Why do most game authors give so little thought to the controls?

[Rekrul]

I’m probably going to be accused of being a troll for posting this, but this is something that really bugs me.

This isn’t strictly a Unity thing, but since a lot of the games I’ve downloaded over the last few days have been made with Unity, I thought this would be a good place to ask.

For many games, you can tell that the authors spent a lot of time on the graphics and sounds. They came up with unique ideas that must have taken a lot of imagination. The games are interesting and look great. Unfortunately with a lot of them, the controls are almost an afterthought. That’s if they bothered to put any thought at all into the controls at all rather than just going with the defaults.

“What’s the problem?” I hear you asking, “Unity allows you to customize the controls from the launch window.” Well, yes and no. Yes, you can customize the keys and buttons, but if the game has assigned a function to a specific key, it will override your selection because Unity only lets you remap generic controls. Also, there’s no way to adjust the mouse sensitivity for 3D games, and most importantly for me, there’s no way to invert the mouse.

That last one is probably my biggest pet peeve. Can you name even one single commercial FPS type game that doesn’t let you invert the mouse? This has been a standard option since the Duke Nukem 3D days. In fact, inverted control (pushing forward to look down) is so common that I’ve seen games, where this is the default and you have to use the invert option if you want to look up by pushing forward.

People will say I just need to get used to it. Unfortunately, that’s not going to happen. Pushing forward to look up is unintuitive and unnatural to me. Look up at the ceiling; Did your head go forward? Of course not, it went back. If you were standing behind a spotlight and you wanted to tilt it up, would you lift up on the back end? No, you’d push down. If you want to make a plane climb, do you push forward on the stick?

Probably 75% of the 3D games I’ve downloaded are hardcoded so that pushing forward on the mouse makes you look up. A small percentage of authors have included an invert option, but for the rest, I find them completely unplayable. I spend half my time staring at the ceiling because I’m trying to look down and the damn view keeps going up. I’ve searched the net for some way to invert the mouse outside of the games, but there doesn’t seem to be any way to do it. I found a small joke program that will invert the pointer movements, but it doesn’t work in the game itself.

I just don’t understand why game authors put so much time into every other aspect of the game and then just slap generic, default controls on it and say “Good enough!”

[angrypenguin]

What games are you talking about? I know you said there’s a lot of them, but a few examples would be great.

In answer to your question, I expect that the answer is that they simply don’t know any better. Plenty of games made in Unity are hobby projects, and unfortunately they generally come from an amateur skillset. I’m not knocking these guys (to the contrary, I applaud them) but that kind of thing often simply doesn’t occur to them, especially if they’ve never done public play testing.

[Wild-Factor]

Even in the industry it’s pretty common. Some reasons:

• They don’t have enough time: The game must be out for christmas. Most player don’t need an invert mouse function, and most who like more an invert mouse can adapt after a few minutes of play. As a dev: Will I spend my time between 2 and 3 oclock in the morning before the deadline to fix the crash at level 2 or adding an invert mouse function ?

• They add new platform with no budget (usually a team from a low wage country who has newer touch the code before and are hired just because they are cheap). So they only “make it run” and don’t try to adapt a pad system (console) to a mouse + keyboard system (PC).

• Creator has played so much that the unatural system has became natural for them. So they don’t see the need to change anything.
  And of course they don’t do playtest.

• Graphics and gameplay are your sales pitch.

If you want a debate of if it’s natural or not: push your mouse up, make you look up. How can you do more natural than that ?
We are not a plane and a mouse is not a joystick.
When people used joystick, the “plane” system was a standard. Now that people use mouse, move mouse up → go up has became the new standard.

Both system are more a matter of taste and I understand you frustration (see my P.S. below). As a dev we do first the “Standard” and if we have time to polish we try to spend some time to let player configure the system to his taste.

PS: I use keyboard arrow to move instead of WASD. Because my keyboard is a azerty one and the “a” key are just inverted with the “q” some times.
Game don’t always give the possibility to configure it so I have to do some gymnastic with my fingers.

[khanstruct1]

I know people that still play FPS games with the Y axis inverted… it drives me nuts.

However, developers actually spend a great deal of time working out controls. I have books on my shelf dedicated solely to game interfaces (physical interfaces, not GUI). A lot of game interface is used because it is the norm, even if its not, technically, the best approach. Quite simply, people would be more confused by an easier system than the confusing one they’re used to.

I think, in the end, its all about customization. As long as you allow the players the option to customize their controls, you’re fine.

[Rekrul]

@angrypenguin

What games are you talking about? I know you said there’s a lot of them, but a few examples would be great.

OK. These are just what I’ve downloaded recently. Note that not all of them are unity games.

Activate the Three Artefacts and Then Leave
The Connection
Corpse Garden
The Corridor
Fabric
Fantastic
Force Trigger
Good Morning Commander
Heritage
Hide
In Ruins
Inside
The LaernU Test
Nausea
Obsolete
Psycho Logy
Purge
QB
Qbeh
Rosslyn Adventure
Sacred Line
Souvenir
Stalked
Tale Of Scale
Tiny World Of Wonders
Toward the Light
Which
Zombies Are Coming

@angrypenguin

In answer to your question, I expect that the answer is that they simply don’t know any better. Plenty of games made in Unity are hobby projects, and unfortunately they generally come from an amateur skillset. I’m not knocking these guys (to the contrary, I applaud them) but that kind of thing often simply doesn’t occur to them, especially if they’ve never done public play testing.

