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From: buzzard@world.std.com (Sean T Barrett)
Subject: Re: [announce] Zeta Space demo
Message-ID: <GHJxJJ.HvL@world.std.com>
Date: Sat, 4 Aug 2001 16:23:43 GMT
References: <9k2i61$48d$1@cascadia.drizzle.com> <e6d78454.0108021558.70ec11d9@posting.google.com> <9kd1r9$u3n$1@cascadia.drizzle.com>
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Xref: news.duke.edu rec.games.int-fiction:64695 rec.arts.int-fiction:90644

Adam Cadre <grignr@cascadia.drizzle.com> wrote:
>> I think that it would be a good idea make the game entirely controled by
>> pointer and entirely controled by keyboard, as the player prefers. But
>> now it's a mixed bad interface.
>
>I've had all sorts of people complain that they want to be able to do
>stuff entirely by keyboard.  Or entirely by mouse.  Or without the
>pictures.  Or without the music.

Let's not conflate these issues. The current input paradigm
felt very clumsy to me, switching back and forth between
two-handed typing and one-handed mousing, and I'm not clear
what aesthetic justification for it you have. That kind of
switching is widely regarded as a bad UI design; e.g. the
design of the apple flower-z,x,c for paste/cut/copy was
explicitly designed around one-handed mousing and one-handed
typing, so you wouldn't have to keep moving a hand from
keyboard to mouse.

Given the movement constraints currently demonstrated in the
game, a keyboard interface for movement does not seem infeasible.

SeanB
