Having pre-ordered on the strength of previous wonderful Telltale games. I now find point-and-click has been replaced by ?????, words fail me as to what. Not what I had expected from a Telltale game. I guess that the PC games market is no longer the focus, all eyes on Wii, such a shame! Twenty minuets with the demo with these controls is not for me. This is a step backwards in PC gaming.
Just played the demo, I found the control system perfectly fine!
I'm confused by the many people declaring they wont buy it purely due to control scheme. Its still the well-renowned Telltale style guys! It's just the controls are a little different. But its not a gamebreaker at all, Grim Fandango is considered a fantastic game by many despite having the same control scheme too.
The only thing is its kind of a shame you cant move in diagonals so much with the keyboard but this isnt really a big deal. Also it was a little tough to click Wallace when the bee is holding him.
Will be preordering hopefully, hoping to get a fellow W&G fan interested in this too
But its not a gamebreaker at all, Grim Fandango is considered a fantastic game by many despite having the same control scheme too.
I'll admit that Grim Fandango's control scheme was far more broken and unfriendly than W&G's. But it's also the reason I've played through the game only twice and through MI4 only once. There's no reason to put up with annoying crap when I can just go enjoy a game without a crippled control scheme. When I play a game I want to kick back and enjoy, I don't want to be forced to hassle with a half-assed system when it would've been a trivial matter to just keep it like it was.
EDIT to add: I mean, I'm willing to make sacrifices if the content is too good to pass. But in a casual style light-adventure game that Telltale's products have been, I'm not really willing to bet money on the content being of that caliber.
I personally enjoyed the demo, and really didn't notice the control scheme all that much. I think it works for Wallace and Gromit, as it adds something I can't put my finger on. However, I'd rather not see this in Sam and Max or SBCG4AP, where it wouldn't work. So, yeah, I liked it.
And here I was hoping that they would, at the very least, give us the option to use this control scheme in all of their future games.
You must be joking. Would Strong Bad have been great with these controls? From that first episode, his bouncy fluid movement came from the mouse point control. It gave him his character straight away, for all players. If we had all been fumbling with WASD, Shift, Tab and Left Mouse, Strong Bad would have been a lame Strong Sad. Go back to that first episode and think about it.
I'll admit that Grim Fandango's control scheme was far more broken and unfriendly than W&G's. But it's also the reason I've played through the game only twice and through MI4 only once. There's no reason to put up with annoying crap when I can just go enjoy a game without a crippled control scheme. When I play a game I want to kick back and enjoy, I don't want to be forced to hassle with a half-assed system when it would've been a trivial matter to just keep it like it was.
EDIT to add: I mean, I'm willing to make sacrifices if the content is too good to pass. But in a casual style light-adventure game that Telltale's products have been, I'm not really willing to bet money on the content being of that caliber.
I understand what you mean: Grim Fandango was a bit chunky on the controls but W&G's control scheme doesnt seem to be a problem to me. Mind I'm a regular gamer and I accept stuff like no diagonals in Pokemon.
But it doesnt really seem like an issue to me at all. The only time the control scheme felt weird was when I walked back down Wallaby street from the crazy old man. IMO as long as theres not loads of diagonal long walkways to amble forever over it shouldnt be an issue (as I recall my beef with Grim being that there was way too much space to natvigate with a keyboard scheme)
add: I mean, I'm willing to make sacrifices if the content is too good to pass. But in a casual style light-adventure game that Telltale's products have been, I'm not really willing to bet money on the content being of that caliber.
Heads up, most of us actually created the games "of that caliber"!
Why did you not use the right mouse button to show the inventory? As the left button selects items, this would have been more intuitive. Why on earth use the shift key or the mouse wheel?
Why did you not use the right mouse button to show the inventory? As the left button selects items, this would have been more intuitive. Why on earth use the shift key or the mouse wheel?
Consistency. Right-click means "cancel" in WG regardless of context.
Heads up, most of us actually created the games "of that caliber"!
Yeah, I didn't really mean ye olde adventure games when I said I was willing to make sacrifices for great content. It's why I don't replay the ones with crappy controls.
Content that goes over a horrible UI (and often horrible graphics and presentation, not to mention all the bugs) is more in the realm of Planescape: Torment or Arcanum or Fallout. But if it's light on content, it should also be light on the nerves (ie. simple and accessible UI).
Seems a waste of a useful control. ESC and "cancel" were made for each other, but you know best.
