlessly complex. (All those who beat it without writing everything down and referring the the chart multiple times during every turn! That's right, I didn't think so.) Aside from its handful of flaws EMI was still fun and definitely worth playing. Due to the amount of hate it gets I'd actually call it underrated.
I never had any more trouble with Monkey Kombat than I did with Insult Swordfighting. In fact, I probably had even less trouble with it, because it forced me to make a spreadsheet to keep track of what I knew, where Insult Swordfighting made me either print off a list of insults and comebacks and cross off which ones I had (which I didn't do) or try not only to remember which insults and comebacks I had, but also to remember if I was remembering having them currently or in a previous play-through.
I do agree that it lacked any sort of wit whatsoever, I just felt that it wasn't any less of a chore than Insult Swordfighting, even if not nearly as entertaining.
The branch indicators where enough to get me through the boulder puzzle but admittedly it took a few more tries then I care to say.
Well then, sir, you should be quite proud of yourself, because after what I'm sure was a very similar number of tries, I came nowhere close to getting it until I busted out the stopwatch. I even watched it being solved on YouTube to see if I needed to be timing it slightly before or after each branch and still got nothing.
Does that mean you've given up on your quest? I'd hate to think I was responsible for such a thing...
Yes, I've become a broken man forced to roam the earth with no soul or purpose. No, it wasn't really a spoiler regarding any kind of plot. It was just a funny thing that happened that I liked
I do agree that it lacked any sort of wit whatsoever, I just felt that it wasn't any less of a chore than Insult Swordfighting, even if not nearly as entertaining.
To me Insult Swordfighting was one of those things that was outstanding the first time I played each iteration but did become a chore on repeat play-troughs. It's kind of like level grinding in an RPG though still nowhere near that tedious.
Anyway, damn us for getting off topic again! Please people, post your thoughts on click and drag and save us from ourselves
Anyway, damn us for getting off topic again! Please people, post your thoughts on click and drag and save us from ourselves
Lookit my new avatar!
Seriously, though, half the threads the both of us post in seem to get derailed, don't they? Toss in Irishmile with us and good luck ever remembering what the original topic was. XD
But hey, at least this time we managed to keep it Monkey Island related instead of going off on Zelda, right?
Seriously, though, half the threads the both of us post in seem to get derailed, don't they? Toss in Irishmile with us and good luck ever remembering what the original topic was. XD
But hey, at least this time we managed to keep it Monkey Island related instead of going off on Zelda, right?
Wait, this isn't the Zelda forums? Where am I lol. And look at your avatar, he's dancing now
Wait, this isn't the Zelda forums? Where am I lol. And look at your avatar, he's dancing now
Yep, I managed to figure out his animation from Seasons and duplicate it as a gif, and as an added bonus, my gif animator had a transparency option, which is nice since I do all my spriting in Paint and transparency is usually unobtainable for me.
And with the frequency of thread derailments and how little anyone seems to care about it, I'd say these are anything goes forums.
Wait, no, bad! Must...stay...on topic...
I might try click and drag when my current run of the series reaches Tales (I'm on Secret and just watched Guybrush drown. Turns out he turns blue instead of green in Special Edition), but I honestly doubt it'll grow on me. But hey, at least I'll be able to say I tried it for an extended period of time, right?
Ha, and you all thought I couldn't focu- ooh, what's that?!
Yep, I managed to figure out his animation from Seasons and duplicate it as a gif, and as an added bonus, my gif animator had a transparency option, which is nice since I do all my spriting in Paint and transparency is usually unobtainable for me.
And with the frequency of thread derailments and how little anyone seems to care about it, I'd say these are anything goes forums.
Wait, no, bad! Must...stay...on topic...
I might try click and drag when my current run of the series reaches Tales (I'm on Secret and just watched Guybrush drown. Turns out he turns blue instead of green in Special Edition), but I honestly doubt it'll grow on me. But hey, at least I'll be able to say I tried it for an extended period of time, right?
