The Sinister Design Forums

It would be cool if the game could be played with mouse-only if you wanted.

By clicking a "non-clickable" part of the screen, the Main would walk to that spot.  By clicking and holding, the character walks in that direction... you continually "steer" him.

Double-clicking makes him run instead of walk.  I've played games with this kind of movement control.

In battles, it would be convenient if you could click on the square you want to walk to!  But a simpler way (for the developer) might be to click on the "next square" you want to move to.  (Just like you do with the keyboard.)

Hmm... I might like that. Just for a little variety in controls.

I don't know about that.  When we search for hidden things like in Crypt 2 and Baz's Cellar, it woud be annoying to move every time one clicks.

Hmm... True. That would become annoying.

Yea, but doesn't the cursor change to a hand when you hover over the spot?  Do you need to be clicking around to find it?  (I don't know, because I'm not there yet.)

Hmm. Honestly; I don't think it's really necessary. Mouse controls wouldn't add anything, and could become frustrating, so I wouldn't recommend adding it.

Quote from: Steelfist on August 10, 2010, 09:10:49 PM
Hmm. Honestly; I don't think it's really necessary. Mouse controls wouldn't add anything, and could become frustrating, so I wouldn't recommend adding it.

Same here.

It might be nice but unnecessary. And some of us DO search by clicking.

Buggy: this would get decided much faster if you turned it into a poll.

He can't; He didn't create the topic.

But it doesn't seem to matter; few like it, and it has no advantages. But obvious obvious disadvantages. I think it's very unlikely to be added.

Quote from: Steelfist on August 11, 2010, 04:18:18 PM
He can't; He didn't create the topic.

But it doesn't seem to matter; few like it, and it has no advantages. But obvious obvious disadvantages. I think it's very unlikely to be added.

Gosh, what's wrong with me?

I like your animation below....

P.S. It's a poll now, albeit not exactly what you asked for.

Yes. Its more work for Craig, with no gains and some losses.

This shouldn't be deleted, because someone might have the same idea and recreat this topic.  If the topic remains, then the person with the same idea would read the responces and realize that no one agrees with him.

I think that it's a nice idea to be able to use the mouse to move (and the arrow keys too). I also agree that it might give too much work to Craig for the small benefit it gives.

Regarding the pool: even if we all disagree (which is not the case) with the suggestion of using the mouse to walk, there would be no need to delete this thread. Even the suggestions that are turned down in a moment might be used later on (on TSoG or in other games).

I don't know how to delete the poll, lol.  By the way, did Craig write the code for this forum?

You may edit the pool, reset the count to 0 and ask if the people around here think that the movement could also be done with the mouse. The options of the pool could be:
Yes, always;
Only in battles;
Only exploring (outside of the battles);
Never;
Not sure.

If you want, I can do it for you (but you may have other ideas about the question and the options).

Craig installed this forum in his server. Take a look at the links below all pages for more info about the Simple Machines Forums.

okay, thanks.  I didn't want to at first because I kept seeing posts saying that it was a bad idea with no merit.

I added a line in the first post about battle.  That was a good idea, so thank you again.

Yay! I was the 1st voter! :)
I think that being able to move with the mouse in the battles and exploring would be a nice feature to have, but not a priority one.

I clicked not sure, but after thinking about it some, I think it would be nice in battles (even if it would be a lot of work for Craig).

Quote from: yogc on August 16, 2010, 09:24:24 PM
I clicked not sure, but after thinking about it some, I think it would be nice in battles (even if it would be a lot of work for Craig).

Welcome back, yogc! Been a long time since your last post. Now, more on topic, I think moving with the mouse would be a rather annoying feature, how exactly would you run?

You should have the ability to change your vote, in case you change your mind.

Duvalier (or the character we're controlling) would chase the mouse pointer while exploring.
You could run by default and walk (move slowly) with the left mouse button pressed or the other way around.

In battles there could be 4 arrows next to the character (near the border of the square he/she is in) to our next step or, even better for us (and more trouble for Craig), each possible final location could be clickable. This would give a maximum of sq=2n(n+1) possible squares for a character that moves n squares each turn (see table below).

n	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
sq	0	4	12	24	40	60	84	112	144	180

I couldn't make the table formatting as I wanted...

Now that would be nice. No more sticking keys to make you overshoot.

Quote from: Cypher on August 17, 2010, 04:02:00 AM
You should have the ability to change your vote, in case you change your mind.

There's a "remove vote" button.

Quote from: Duskling on August 16, 2010, 11:01:11 PM
I think moving with the mouse would be a rather annoying feature, how exactly would you run?

I'm not sure if it was rhetorical, but to answer you, what I thought was like this:

If you just click, you walk there.
If you double-click, you run there.
If you click and hold, then after a moment, you start to chase the cursor, walking (like steering him).
If you double-click, holding the second time, you start to chase the cursor, running.


I had another idea, but this might take away from the game.... you can click an arrow at the end of the screen (or the cursor becomes an arrow) to move to the next scene.  I don't want to ruin the game though.

Duskling, what do you think about being able to click to your destination in battle?

Quote from: Ertxiem on August 17, 2010, 08:30:42 AM
Duvalier (or the character we're controlling) would chase the mouse pointer while exploring.
You could run by default and walk (move slowly) with the left mouse button pressed or the other way around.

I really like that!!  Perhaps he could just chase the cursor without having to hold a mouse button... and maybe the right mouse button activates that mode (we don't even use it!!).  I dunno.... but I like where this is going!