A guess, but I think ESC is too far away from any of the other button clusters you can use to control the game, including WASD. That alone makes it less intuitive than the current setup.
In this case, I think the controls make a lot of sense as they are. You can left-click to interact with all the objects and inventory items in the game -- collecting them, combining them, using them on other things -- while right-click cancels whatever you're doing. Left = "action", Right = "cancel action." Sounds about right to me. *shrug*
the game looks fine and I have preordered and now I have played the demo and I'm really disappointed. Why on earth have you changed the controls to use WASD? Point & Click is the ONLY way to control an adventure game. This will scare a lot of players like me. Have you announced anywhere that the PC version will be WASD?
It is not an excuse that the game will be out for consoles too....why scare off all PC players? Does this now mean that Sam & Max will go into the same direction?
Man...what a shame. I'll see if I can get a refund.
I was confused when I played the demo at first, "Huh? WSAD to move... what? I can't just click." but I had no trouble, since I have played other games on the pc which use the exact same control scheme. I was wondering why this control scheme was chosen though.
then the game will be perfrct!!!! the only issue is the point and click control allow the game (not the mini games-there you can make any control you would like) to be played only by mouse! when i played grim fandango and Monkey i4 i enjoyed the game but sufferd from the keybord only mouse.
im sure you can overcome the technical probloms!
I'm thinking of using logitech setpoint to bind some of my extra mouse buttons to keys. But I'm not gonna play the demo, because I don't want any of the game spoiled
I'm thinking of using logitech setpoint to bind some of my extra mouse buttons to keys. But I'm not gonna play the demo, because I don't want any of the game spoiled
I wouldn't be worried about that. In the demo, there are more threads left open than what you eventually close - it's a real appetizer
I'm confused by the many people declaring they wont buy it purely due to control scheme. Its still the well-renowned Telltale style guys! It's just the controls are a little different. But its not a gamebreaker at all, Grim Fandango is considered a fantastic game by many despite having the same control scheme too.
Not a big surprise. This forum obviously attracts people who enjoyed the other games that Telltale makes, and those let you use the mouse. On top of that, they do *not* let you use the keyboard. Basically, you have a forum full of people that like to use the mouse and don't really care much for the keyboard. It's no wonder that some of them won't buy the game if the control scheme is the opposite of what they're used to.
I'm part of that group. I bought Grim Fandango, by the way, but never played it for this reason. I will not make the same mistake again.
That's a good idea, but it comes with its own set of drawbacks.
If the ground is on the screen, we can cast a ray from a click and determine where it hit the ground. There is one correct solution.
If the ground is not on the screen, we have to cast a plane from where the user clicked, and see where it intersects the ground. The result of this is a line with infinite solutions. The user may have intended to walk far away from the camera, or near it, or anywhere in between. There's mathematically no way to tell.
I'm sorry that you find the controls unmanageable.
=
u can make a chacter related movment ,you can make up down or left acordding the position of your charcter, up will be from the belt area of walce and above. down will be from his belt and down and left is to the left of walcae and right will be be to the left of him,
up+left right+dosn and etc. are the combintion of the 2d position of the mouse on screen. every place you just need to re-configure the "belt" lociton to the area and chrecther.
(still , there are small things that iwm sure u can overcome with)
solve the problem or the u will lost some of your sales.
soory for my english im good in reading less then writing.
p.s
it will be great if you colud move the charcter while holding left button so when you hold left buuton and move the muse up the charcter will move up (parallel to pressing up in the keybord).
I tried playing through the demo with a wired Xbox 360 -controller, and the experience was much improved. I do have a few gripes, though.
1) Would it be possible to bind "show all hotspots" to one of the gamepad triggers? Since I can't wave a cursor around easily to scan for hotspots with the controller, I kept using show all hotspots to select what I wanted to interact with. It would be smoother to do that if I could just hold one of the triggers down. It's non-intuitive and a (small) hassle to hold down Y and to press A at the same time.
2) When I'm presented with a screen where I need to click "yes" to continue (like you are several times in the demo) why isn't yes chosen by default? When using a controller, the A button tends to always be yes or OK, but in Wallace & Gromit I had to first choose yes with the analog stick and then press A.
I would still prefer using my mouse, and I do feel it could easily work (even with cinematic angles) if it was done like avihai suggested (that is, if you click anywhere on the screen above Wallace's waist, he moves like you would've pushed up on the analog stick or the up arrow on the keyboard and same for other directions around his waist). One would assume a control scheme like this would be a trivial matter to implement?