Ha, and you all thought I couldn't focu- ooh, what's that?!
Yay, on topic again. Yeah, if you are fine using the W,A,S,D keys I wouldn't bother trying to click and drag at all. I only use click and drag because I have to sit up when using the W,A,S,D keys, which I find perfectly fine when playing a genre which requires your full attention, like FPSs for example. But with an low maintenance genre like adventure gaming I like to be able to preform all necessary functions with only the mouse. (So that my other hand my cradle a drink, feed me chips, fondle random trinkets on my desk etc etc etc.)
An example of how not to do this is SMI:SE. While a good port and a good game the fact that I had to press a button(s) every time I wanted to bring up the verbs and/or inventory was absurd. To make matters even worse you couldn't even customize the button configuration. I have two buttons sitting on the side of my mouse doing nothing. If I could have made it so one brings up the verbs and the other brings up the inventory it would have been pure bliss. *sigh* oh well. That was really my only gripe with the game.
Wasn't I trying to make a point somewhere in there? Oh yes, that's right! If you are happy with using the W,A,S,D keys then don't give click and drag a second thought. It is by no means better, it's only more relaxing to use for lazy sods like me :cool:
Yeah, that would be absolutely wonderful, though on my mouse one of those buttons pops open a magnifier, but I'd still settle for being able to middle-click for inventory. But I manage. As for WASD, wireless keyboard. If I want to lean back, I just set the keyboard in my lap. And if I need one or more of my hands occupied elsewhere, I'm most likely not paying attention to the game anyway.
I propose a different setup from the original click & drag. You can still see it's in its beginning phase, and therefore doesn't really work all that well.
When clicking on the main avatar (Guybrush, Sam) or an non-interactive spot, instead of a compass around the character, have a wheel / circle around the character with an arrow pointing in which direction you want to go, kind of like WASD. This circle remains stationary, so that you don't have to wonky around with it. I think that was one of the reasons click & drag doesn't really work all that well, since the compass constantly moved around with the main character.
Also, make it an option. There might be people preferring the original click & drag, and hopefully it shouldn't be difficult to switch between both methods.
I know I'm pretty much a perv myself, but, if you mean what I think you mean, TMI.
I meant things like eating, drinking, texting. All things that take place well outside the pants that require one or more hands to be removed from the keyboard/mouse.
Sam n' Max: Perfect
TOMI: OK but I prefer S&M - the drag's, um, a drag - pun intended.
Wallace & Gromit - Horrific enough that I stopped playing the single episode I bought.
I dunno i think i may be like a reformed smoker on this issue ie i hated C&D innitially and exclusively used mouse and WSAD for the first episode then in the second one i thought i'd better give it a go so i tried it for maybe half the episode and then went back to WSAD. ten minutes later i was using C&D again.
i now think C&D is great! simply click the left mouse button anywhere on the screen and move the mouse an inch or so and after that you just need to move the mouse left and right to change the direction, utterly simple and pretty much near perfect (for me at least). I havent played S&M S2 yet so i cant comment on Click and Hold but unles it is something very special i think i'll stick with C&D.
No UI is perfect. Point & click works in a limited way but wouldn't work for the style of games currently being created by Telltale. Personally I like using the keyboard & mouse as it's a combination I'm comfortable with and so haven't really used click & drag but I do applaud Telltale for coming up with an innovating UI which didn't compromise the overall design of the game. With future releases I can only see Telltale refining their UI designs.
I meant things like eating, drinking, texting. All things that take place well outside the pants that require one or more hands to be removed from the keyboard/mouse.
i think morgans decolletage needs more polygons in order to get our hands inside our pants.
i don’t like click’n’drag, either. and being a programmer myself i know how easy it would be to extend the guybrush-wayfinding* to any point on the screen and adding an option to the menu switching between both control schemes.
