My current game engine will feature some extreme interaction with almost all objects in the world. I believe a great deal of strategy will be added by doing this. All objects have scripted commands, such as those in games like Shadowgate, Maniac Mansion (NES), etc. The game will not revolve around these interactions, but they will be needed to proceed through areas. For example, a command such as "Use - Card Key with - Card Slot" would be used to open a secured door. The user would need to press a "use" key or button, click the card in inventory, then select the card slot on the map. Is this too much? I could just as easily have them click on the slot and auto-search their inventory for the correct item. I could go into many situations where one route will add depth while the other is more user-friendly. There are also situations where I would surely want to make it automatic. Such as simply opening a door. I could give each object in the map an "auto command" which turns on by default when the mouse is over it. But this can also remove thinking on the user's part, for anything that's not obvious. My question is, where do I draw the line? Should everything be automatic? Not requiring the player to think, but also not forcing them into so many clicks? Or should I go for detail, allowing many combinations of commands, forcing them to use their head, and also forcing clicks even when they know what they're doing? Any opinions?

I am making a RTS right now, and I am choosing to have as much as possible automated. If I were you, I would do the same. For example, left-clicking will perform the default action on an object, right clicking opens up a list of secondary actions.

You might even want to make the cursor have different colors depending on whether there are secondary actions, so the player knows whether he/she maybe would want to do more than left-click.

Actually, my writing this has given me some ideas for my game.

Good luck!

I think you could get away with a combination of the quick and the detailed.

Let's say that when you click an object, a little quick-menu will pop on screen with the options available to you.

First, lets deal with Doors and Drawers. They have 2 states...Open, and Closed. And there's really not much else you can do with them. It's obvious that if you click on an open door...you probably want to close it. For a 2 state object, you may as well just let one click change it's state.

A Lever might be more involved. Maybe it has 3 states (up, down, middle). So for them...give the added option. Either with "Push, Pull" or by chooing "Up, Down, Middle".

Basically, I'd say...Only make it complex if it NEEDS to be.

For instance...if you click on a Lock. Instead of providing every item in your inventory, maybe only provide the three keys you're carrying as a choice.

The above post is by me. Sorry, forgot to sign in.

And to clarify something. The little pop-up with the available options would only appear if there is MORE than 1 thing you can do with an object. Meaning, you wouldn't get the pop-up when you click on a door (unless it's locked).

you draw the line in one of two places:

where you feel you can reasonably CODE the line

where you feel you would enjoy PLAYING the line

that's it ... the whole thing about games is this: everyone doesn't want to play the same game, and no one wants to always play the same game ... aka different people like different things and each person likes more than one thing (over time).

I personally feel that the RTS game should of course be all "auto" decided whenever possible as long as proper override controls exist ...

but a first person game with elements of puzzle or adventure might be very enjoyable to control these things manually ...

IF you avoid degenerating into this problem "I have 6 cards, and a slot, so I just try each in order till it works" ... if that would work ... it should be automatic - period.

IF on the other hand, you are making a more difficult game, where they have to know which card to try BEFORE they try it, to avoid setting of an alarm or something, then you can make them do it manually ...

BUT realize, that given online websites and hintbooks, many people are going to know anyway, so don't count on that try of puzzle for significant gameplay, and also, if you have a game save ability ... then people will just save, try, load, try, load, try .. just like the first example, but even worse cause it's more hassle ...

so just make sure it's fun ....

I used Maniac Mansion as an example because of how damn detailed that game was. Who would have thought you could toast the hampster in the Microwave? Then give it back to it's owner and get killed off? Or fill a cup with water from a pool which had radioactive leakage, then poor it on a plant to make it mutant??

The game was not user-friendly at all. You had to move a damn cursor around with a directional pad (on the NES anyways), and the buttons were all the way down on the bottom of the screen. Still, there are probably things still remaining in that game that I have yet to try.

Once the scripting is set up, creating these interactions is very easy for any type of objects. So coding is not a concern. I loved these types of games, but like Xai said, everyone has a different opinion about whats fun. That's what I'm trying to find out here.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that the game is an RPG. Futuristic, cyberpunk. Hacking, raiding high-tech buildings. Real-time combat.

One way you might do this is in order to perform an action on an object you move the cursor over the object and that brings up a default action, you can then right click to cycle through all the actions. So by default moving the cursor over a wall might bring up the look action, but something amusing might happen if you try to talk to the wall. As for items they could be used in the same way you select the active item from your inventory and that changes the standard actions to a set of object interactions.

Consider this situation for example:

The player arrives at this locked door, and has the complete set of keys, but isn't quite sure which colored key would open that locked door.
Unlock > Door > with RED Key ... failed.
Unlock > Door > with GREEN Key ... failed.
Unlock > Door > with SILVER Key ... failed.
Unlock > Door > with BLUE Key ... failed.
Unlock > Door > with IRON Key ... success!
The player has wasted time going through one of the banes of point and click adventures, and thats the trial and error sequence when it comes to puzzles. Personally, heres where it should either be automatic as a design of the game's engine, or obvious as a design of the game's levels.

Now consider a realy hard switch and pulley and trap door puzzle. How much of this puzzle should be automated? It'd probably seem to easy if most of it were automated, but then again, that whole item thing has it's trial and error flaws.

And one last one, consider a picture puzzle where the player has to arrange pieces to make a complete picture. Would it be a really bad idea to automate any part of this? (I vote that it would be).

It seems to me that from these three considerations, that automations work in some places, but not others. However, I see nothing wrong with a design that makes item usage obvious when finding the item was more important than using it.

But why put color keys in your game in the first place? Most keys or card-keys have writing on them. At least a brand name or the corperation company logo (in my game's case).

The point, I think, would be to force the player to remember which key did what. Give them as much distinction between them as possible without being ridiculous, and make them slide that card. Sure, it may be red. But the clue is where it says "Microsoft Corperation - Level 4 Access"

I may be the only one in the world, but there is some kind of satisfaction in doing it manually. When you have to dig into your pocket and slide the right key. Especially when you just fought through legions of bad guys and snuck into a secure area to obtain the key. Looking through 5 keys is not a big deal for me. Not unless you're playing a game like Resident Evil, and there are hundreds of locked doors with keys shaped like fruits or flowers :)

Keys are just one example, though. There are an infinite number of things you can do with this system. Such as "pulling" on a hanging light which is actually a hidden entrance switch. Or "opening" a painting which has a wall safe behind it.

So should "open" auto-pop-up when the cursor goes over the painting? I would actually prefer to hide that ability by making the default action of "examine" pop up for all paintings.

It's difficult to come up with a good example to explain my point. But I'm someone who likes anything that's not obvious to not be given to the player.

I for one don't really like hunting through my inventory for keys (especially if you carry around lots of random stuff). I'd suggest using some sort of keyring thingy, or since you're making something futuristic cyberpunky, a datacard that you can add keycodes to, where you can see what's on the card if you want to, but just have to use the one card to open all doors you have the code for. You can even automate it, since there's the one datacard : "unlock door" either works if you have the code, or doesn't.

On the other hand, I like puzzles that involve a bit of thought on my part, so I would keep the verbs and not give too many indications as to what the player is supposed to do, and no hints that can help him too much, like a list of verbs that can be used with certain objects as long as you keep it logical (no "Hey, If I tickle this statue's nose with the feather... it sneezes out a diamond and a data cube!", unless you're doing a comedy game ;) ).