mrimer wrote:
I heard about the closest thing to a good DROD movement interface we could implement on a game console:
* Use the 4-direction pad/analog stick to allow axial movement
* Use the four buttons to handle the diagonal moves.
* Use the L and R buttons to rotate.
I gotta say, if DROD were to appear on (for the sake of argument) XBLA, I'd prefer a setup like this:
* left stick manages 8-way movement. This is somewhat intelligent, in that the arc that corresponds to one direction will shrink to (say) half if that way is blocked. (For example, in an open area each direction would correspond to an arc of 1/8 of the stick's movement. In a room full of orthogonal tiles, for example, the diagonal arcs would be 1/16 in length while the orthogonal arcs would be 3/16 in length.)
* bottom button (on the Xbox 360 controller, this is
A) is wait.
* left shoulder button toggles
step mode. In this mode, the
A button becomes the 'step' button, and the left stick is used to decide the direction Beethro will step in. If the left stick is centered, pressing
A will make Beethro wait.
* left trigger turns on step mode as long as it's depressed.
* right analog stick handles rotation. Flicking the stick in a direction will turn the sword in that direction. There would be a dead zone of about 1/6 in the axis the sword is pointing (This way, there's less chance for ambiguity about rotation, and players can push the stick down in the direction of Beethro's sword and rotate the stick to rotate the sword).
*
B button is undo.
*
X button is the combat button.
*
Y button is restart.
* the select button will bring up the in-game menu, which has the map and a menu containing things like Record Demo, View Demo, Restore, Statistics, etc.
* the D-pad will bring up a cursor that shows what is on each tile. This cursor fades after a move or five seconds of inaction. In this mode, clicking the right shoulder button or right trigger will perform the left click action in the PC version (such as showing an evil eye's vision, the doors affected by orbs and pressure plates, etc.)
I figure that the most common action, wait/move, should go on the bottom button. I reckon undo should go on a red button, the combat button should be next to the wait/move button, and the restart button should be on the face of the controller. The top button seems like a good place. I figure that we might want two modes of movement, although it might be better to swap them so that the 'step move' is the default and the 'rush move' is the modifier. I reckon that the right analog stick should be the sword because it's a movement action. I've never really liked the way sword movement works in DROD - it feels like the interface is getting in the way, considering that the movement keys are in relation to the screen and the rotation keys are in relation to Beethro.
Alternatively, the right analog stick could be used for step movement and the left and right trigger used for Beethro's sword, but that feels to me like it's causing extra problems. Perhaps that could be an option.
Another alternative is to trash the 8-way movement on rush mode and have 4-way movement, and hold down the right trigger to move diagonally.
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