* which you can watch when you click on something clickable far away (stan)
... being a programmer myself i know how easy it would be to extend the guybrush-wayfinding* to any point on the screen ...
Being a programmer then, you surely considered if the user wants to path to a point that isn't visible on the screen. Since the ground is not part of many shot compositions, there is not enough information available to solve (with math!) which point they intended to walk to when they clicked the empty air or the back wall of the environment.
i think morgans decolletage needs more polygons in order to get our hands inside our pants.
Who talked about Morgan? Playing ToMI windowed can help a lot in multi-tasking.
Also, pathfinding is pretty hard to do. Sure I only had one module in my course about pathfinding, and it wasn't really that necessary in our studies, seeing as I'm studying Medical Informatics, or actually a subset of it.
Who talked about Morgan? Playing ToMI windowed can help a lot in multi-tasking.
Also, pathfinding is pretty hard to do. Sure I only had one module in my course about pathfinding, and it wasn't really that necessary in our studies, seeing as I'm studying Medical Informatics, or actually a subset of it.
I appreciate that you're trying to help, but pathfinding is not difficult. Taking a screen click position and transforming it into a ray in world space is not difficult. Colliding that ray against the ground is not difficult. Difficulty has nothing to do with why we went with Click+Drag.
Real life programming for really-reals means functional options get thrown out because they do not fit the client's requirements, or they would introduce too much overhead or uncertainty in the production schedule. Difficulty is not evaluated for an option that does not fit the design requirements or other initial criteria.
Besides, you all realize we had Point+Click in our older games, right? It was purposely removed.
//edit:
Didn't mean to make it sound like I was snapping at GaryCXJk, I meant this as a general clarification.
I meant things like eating, drinking, texting. All things that take place well outside the pants that require one or more hands to be removed from the keyboard/mouse.
Besides, Morgan would have to be much hotter to get my hand into my pants.
Because really, all perverted jokes on these forums either have to do with Morgan or Winslow, and Winslow is absolutely not going to get my hand into my pants.
I probably was talking about shortest path finding, which is pretty difficult, if not impossible due to there not even being an algorithm for it.
Except for unweighted paths. Those are still difficult to do in the most optimized way, but less difficult than weighted. I don't even know why we need it. I mean, it's not like it's something we need for things like decision management or something. Those use other algorithms.
I probably was talking about shortest path finding, which is pretty difficult, if not impossible due to there not even being an algorithm for it.
You may be misremembering. There are several graph search algorithms that will solve for the shortest path for different types of graphs, with various algorithmic complexity classes.
What you're probably remembering is that finding the shortest path can be excruciatingly slow and is generally unsuited for real-time applications, since you have to exhaust the search space (to take negative and other strange edge weights into account, as an example).
Graph theory is a really interesting field. It turns out that a lot of computational problems can be turned into graph searches. People are coming up with new algorithms to speed up solving them all the time!
Finding the shortest path doesn't always mean finding it in an optimized way. That's exactly what I am saying. Optimized algorithms don't automatically mean algorithms that find the best solution. They're always algorithms that find the solution the fastest, and preferably with the least memory usage. I guess you mistook optimized with optimal.
But still, the only thing I really needed was graph theory, seeing as most search algorithms basically came down to depth-first or breath-first, with best-first as the best solution (a form of either depth-first or backtracking, I forgot, with also using priority queues).
Why not concede a bit and build the scenes in a way where you can see the floor so there could be point clicking too?.
After 4 W&G and 4 TOMI episodes, i don’t see the so called cinematic experience that drove you not to use the point click system. 90% of the scenes from W&G and TOMI are floor clickable and only 10% of them are not, yet that 10% seems to be a huge deal for you guys into not using point click.
Is this the standard mechanism telltale will force on players from now on? I really don’t want to play Sam and Max season 3 (or any other adventure game) this way.
