[MUD-Dev] When the interface becomes the challenge.

[Brian Hook]

At 01:02 PM 6/22/01 -0400, Lee wrote:

> Ah, one of my former lives: adventure games.  "Full Throttle" from
> LucasArts had a useful, if ugly, floating iconic menu.  One of the
> icons was a boot just made for kicking.

Jeez, I LOVED Full Throttle, but primarily for the
story/voice-acting -- the game itself was average.

But I digress.

One of the key things about UI design is that there are a large
class of actions that many users will obviously want to do with
certain objects.  For example, if I'm walking up to a ladder and I
click the "action" button, should I attack the ladder?  No.  I
should probably mount the ladder, at which point I should be able to
go up, down or release the ladder.  This type of context sensitive
UI in a PC game is lacking.

PC developers are notorious for screwing this up.  Console
developers are much better at this kind of contextual usage because
they've had to adapt to a limited input device.  Contrast climbing a
ladder in a PC game vs. climbing a ladder in a console game.  In the
former, it's usually some horrifying combination of jump/stick or
walk+"crouch or jump".  It's ludicrous.

Brian Hook

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