You would think that it would be common sense that if a player isn’t comfortable with the controls, they’re not going to enjoy playing the game.

@Wild Factor

If you want a debate of if it’s natural or not: push your mouse up, make you look up. How can you do more natural than that ?

I’d argue that pushing forward to look down is more natural because it mimics the real world. With any physical object that can be tilted up and down, you push on it to tilt it down and pull on it to tilt it up. It’s instinctive. You never see someone walk up to a camera on a tripod and try tilting it up by pushing on it.

To me, controlling the view in an FPS game is the same as moving a camera on a tripod. You want to tilt the camera down, you need to push forward.

@Wild Factor

We are not a plane and a mouse is not a joystick.
When people used joystick, the “plane” system was a standard. Now that people use mouse, move mouse up → go up has became the new standard.

For a pointer on the screen it makes sense, but when you’re moving the view, it’s backward.

I got into the Intel world late, and my very first experience with an FPS game that used mouselook was playing the demo for the game SiN. Since I had never played an FPS game before, I didn’t have any preconceived ideas about how the control should work (although I had played flight simulators on older computers). The game defaulted to non-inverted control. After the opening movie, you’re in a chopper manning a mounted machine gun. I shot the wall, a billboard, the ground, etc. Everything except the bad guys. Once on foot I didn’t fare much better. After dying several times I shut it off in disgust, wondering how anyone was expected to play a game with such an awkward control method. Since the demo took so long to load, I never went back to it.

My second experience was with the demo for Jedi Knight. This demo loaded fast, so I didn’t mind playing with the options and trying them out. As soon as I found the Invert Mouse setting, it was like I’d been trying to write left-handed and had finally switched the pen to my right hand. I didn’t instantly become an expert FPS player (I’m still not an expert player), but at least looking around with the mouse became intuitive. I no longer had to stop and think about which way was up.

I eventually went back to the SiN demo a few years ago. On a much faster system, the load times weren’t bad, and I ended up enjoying it so much that I bought a copy of the full game.

@Wild Factor

Both system are more a matter of taste and I understand you frustration (see my P.S. below). As a dev we do first the “Standard” and if we have time to polish we try to spend some time to let player configure the system to his taste.

PS: I use keyboard arrow to move instead of WASD. Because my keyboard is a azerty one and the “a” key are just inverted with the “q” some times.
Game don’t always give the possibility to configure it so I have to do some gymnastic with my fingers.

Whenever possible, I always use the arrows for movement. I use a normal keyboard and the arrow keys are separate from the rest, which makes it very easy to find the right one just by feel. With the WASD keys, it’s too easy to be pressing ESDF instead.

I also normally bind jump to the right mouse button. I’m right-handed, so my left hand is my least coordinated hand. Asking my left hand to handle the directional movement and jumping is awkward for me. I like to be able to just hold down the Up arrow while steering and jumping with the mouse.

[Rekrul]

@khanstruct_1

I know people that still play FPS games with the Y axis inverted… it drives me nuts.

I can’t play an FPS game without the mouse being inverted.

@khanstruct_1

However, developers actually spend a great deal of time working out controls. I have books on my shelf dedicated solely to game interfaces (physical interfaces, not GUI). A lot of game interface is used because it is the norm, even if its not, technically, the best approach. Quite simply, people would be more confused by an easier system than the confusing one they’re used to.

I’ve never been able to get used to gamepads myself. I grew up with the Atari, which everyone agrees had right-handed joysticks. You held the base in your left hand, your left thumb pressed the button and you worked the stick with your right hand. Then the NES came out and the controller were designed to be the exact opposite of what the Atari used. Suddenly it was considered normal to control the movement with your left hand and press the buttons with your right. Even systems that have two thumbsticks won’t let you use the right one for playing a game, even if the game isn’t using it for anything else. One argument that people often use when I mention this subject is to point out that many arcade games were designed with the stick on the left as well, as if that somehow explains everything.

What gets me is that nobody seems able to see the contradiction in claiming that both the original Atari joysticks and the NES pads were intended for right-handed players. It’s doubly puzzling when a left-handed fan of retro games claims that it’s awkward for them to use the original Atari sticks. If it’s supposedly natural for a right-handed player to control the movement (pad, arcade joystick) with their left hand, shouldn’t it be natural for a left-handed player to use their right hand on the joystick? Yet for some reason, when I say I can’t get used to playing with my left hand, I’m told that it’s better that way and that I should get used to it, but when a left-handed player complains about having to use their right hand, nobody finds that the least bit odd.

@khanstruct_1

I think, in the end, its all about customization. As long as you allow the players the option to customize their controls, you’re fine.

Exactly! Give players the option to map the controls the way they want, adjust the mouse sensitivity and invert the Y axis.

[khanstruct1]

@Rekrul

I can’t play an FPS game without the mouse being inverted.

-_-

That is how I identify alien pod people…