2) When I'm presented with a screen where I need to click "yes" to continue (like you are several times in the demo) why isn't yes chosen by default? When using a controller, the A button tends to always be yes or OK, but in Wallace & Gromit I had to first choose yes with the analog stick and then press A.
I'm not Yare and I hate to put words in his mouth, but I'm pretty sure that would be difficult to do on the PC. On the 360 it behaves in exactly the way you described, but for the PC the A button is essentially mapped to Left Click on the mouse. So for that to work, we would have to have the game automatically say OK every time you left click. The end result is that it would be very easy to accidentally click through any message, potentially causing you to save over the wrong file or accidentally load or any number of annoying behaviors.
I have nothing to do with programming controls, and I haven't thought this through at all, but if clicking the "OK" prompt is required to continue, perhaps we could try auto snapping the cursor to the button when it appears. I haven't tried it, so I don't know if that would be annoying or not. Just something that crossed my mind. Maybe something to consider for future projects...Perhaps I should keep my thoughts to myself...
Re: Will's comment, I've seen plenty of mutliplatform releases where the 360 controller functions as expected on PC when in use, but the mouse also works fine. I think this is only the case if the game can't tell the difference between th A button and a left click, which really shouldn't be the case.
Seconded.
I think this is only the case if the game can't tell the difference between th A button and a left click, which really shouldn't be the case.
You're probably right. This is an engine limitation that we're going to address for future projects.
You're probably right. This is an engine limitation that we're going to address for future projects.
Future projecs? Do you mean future Wallace & Gromit games, or are you planning to put this control system in other franchises as well (Sam & Max for instance)?
Future projecs? Do you mean future Wallace & Gromit games, or are you planning to put this control system in other franchises as well (Sam & Max for instance)?
The ambiguity of the difference between "A" and "Left Click" came up as an issue internally when we were working on SBCG4AP as well, which was point 'n click, so don't draw too many conclusions here. We decide things like how a game should control by what we think is appropriate for the game and the platforms its on. Meaning, we don't know when the next version of any controls will show up. CSI operates differently from SCG4AP which is different from W&G.
I don't know if this was mentioned, but it strikes me that the intuitive thing to do with shift and the arrow keys is this:
If you press the shift key, it brings up the inventory. You can then cycle through the inventory with the arrow keys, and press shift again to select the item.
If you HOLD DOWN the shift key, then while you're holding it down, you can use the arrow keys to cycle through the inventory, and then when you release the shift key, the current item is brought out for use.
Any PC game I've ever played has support for any gamepad. Windows treats all gamepads as just an object after all; if the user moves the stick or presses a button then you get returned (x y or z) which axis has been moved or (1, 2, 3...) which button has been pressed.
Actually, Windows has had a two-tier system for Joypad support for some time now, and it looks like Telltale went the newfangled XInput way instead of using trusty DirectInput.
Too bad there's hardly no XInput support besides Microsoft's own gamepads...
np: CLP - Insatiable ft. White Gold Princess (Supercontinental)
I used my wired 360 controller a bit. I found that with the dual-stick focus my right thumb was getting tired jumping back to A/X/B. In a dual-stick heavy game the use of the triggers can be important.
My suggestions: It would be nice to use the Right Trigger as another alternative to A/Left Mouse Button (for a simple "point and shoot" mechanic that should seem relatively familiar to a 360 pad owner). Because the Inventory is the next most often pressed button I was thinking it might be useful on the Left Trigger, but there's probably more room to debate that.
OK, I had half an hour to spend with the game, and besides being charmed by it's gorgeous implementation of the W&G universe, a question keeps nagging me: what's so horribly wrong with the controls that some people are giving up on the series? I honestly don't see them broken, not even inconvenient. Would I prefer point-and-click? Definitely. But once it's out of the question, I think these controls are close to optimal. They're handy, intuitive, and aren't getting in the way of playing. Key remapping is missing, though - I'm a little puzzled by this one...
Then, further on the plus side, the item interaction scheme (selection-wheel-left click) is simply great.
I just had a look at the W&G demo and in my opinion the steering for a keyboard steering is nicely done.
The only problem i'm having with it is the fact that a mouse steering, like multitouch as well, simply is superior to any keyboard steering. So again, well implemented but on PC the mouse is the far better steering option as it needs only one hand (i can also play with just the mouse lying in my bed), analog accelerated, simply less pressing effort for a more accurate effect.
I prefer a real point&click behaviour in adventures.
Hopefully Sam&Max stays with a mouse steering (option).