Just so the silent majority... or silent equalority... or possibly minority are more represented, click and drag is my favourite Telltale control scheme yet, and I would be horrified if they had to limit the wonderful cinematic compositions (as seen on TOMI) in future games to arbitrarily include ground or exit points on screen at all times to accomodate point and click direction controls.
Yeah, that would be absolutely wonderful, though on my mouse one of those buttons pops open a magnifier, but I'd still settle for being able to middle-click for inventory. But I manage. As for WASD, wireless keyboard. If I want to lean back, I just set the keyboard in my lap. And if I need one or more of my hands occupied elsewhere, I'm most likely not paying attention to the game anyway.
Sadly my keyboard doesn't stretch out that far. And on my mouse both the buttons are on the same side, easily in reach of my thumb, who was feeling a bit useless and not like a team player before I got my new mouse.
Why not concede a bit and build the scenes in a way where you can see the floor so there could be point clicking too?.
After 4 W&G and 4 TOMI episodes, i don’t see the so called cinematic experience that drove you not to use the point click system. 90% of the scenes from W&G and TOMI are floor clickable and only 10% of them are not, yet that 10% seems to be a huge deal for you guys into not using point click.
Is this the standard mechanism telltale will force on players from now on? I really don’t want to play Sam and Max season 3 (or any other adventure game) this way.
90% seems like a bit of a misrepresentation. Think about all the old games where point and click works well, you could usually see everything in one screen or the equivalent of two scrolling screens. Think of how many screens worth of room there are in Flotsam town alone, or the street where Sam & Max live. Point and click is just becoming too annoying (well at least I'm feeling that way) and it's counting one of the great advantages of running a game in 3D and that's dynamic camera angles.
I really believe that Telltale have made the right choice by making the control scheme character relative rather than setting relevant.
since i find myself clicking on stuff far away in order to get somewhere near it (before guybrush engages action, i click’n’drag him away), would it be possible to include both control schemes at the same time?
So, I just reloaded Ep4 to try out this click & drag thing, it doesn't seem half bad.
I doubt that I'll replace my WASD use with it, because I like being able to mouse over the screen while I'm moving, but it's not anywhere close to what everyone's making it out to be.
I found moving him around with it actually quite nice.
Personally I preferred the control scheme in Sam & Max Season 2, but if I have to choose between Click/Drag and WASD then I'd go with WASD, because it's nice to be able to point and highlight objects while you're walking.
As long as I'm on the subject of WASD, would it be possible to allow the player to customize the keyboard controls? I can't be the only one who finds holding Shift to run awkward and uncomfortable. I'd much rather use Space.
Im not saying they should only use point click, im saying/asking/imploring they include point and click as well so people can choose the control they'd like to use and not getting rid of one of them in favor of another scheme.
I'm really not seeing these 'dynamic shot compositions' that supposedly necessitated this new control scheme, which even after four episodes doesn't feel completely natural. The vast majority of the camera angles are straightforward mid-range shots; the dynamic stuff has mostly been restricted to a couple of completely superfluous flourishes like the camera following the character walking over the bridge, which don't really add anything to the game whatsoever.
My suspicion is that the decision to move towards direct control scheme was primarily about making the games more easily adaptable to consoles, rather than because the content actually demanded it.
a couple of completely superfluous flourishes like the camera following the character walking over the bridge, which don't really add anything to the game whatsoever.
That's my favourite cinematic moment from chapters 1 and 4!
It makes me think of the older 2D games and the left and right scrolling movement of the camera it was restricted to. The bridge walk really made it seem more like we were seeing what Guybrush sees and it is movement "into" the distance rather than just left and right.
I kinda get what they mean with a point and click control - what would you click on to move forward instead of upwards? Clicking the top of the screen is ambiguous. And how far off into the distance are you intending to move? You need some kind of click and hold to direct that motion.