Quote from: Ertxiem on August 17, 2010, 08:30:42 AM
I couldn't make the table formatting as I wanted...

It's okay.  No one understood it anyway.  ;)  Yea, it might seem tricky to code that, but I have an idea how to do it if needed.
I guess it's hard for us to know when something would be hard to add to the code, and when it isn't....  It depends on how modular the code is.

Quote from: mezzoforte on August 17, 2010, 04:08:52 PM

Quote from: Cypher on August 17, 2010, 04:02:00 AM
You should have the ability to change your vote, in case you change your mind.

There's a "remove vote" button.

No there isn't.  That option was left out when the poll was created.

Quote from: im2smart4u on August 17, 2010, 04:44:48 PM

Quote from: mezzoforte on August 17, 2010, 04:08:52 PM

Quote from: Cypher on August 17, 2010, 04:02:00 AM
You should have the ability to change your vote, in case you change your mind.

There's a "remove vote" button.

No there isn't.  That option was left out when the poll was created.

Oh, you're right.  It's sort of a bug.  You don't get that option when you add a poll to a topic.  You do get it when you post a new poll (and not a topic).

I made the table above thinking how the battles work. The table shows the maximum number of final (destination) squares sq as a function of the speed of the character n. Looking at the last column of the table, we can see that a character with speed 9 would have a maximum of 180 squares where he can finish his move. This means that Craig would have to be able to code 180 new clickable places in the battle map (that could possibly be done with two for loops, or something like that).
Furthermore, the code would require a path finding algorithm for movements up to speed 9 and the animation would have to flow nicely when the character is moving through the path.

I'm only describing it and it seems too much trouble...
It would be much easier to have 4 small arrows in the sides of the square the character is standing that when clicked would have their action mapped to the arrow keys.

(Sometimes I ramble...)

About the table formatting, I know how to format the table in html, but with bbcode I don't know how to show the cell borders and have the text in each cell with centre alignment.

mezzoforte: You can edit the pool and check "Allow user to change vote", if you want.

Yeah, coding-wise, just the arrow-clicking thing is pretty smart.  My main idea was to have the option to play mouse-only.  As well, clicking one space at a time is already what we do with the keyboard, isn't it?!!

For the other way, I agree.  The bottleneck is finding all the destinations and respective paths.  So use a (recursive, linked-list) shortest path algorithm that gives you the path for each of the (2n+1)(2n+1) spots (NULL if it's impossible).  (No point in writing it out here.)  I think that it would be solved virtually instantanously, given that the depth is at most 9 (or however fast these guys can go).

P.S. It would be important to write in the 3 OTHER possible "directions" for Arman Leaping or Malis Shadowporting.  But if the algorithm is written recursively, that's an easy thing to add (after coding what was said before!).  That makes it O(6^(n^2)), I believe.

Quote from: Ertxiem on August 17, 2010, 05:18:07 PM
(Sometimes I ramble...)

I do too.  :-[

Quote from: Ertxiem on August 17, 2010, 05:18:07 PM
mezzoforte: You can edit the pool and check "Allow user to change vote", if you want.

No.  :)  Try to make a dummy topic, and add a poll to it.  Compare the options you get if you "post a new poll".

I reset the poll, cause I didn't like the results. <<Hides from Duskling>> :P  And edited the first post...

Well, I see no need for this topic to go on...since it can't be implemented in-game (without lots of trouble).

At least we have one easy thing that Ertxiem suggested:   In battle, we click on the next square to move to.  

Since all battles use the same engine, and since we already move one square at a time with keyboard input, I expect that it's easy to add mouse input.

Quote from: Cypher on August 18, 2010, 05:06:54 AM
Well, I see no need for this topic to go on...since it can't be implemented in-game (without lots of trouble).

I guess it's ultimately up to Craig to say what's easy to implement and what isn't.

Cool down, mezzoforte. No need to get personal. Cypher is just giving his opinion.

Quote from: Ertxiem on August 18, 2010, 07:30:11 PM
Cool down, mezzoforte. No need to get personal. Cypher is just giving his opinion.

Thank You.

Quote from: mezzoforte on August 18, 2010, 03:39:27 PM
At least we have one easy thing that Ertxiem suggested:   In battle, we click on the next square to move to. 

Since all battles use the same engine, and since we already move one square at a time with keyboard input, I expect that it's easy to add mouse input.

Quote from: Cypher on August 18, 2010, 05:06:54 AM
Well, I see no need for this topic to go on...since it can't be implemented in-game (without lots of trouble).

Sorry we hurt your brain.  :(  I guess it's ultimately up to Craig to say what's easy to implement and what isn't.

@Mezzoforte: That's true, but I have a good notion.

Cypher, I was and am in agreement with you!  It's just that your comment was very general, and I wasn't sure if you were directing it also at the idea of being able to move in battle by clicking on the next square.  It seems to me that it is a small change from pressing one arrow key at a time.

What is your feeling/notion about that being implemented?

What is wrong with the arrow keys?  I don't see the alternative as better.

My suggestion is that the player could use the arrow keys or the mouse (or both :) ).
Expanding on what I said before, the arrow keys work perfectly, so there isn't a real need to use the mouse for movement. It was just a suggested feature by mezzoforte with a few contributions from all of us.

This won't be making it in to TSoG, but I wouldn't be surprised to see this in the Telepath game that comes after it. ;)

Topic locked. Craig said it all! :)

I moved the discussion about the new TRPG to New TRPG game (http://sinisterdesign.net/forum/index.php?topic=644.0).