[casual_games] Res: Use of keyboard on casual games

[Martin Grider]

This topic is getting old, but I thought I'd throw my opinions in anyway.

Take all this with a grain of salt, because I'm a flash developer,
(and I'm on a mac), but I have a few points:

1) I personally would never assume anyone has a right mouse button.
For one thing, they're not standard on macs, and for another, my mom
doesn't even know her PC mouse has a second button! The same can be
said for scroll wheels.

2) This is more an observation than actually relevant to this
discussion, but every day more and more people are ditching their
desktops in favor of laptops. Many of those laptop users attach a
mouse, but I'd be willing to bet that a significant number of them do
not. Those people who don't use a mouse are not likely to play quake,
but they are still just as likely to play a casual game. I guess my
point is that users already have an input device preference, and are
not likely to play your game if it doesn't conform to that preference.


> I think a very good comparison can be made to the first FPS games. I

> played games like Wolfenstein and Doom fully with the keyboard, arrows

> keys, ctrl, alt, and shift. I saw people playing with the mouse, but it

> looked too hard, I was happy with the keyboard. I also saw that they

> consistently kicked my...well, they won a lot :). By the time Quake came

> around I got the message.


I had this same experience with playing Marathon! Although I got the
picture pretty darn quick. It only took watching over the shoulder of
someone who used the mouse for about ten minutes at a lan party before
I realized I needed to go home and practice that "new way".

Finally, thanks to whoever it was that made the point about not
requiring a mouse click for one simple game function when all the
other gameplay uses the keyboard. My own game suffers from this
problem! (I'm going to fix it this weekend.)

-martin
--
http://chesstris.com/



On 5/31/07, Stephen Triche <Striche at yatecgames.com> wrote:

> Which goes back to what Todd was saying, controls for "power users".

>

> It some (perhaps narrow) sense, it is also up to us to increase literacy

> for control schemes our user's are not currently familiar with, by

> releasing AAA games that utilize them. By the same token we shouldn't

> alienate them by not also including control schemes they are already

> familiar.

>

> Now granted, it would take a very specific design to do this well. It

> needs to be playable with a mouse, but easier to master with keyboard

> controls.

>

> This is not a new issue, nor is it specific to casual games. Mice didn't

> exist in early PCs; PC gaming started with the keyboard. Somehow, games

> convinced us that the mouse worked well, perhaps better in certain

> circumstances.

>

> I think a very good comparison can be made to the first FPS games. I

> played games like Wolfenstein and Doom fully with the keyboard, arrows

> keys, ctrl, alt, and shift. I saw people playing with the mouse, but it

> looked too hard, I was happy with the keyboard. I also saw that they

> consistently kicked my...well, they won a lot :). By the time Quake came

> around I got the message.

>

> Now granted, it's not a perfect comparison; the early PC gaming audience

> isn't necessarily the same as the early casual gaming audience. But, at

> some point, both demographics are still human beings, so certainly there

> have to be some behavioral similarities.

>

>

> -Stephen Triche

> Yatec Games

> www.yatecgames.com

>

>

> -----Original Message-----

> From: casual_games-bounces at igda.org

> [mailto:casual_games-bounces at igda.org] On Behalf Of Hal Barwood

> Sent: Thursday, May 31, 2007 6:01 PM

> To: IGDA Casual Games SIG Mailing List

> Subject: Re: [casual_games] Res: Use of keyboard on casual games

>

> I think it's worth thinking about keyboard vs. mouse for a moment to

> understand why people (developers and players alike) view UI as such an

> important issue.  Everyone uses a mouse to click on things and little

> else, so the input literacy is well-established.  Most people are

> comfortable clicking keys as well -- at least in a word processor, where

>

> literacy is also well-developed.  The ambiguity arises for casual gamers

>

> because the keyboard lacks a standard set of cursor keys available to

> right-hand mousers:  the arrow keys are on the right side of the

> keyboard.  So keys that usually do one thing (type an "A" or "S") are

> used for something else (go left, go down, whatever), and this is

> ever-so-slightly confusing.  I expect this ambiguity to slowly disappear

>

> as developers throw in keyboard commands without worrying overmuch about

>

> accepted practices.

>

> My advice is the same as several others in this thread:  do what the OS

> people have learned to do:  multiple sets of controls -- the mouse will

> do it all, but keyboard commands will also work.

>

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