I quite like the click and drag control scheme, definitely preferable to the keys/mouse combination of Wallace and Gromit. I like to be able to sit on my bed and play through the TV - it's a bit difficult to find a comfortable position where I can use both mouse and keyboard.
Comments
I think it is quite possible to to make a control scheme that does meet your requirements AND makes moving around as easy and pleasant as the classic point & click.
A commonly used method for mouse pointer use on a small touchscreen is having the pointer move in the same DIRECTION as your finger swipe on the touchscreen, NOT to the same DESTINATION as your swipe.
You want the pointer to move up, swipe up, regardless of where the pointer is and regardless of where you started the swipe.
You want the pointer to move left, you swipe left, regardless of where the pointer is and regardless of where you started the swipe.
In other words, your input is interpreted relative to the screen center, not relative to the pointer.
It should be quite possible to use the same concept for your games.
If you want your hero to move left a lot, you click the left edge of the screen.
If you want to your hero to move up a little bit, you click somewhere just above the center of the screen, regardless of where he is on screen.
Now just add some graphical aids, like that click&drag compass you already have, so it is less likely the player gets confused.
The arrow key scheme can stay as a backup and for console compatibility reasons.
I recently played through EMI and I had that exact same problem at the marsh. The marsh had one of my favorite scenes in it, the part where Guybrish meets his future self who gives him a whole bunch of items and then a few minutes later he meets himself from the past and gives all those items back, begging the question WHERE DID THEY COME FROM? (Also, notice how I didn't use spoiler tags
The branch indicators where enough to get me through the boulder puzzle but admittedly it took a few more tries then I care to say.
I'm sorry but I hated Monkey Kombat. It was insult sword fighting without any of the wit or clever lines. It was such a chore and it was needlessly complex. (All those who beat it without writing everything down and referring the the chart multiple times during every turn! That's right, I didn't think so.) Aside from its handful of flaws EMI was still fun and definitely worth playing. Due to the amount of hate it gets I'd actually call it underrated.
Does that mean you've given up on your quest? I'd hate to think I was responsible for such a thing...
Anyway, as for Monkey Kombat...
I do agree that it lacked any sort of wit whatsoever, I just felt that it wasn't any less of a chore than Insult Swordfighting, even if not nearly as entertaining.
Well then, sir, you should be quite proud of yourself, because after what I'm sure was a very similar number of tries, I came nowhere close to getting it until I busted out the stopwatch. I even watched it being solved on YouTube to see if I needed to be timing it slightly before or after each branch and still got nothing.
Yes, I've become a broken man forced to roam the earth with no soul or purpose. No, it wasn't really a spoiler regarding any kind of plot. It was just a funny thing that happened that I liked
To me Insult Swordfighting was one of those things that was outstanding the first time I played each iteration but did become a chore on repeat play-troughs. It's kind of like level grinding in an RPG though still nowhere near that tedious.
Anyway, damn us for getting off topic again! Please people, post your thoughts on click and drag and save us from ourselves
Lookit my new avatar!
Seriously, though, half the threads the both of us post in seem to get derailed, don't they? Toss in Irishmile with us and good luck ever remembering what the original topic was. XD
But hey, at least this time we managed to keep it Monkey Island related instead of going off on Zelda, right?
Wait, this isn't the Zelda forums? Where am I
Yep, I managed to figure out his animation from Seasons and duplicate it as a gif, and as an added bonus, my gif animator had a transparency option, which is nice since I do all my spriting in Paint and transparency is usually unobtainable for me.
And with the frequency of thread derailments and how little anyone seems to care about it, I'd say these are anything goes forums.
Wait, no, bad! Must...stay...on topic...
I might try click and drag when my current run of the series reaches Tales (I'm on Secret and just watched Guybrush drown. Turns out he turns blue instead of green in Special Edition), but I honestly doubt it'll grow on me. But hey, at least I'll be able to say I tried it for an extended period of time, right?
Ha, and you all thought I couldn't focu- ooh, what's that?!