With almost 200 replies so far (if you add the posting from both related threads), the new control scheme seems to be the most discussed topic for the W&G adventure. - I have browsed through all postings now and it seems to me that a lot of people would like to get back to the former "point and click" style control. Though there are several statements that you get used to the new scheme quickly, the number of replies of people who really prefer to use the keyboard control is very low!
Personally, I always liked to control adventure games using the mouse only, so you do not need to sit straight at your desk for several hours, right hand on the mouse, left on the keyboard (or vice versa), but you can just lean back and still have one hand free to grab some potato chips or a drink while playing. - Therefore I would really appreciate if Telltale would get back to the Sam&Max-style control for future games. Thanks.
I think what would help a lot is if could have a help file or something listing the different keys that can be used on the keyboard. I tried a bit the keyboard and mouse control method and I didn't feel that comfortable. I also tried using only the numpad on the keyboard as Jake said and that was fine. The only problem was trying to figure out which keys did what. After that all is good. That same problem also appeared when I tried my gamepad.
Comments
And here I was hoping that they would, at the very least, give us the option to use this control scheme in all of their future games.
I'm confused by the many people declaring they wont buy it purely due to control scheme. Its still the well-renowned Telltale style guys! It's just the controls are a little different. But its not a gamebreaker at all, Grim Fandango is considered a fantastic game by many despite having the same control scheme too.
The only thing is its kind of a shame you cant move in diagonals so much with the keyboard but this isnt really a big deal. Also it was a little tough to click Wallace when the bee is holding him.
Will be preordering hopefully, hoping to get a fellow W&G fan interested in this too
EDIT to add: I mean, I'm willing to make sacrifices if the content is too good to pass. But in a casual style light-adventure game that Telltale's products have been, I'm not really willing to bet money on the content being of that caliber.
-iRock
You must be joking. Would Strong Bad have been great with these controls? From that first episode, his bouncy fluid movement came from the mouse point control. It gave him his character straight away, for all players. If we had all been fumbling with WASD, Shift, Tab and Left Mouse, Strong Bad would have been a lame Strong Sad. Go back to that first episode and think about it.
I understand what you mean: Grim Fandango was a bit chunky on the controls but W&G's control scheme doesnt seem to be a problem to me. Mind I'm a regular gamer and I accept stuff like no diagonals in Pokemon.
But it doesnt really seem like an issue to me at all. The only time the control scheme felt weird was when I walked back down Wallaby street from the crazy old man. IMO as long as theres not loads of diagonal long walkways to amble forever over it shouldnt be an issue (as I recall my beef with Grim being that there was way too much space to natvigate with a keyboard scheme)
Heads up, most of us actually created the games "of that caliber"!
Why did you not use the right mouse button to show the inventory? As the left button selects items, this would have been more intuitive. Why on earth use the shift key or the mouse wheel?
Consistency. Right-click means "cancel" in WG regardless of context.
Middle mouse /wheel click brings up the UI.
Content that goes over a horrible UI (and often horrible graphics and presentation, not to mention all the bugs) is more in the realm of Planescape: Torment or Arcanum or Fallout. But if it's light on content, it should also be light on the nerves (ie. simple and accessible UI).
A guess, but I think ESC is too far away from any of the other button clusters you can use to control the game, including WASD. That alone makes it less intuitive than the current setup.
In this case, I think the controls make a lot of sense as they are. You can left-click to interact with all the objects and inventory items in the game -- collecting them, combining them, using them on other things -- while right-click cancels whatever you're doing. Left = "action", Right = "cancel action." Sounds about right to me. *shrug*
the game looks fine and I have preordered and now I have played the demo and I'm really disappointed. Why on earth have you changed the controls to use WASD? Point & Click is the ONLY way to control an adventure game. This will scare a lot of players like me. Have you announced anywhere that the PC version will be WASD?
It is not an excuse that the game will be out for consoles too....why scare off all PC players? Does this now mean that Sam & Max will go into the same direction?
Man...what a shame. I'll see if I can get a refund.
René
im sure you can overcome the technical probloms!
I wouldn't be worried about that. In the demo, there are more threads left open than what you eventually close - it's a real appetizer
Not a big surprise. This forum obviously attracts people who enjoyed the other games that Telltale makes, and those let you use the mouse. On top of that, they do *not* let you use the keyboard. Basically, you have a forum full of people that like to use the mouse and don't really care much for the keyboard. It's no wonder that some of them won't buy the game if the control scheme is the opposite of what they're used to.
