controls

[Crohns Racing]

this game looks great, but it has some of the most counter productive controls I have ever seen in my life.

[🈲AntiqueMemeShow🈂]

Agreed

[a2bradjan]

Not agreed. They are quite easy to understand once you get the hang of it, which i do say takes a while of practice, but is very rewarding.

[Crohns Racing]

Originally posted by AffectiveGamers:

Not agreed. They are quite easy to understand once you get the hang of it, which i do say takes a while of practice, but is very rewarding.

well you can get better at anything with practice, what im saying is that for a building game, it takes a lot of clicks, and maybe even a few google searches, just to get one guy to do a small task, while other RTS games just have a "click what worker you want, click what you want him to do" like if I want a worker to mine some stone, I should just click him, then right click the stone, not have to go through half a million confusing menus just to get him to break 3 blocks

[nccvoyager]

Actually, breaking three blocks requires left-clicking an icon, holding right-click and selecting a block the size of the ones you want to break, then holding shift while left-clicking the ones you want to break.

The reality is, in most RTS games, resources are on a flat plane, even if they do not appear to be. In the case of Castle Story, this is not true. Trees and blocks are all in a three-dimensional grid. As such, "left-click worker, right-click resource" is too simplified for this game.

The introduction of a radial menu both causes and fixes issues.
The radial menu saves screen space by not adding a huge, ugly, two-dimensional UI on the screen at all times.
On the other hand, some have indeed pointed out that it is not intuitive unless explained.

In any case, if you have []constructive[/b] ideas about how it could be fixed, please feel free to share them.

[The Wanderer]

Do whatever other successful game/ux does
- Keyboard shortcuts for the most important/commonly used functions.
- Tooltip shows the keyboard shutcut.
- Context Menus do not need need the mouse to be held down just to keep the menu open.

There are very few Radial Menu Implementations in the real world. This is by far the worst radial menu I have seen, implementation or concept. From what I've seen it neither saves space nor is easy to use, nor is intuitive.

One game that comes to mind that sort of effectively uses a radial menu, albeit you almost never use it because almost everything EXCEPT ONE THING is hot keyed (properly), would be Dungeon Defenders. However it would be nice if their radial menu implementation was more compact.

But it works and it doesn't require holding a key just to keep the menu open.

[Crohns Racing]

Originally posted by nccvoyager:

Actually, breaking three blocks requires left-clicking an icon, holding right-click and selecting a block the size of the ones you want to break, then holding shift while left-clicking the ones you want to break.

The reality is, in most RTS games, resources are on a flat plane, even if they do not appear to be. In the case of Castle Story, this is not true. Trees and blocks are all in a three-dimensional grid. As such, "left-click worker, right-click resource" is too simplified for this game.

The introduction of a radial menu both causes and fixes issues.
The radial menu saves screen space by not adding a huge, ugly, two-dimensional UI on the screen at all times.
On the other hand, some have indeed pointed out that it is not intuitive unless explained.

In any case, if you have []constructive[/b] ideas about how it could be fixed, please feel free to share them.

my constructive idea on how it could be fixed is giving either 1: a half decent tutorial or 2: a simplified tutorial because the whole select worker, select resource idea is not too simple, castle story is too complicated

[The Wanderer]

Originally posted by nccvoyager:

Actually, breaking three blocks requires left-clicking an icon, holding right-click and selecting a block the size of the ones you want to break, then holding shift while left-clicking the ones you want to break.

Building 3D Blocks in a 3D World is NOT new. There's only like 500+ games out there.

Hint. Most of them do it with far less clicking and far more intuitively.

Interaction surprsingly changes very little when going from 2D RTs to 3D RTS.
In the 2D World you have Hit Detection.
In the 3D world you also have HIT Detection.

It's not revolutionary, and it's not complicated. Most OGL/DX Engines at the most basic layer support it.

[malvar]

I like the controls. Not saying there's no room for improvement (because there always is) but i think that this shouldn't be anywhere on the devs priority list.
Just my personal opinion.

