What’s good ya’ll, hope this find you well!

So I recently implemented a change in controls for something specific. I used to have specific action prompts for certain objects; if anyone who played remembers a previous post…

You would have had to use the ‘A’ key on the keyboard to interact with certain things. I have now made it so that interaction with all objects are universally set to the ‘confirm’ button- these being either the ‘SPACE’ bar or ‘Z’ key on the keyboard. Hence a change in graphics was in order.

There’s a great lesson in game design that can be gleamed from this- sometimes the simpler, more functional method can be the key to better understanding for the player.

My slant to this in the beginning was to differentiate certain actions from other more-”regular” actions; I thought that, in theory, using a different button to interact with things would convey that, but alas… I did not consider the confusion it would cause, especially to those using a controller. (I didn’t know you could play RPGmaker games with a controller ლ(´ڡ`ლ)  )

There are a few problems with my old implementation. The first is that the action is already being differentiated through the text in the speech bubble, so even if the same button is used, a prompt can provide a change in perspective despite it being only visual. The second problem is that, as a game designer, one must be, if you excuse my language, a master of misdirection, to convey to the player information they need without spoon-feeding it to them. And that’s a difficult, but somewhat reachable balance to achieve. (Think the intro to Megaman X vs an overbearing-parent-of-a-tutorial)

That aside, development’s picking up as of now, with the implementation of new areas and the polishing of the battle system and characters.

Speaking of new areas…

Let’s see how many memes I can milk from this…

Anyway, back to work.

Thanks everyone