Yay, on topic again. Yeah, if you are fine using the W,A,S,D keys I wouldn't bother trying to click and drag at all. I only use click and drag because I have to sit up when using the W,A,S,D keys, which I find perfectly fine when playing a genre which requires your full attention, like FPSs for example. But with an low maintenance genre like adventure gaming I like to be able to preform all necessary functions with only the mouse. (So that my other hand my cradle a drink, feed me chips, fondle random trinkets on my desk etc etc etc.)
An example of how not to do this is SMI:SE. While a good port and a good game the fact that I had to press a button(s) every time I wanted to bring up the verbs and/or inventory was absurd. To make matters even worse you couldn't even customize the button configuration. I have two buttons sitting on the side of my mouse doing nothing. If I could have made it so one brings up the verbs and the other brings up the inventory it would have been pure bliss. *sigh* oh well. That was really my only gripe with the game.
Wasn't I trying to make a point somewhere in there? Oh yes, that's right! If you are happy with using the W,A,S,D keys then don't give click and drag a second thought. It is by no means better, it's only more relaxing to use for lazy sods like me :cool:
Yeah, that would be absolutely wonderful, though on my mouse one of those buttons pops open a magnifier, but I'd still settle for being able to middle-click for inventory. But I manage. As for WASD, wireless keyboard. If I want to lean back, I just set the keyboard in my lap. And if I need one or more of my hands occupied elsewhere, I'm most likely not paying attention to the game anyway.
When clicking on the main avatar (Guybrush, Sam) or an non-interactive spot, instead of a compass around the character, have a wheel / circle around the character with an arrow pointing in which direction you want to go, kind of like WASD. This circle remains stationary, so that you don't have to wonky around with it. I think that was one of the reasons click & drag doesn't really work all that well, since the compass constantly moved around with the main character.
Also, make it an option. There might be people preferring the original click & drag, and hopefully it shouldn't be difficult to switch between both methods.
I know I'm pretty much a perv myself, but, if you mean what I think you mean, TMI.
I meant things like eating, drinking, texting. All things that take place well outside the pants that require one or more hands to be removed from the keyboard/mouse.
Sam n' Max: Perfect
TOMI: OK but I prefer S&M - the drag's, um, a drag - pun intended.
Wallace & Gromit - Horrific enough that I stopped playing the single episode I bought.
i now think C&D is great! simply click the left mouse button anywhere on the screen and move the mouse an inch or so and after that you just need to move the mouse left and right to change the direction, utterly simple and pretty much near perfect (for me at least). I havent played S&M S2 yet so i cant comment on Click and Hold but unles it is something very special i think i'll stick with C&D.
i think morgans decolletage needs more polygons in order to get our hands inside our pants.
i don’t like click’n’drag, either. and being a programmer myself i know how easy it would be to extend the guybrush-wayfinding* to any point on the screen and adding an option to the menu switching between both control schemes.
* which you can watch when you click on something clickable far away (stan)
I almost said it, but I thought better of it.
you could as well do it, since one brings it always…
I've played 4 chapters and didn't even know it was there. WASD plus clicking on objects seems prefectly fine to me.
I think the controls from Monkey3 are still my favorites, but this is a million times better than what Monkey4 had.
Being a programmer then, you surely considered if the user wants to path to a point that isn't visible on the screen. Since the ground is not part of many shot compositions, there is not enough information available to solve (with math!) which point they intended to walk to when they clicked the empty air or the back wall of the environment.
Who talked about Morgan? Playing ToMI windowed can help a lot in multi-tasking.
Also, pathfinding is pretty hard to do. Sure I only had one module in my course about pathfinding, and it wasn't really that necessary in our studies, seeing as I'm studying Medical Informatics, or actually a subset of it.
I appreciate that you're trying to help, but pathfinding is not difficult. Taking a screen click position and transforming it into a ray in world space is not difficult. Colliding that ray against the ground is not difficult. Difficulty has nothing to do with why we went with Click+Drag.