I'm part of that group. I bought Grim Fandango, by the way, but never played it for this reason. I will not make the same mistake again.
=
u can make a chacter related movment ,you can make up down or left acordding the position of your charcter, up will be from the belt area of walce and above. down will be from his belt and down and left is to the left of walcae and right will be be to the left of him,
up+left right+dosn and etc. are the combintion of the 2d position of the mouse on screen. every place you just need to re-configure the "belt" lociton to the area and chrecther.
(still , there are small things that iwm sure u can overcome with)
solve the problem or the u will lost some of your sales.
soory for my english im good in reading less then writing.
p.s
it will be great if you colud move the charcter while holding left button so when you hold left buuton and move the muse up the charcter will move up (parallel to pressing up in the keybord).
1) Would it be possible to bind "show all hotspots" to one of the gamepad triggers? Since I can't wave a cursor around easily to scan for hotspots with the controller, I kept using show all hotspots to select what I wanted to interact with. It would be smoother to do that if I could just hold one of the triggers down. It's non-intuitive and a (small) hassle to hold down Y and to press A at the same time.
2) When I'm presented with a screen where I need to click "yes" to continue (like you are several times in the demo) why isn't yes chosen by default? When using a controller, the A button tends to always be yes or OK, but in Wallace & Gromit I had to first choose yes with the analog stick and then press A.
I would still prefer using my mouse, and I do feel it could easily work (even with cinematic angles) if it was done like avihai suggested (that is, if you click anywhere on the screen above Wallace's waist, he moves like you would've pushed up on the analog stick or the up arrow on the keyboard and same for other directions around his waist). One would assume a control scheme like this would be a trivial matter to implement?
I'm not Yare and I hate to put words in his mouth, but I'm pretty sure that would be difficult to do on the PC. On the 360 it behaves in exactly the way you described, but for the PC the A button is essentially mapped to Left Click on the mouse. So for that to work, we would have to have the game automatically say OK every time you left click. The end result is that it would be very easy to accidentally click through any message, potentially causing you to save over the wrong file or accidentally load or any number of annoying behaviors.
Yare, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
That sounds about right. We don't fully support using a controller to navigate menus on the PC.
Seconded.
Re: Will's comment, I've seen plenty of mutliplatform releases where the 360 controller functions as expected on PC when in use, but the mouse also works fine. I think this is only the case if the game can't tell the difference between th A button and a left click, which really shouldn't be the case.
You're probably right. This is an engine limitation that we're going to address for future projects.
The ambiguity of the difference between "A" and "Left Click" came up as an issue internally when we were working on SBCG4AP as well, which was point 'n click, so don't draw too many conclusions here. We decide things like how a game should control by what we think is appropriate for the game and the platforms its on. Meaning, we don't know when the next version of any controls will show up. CSI operates differently from SCG4AP which is different from W&G.
If you press the shift key, it brings up the inventory. You can then cycle through the inventory with the arrow keys, and press shift again to select the item.
If you HOLD DOWN the shift key, then while you're holding it down, you can use the arrow keys to cycle through the inventory, and then when you release the shift key, the current item is brought out for use.
Too bad there's hardly no XInput support besides Microsoft's own gamepads...
np: CLP - Insatiable ft. White Gold Princess (Supercontinental)
So gamepad it is...
np: CLP - Bang Out (Outro) (Supercontinental)
My suggestions: It would be nice to use the Right Trigger as another alternative to A/Left Mouse Button (for a simple "point and shoot" mechanic that should seem relatively familiar to a 360 pad owner). Because the Inventory is the next most often pressed button I was thinking it might be useful on the Left Trigger, but there's probably more room to debate that.
Then, further on the plus side, the item interaction scheme (selection-wheel-left click) is simply great.
The only problem i'm having with it is the fact that a mouse steering, like multitouch as well, simply is superior to any keyboard steering. So again, well implemented but on PC the mouse is the far better steering option as it needs only one hand (i can also play with just the mouse lying in my bed), analog accelerated, simply less pressing effort for a more accurate effect.
I prefer a real point&click behaviour in adventures.
Hopefully Sam&Max stays with a mouse steering (option).
OK this issue appears to be confined to the demo, controller works fine in full game, and is definitely my preferred way of playing the game.
Personally, I always liked to control adventure games using the mouse only, so you do not need to sit straight at your desk for several hours, right hand on the mouse, left on the keyboard (or vice versa), but you can just lean back and still have one hand free to grab some potato chips or a drink while playing.