[The Wanderer]

Originally posted by malvar:

I like the controls. Not saying there's no room for improvement (because there always is) but i think that this shouldn't be anywhere on the devs priority list.
Just my personal opinion.

The game is un-playable (imho) without being able to use your mouse to move.
The game requires way too many clicks to do basic stuff. And to often it requires 3-7 attempts to get something right.

Most of what needs to be done in the game could be done by keyboard shortcuts or with far fewer clicks. If you don't believe me go play any 5 of the 500+ other voxel games out there. You're bound to run into one that gone "one thing right" and another that got something else right. The most successful ones will generally have gotten several things right.

[Crohns Racing]

Originally posted by The Wanderer:

Originally posted by nccvoyager:

Actually, breaking three blocks requires left-clicking an icon, holding right-click and selecting a block the size of the ones you want to break, then holding shift while left-clicking the ones you want to break.

Building 3D Blocks in a 3D World is NOT new. There's only like 500+ games out there.

Hint. Most of them do it with far less clicking and far more intuitively.

Interaction surprsingly changes very little when going from 2D RTs to 3D RTS.
In the 2D World you have Hit Detection.
In the 3D world you also have HIT Detection.

It's not revolutionary, and it's not complicated. Most OGL/DX Engines at the most basic layer support it.

you understand what im talking about! castle story can be much more simpler, the menus and clicking and all that can be much more simpler

[Crohns Racing]

Originally posted by The Wanderer:

Originally posted by nccvoyager:

Actually, breaking three blocks requires left-clicking an icon, holding right-click and selecting a block the size of the ones you want to break, then holding shift while left-clicking the ones you want to break.

Building 3D Blocks in a 3D World is NOT new. There's only like 500+ games out there.

Hint. Most of them do it with far less clicking and far more intuitively.

Interaction surprsingly changes very little when going from 2D RTs to 3D RTS.
In the 2D World you have Hit Detection.
In the 3D world you also have HIT Detection.

It's not revolutionary, and it's not complicated. Most OGL/DX Engines at the most basic layer support it.

if you ever played the game Warcraft 3, it had some of the best resource collection and building system ever, you clicked a worker or highlighted a large group and they had a menu, there was a sub-menu for buildings and structures, repairs, other buildings stuff and a few other actions that arent really important to this topic, and say you wanted a few guys to chop a few trees down, you highlighted or selected which worker(s) you wanted, then just right clicked the tree, and they would all go and start chopping the tree(s) that you selected, then bring them to the nearest resource collection area (basicly the stockpiles in CS) and then they would just go back to the area they chopped the tree down, and chop trees in that area and they would just keep going, it had the best interface for resource collection and management ever

[Pep]

I love this game. Have you tried to navigate with the mouse by holding down the space bar on the keyboard?
1) Hold down the space bar + hold down the right mouse button = rotation.
2) hold down the space bar + hold down the left mouse button = move position.
3) hold down the space bar + wheel mouse up and down = zoom in and zoom out.
4) just move the mouse wheel up and down = up and down the point of view.

[Pep]

One interesting thing in the radial menu, for example, to configure a mine:
Hold down the right mouse button to bring up the radial menu, While holding down the right mouse button click with the left button in the options you want. Width, length and deep to achieve the desired effect and then you can release the right mouse button.

[dracuria]

Hm not sure if it's me, but I like the controls, it feels somewhat fluid and easy O.o
I am using the mouse and keyboard, just like Pep

[The Wanderer]

Originally posted by Pep:

I love this game. Have you tried to navigate with the mouse by holding down the space bar on the keyboard?
1) Hold down the space bar + hold down the right mouse button = rotation.
2) hold down the space bar + hold down the left mouse button = move position.
3) hold down the space bar + wheel mouse up and down = zoom in and zoom out.
4) just move the mouse wheel up and down = up and down the point of view.

Now we have to use the MOUSE and THE KEYBIOARd and have to use 2 HANDS AND CONSTANTLY HOLD DOWN 1 MOUSE KEY AND ONE KEYBOARD KEY just to move the mouse.

You may love the controls and RSI WILL DEFINITELY LOVE THEM, but your fingers will NOT LOVE them or YOU.