Real life programming for really-reals means functional options get thrown out because they do not fit the client's requirements, or they would introduce too much overhead or uncertainty in the production schedule. Difficulty is not evaluated for an option that does not fit the design requirements or other initial criteria.
Besides, you all realize we had Point+Click in our older games, right? It was purposely removed.
//edit:
Didn't mean to make it sound like I was snapping at GaryCXJk, I meant this as a general clarification.
Here, this is the version of the joke I would've made if I hadn't left it out of my post. flying sheep was just thinking along the same lines I was.
Because really, all perverted jokes on these forums either have to do with Morgan or Winslow, and Winslow is absolutely not going to get my hand into my pants.
Except for unweighted paths. Those are still difficult to do in the most optimized way, but less difficult than weighted. I don't even know why we need it. I mean, it's not like it's something we need for things like decision management or something. Those use other algorithms.
You may be misremembering. There are several graph search algorithms that will solve for the shortest path for different types of graphs, with various algorithmic complexity classes.
What you're probably remembering is that finding the shortest path can be excruciatingly slow and is generally unsuited for real-time applications, since you have to exhaust the search space (to take negative and other strange edge weights into account, as an example).
Graph theory is a really interesting field. It turns out that a lot of computational problems can be turned into graph searches. People are coming up with new algorithms to speed up solving them all the time!
But still, the only thing I really needed was graph theory, seeing as most search algorithms basically came down to depth-first or breath-first, with best-first as the best solution (a form of either depth-first or backtracking, I forgot, with also using priority queues).
Why haven't I just picked an easier study?
After 4 W&G and 4 TOMI episodes, i don’t see the so called cinematic experience that drove you not to use the point click system. 90% of the scenes from W&G and TOMI are floor clickable and only 10% of them are not, yet that 10% seems to be a huge deal for you guys into not using point click.
Is this the standard mechanism telltale will force on players from now on? I really don’t want to play Sam and Max season 3 (or any other adventure game) this way.
Sadly my keyboard doesn't stretch out that far. And on my mouse both the buttons are on the same side, easily in reach of my thumb, who was feeling a bit useless and not like a team player before I got my new mouse.
90% seems like a bit of a misrepresentation. Think about all the old games where point and click works well, you could usually see everything in one screen or the equivalent of two scrolling screens. Think of how many screens worth of room there are in Flotsam town alone, or the street where Sam & Max live. Point and click is just becoming too annoying (well at least I'm feeling that way) and it's counting one of the great advantages of running a game in 3D and that's dynamic camera angles.
I really believe that Telltale have made the right choice by making the control scheme character relative rather than setting relevant.
Club 41 is a great example of this.
And any place that requires you to move 'towards the screen'.
I doubt that I'll replace my WASD use with it, because I like being able to mouse over the screen while I'm moving, but it's not anywhere close to what everyone's making it out to be.
I found moving him around with it actually quite nice.
As long as I'm on the subject of WASD, would it be possible to allow the player to customize the keyboard controls? I can't be the only one who finds holding Shift to run awkward and uncomfortable. I'd much rather use Space.
Wow, some players are more archaic than I thought.
Stick with the S&M scheme I say. It's simply the best.
My suspicion is that the decision to move towards direct control scheme was primarily about making the games more easily adaptable to consoles, rather than because the content actually demanded it.
That's my favourite cinematic moment from chapters 1 and 4!
It makes me think of the older 2D games and the left and right scrolling movement of the camera it was restricted to. The bridge walk really made it seem more like we were seeing what Guybrush sees and it is movement "into" the distance rather than just left and right.
I kinda get what they mean with a point and click control - what would you click on to move forward instead of upwards? Clicking the top of the screen is ambiguous. And how far off into the distance are you intending to move? You need some kind of click and hold to direct that motion.