Feedback and Control Schemes

RPG – Skyrim

Character development and story are the most important. RPG elements include: character stats, gaining levels, weapons, armor, health, magic, stamina. All of which can be seen in Skyrim.

1.       Control Schemes

                Skyrim is one game that excels at its control schemes. On Xbox the controller interaction is smooth and flawless in combat. Left hand attacks are controlled by the Left Trigger as are Right handed attacks controlled by the Right Trigger. Every necessity for combat is easily accessible and controls are provided for every manor of combat without interruption to gameplay. Switching between 1^st and 3^rd person views are seamless and also easy to switch back and forth between. Controls for: Sprint, shout, sneak, jump are all easily activated as well are the various sub menus such as your journal and character menus. Character development and story are the most important. RPG elements include: character stats, gaining levels, weapons, armor, health, magic, stamina. All of which can be seen in Skyrim.

2.       Feedback Schemes:

                Skyrim has an enormous feedback system. The most obvious feedback we receive are those that are constantly on display. These include our: Magicka, Health and Stamina bars as well as our Compass and directional feedback. Skyrim presents this menu in a clean and practical function. Don’t have magic equipped? Well your Magicka bar will not display. Not running or using Stamina? Well than your Stamina bar will not pop up. However when you start to sprint it pops up into action and starts to display your diminishing stamina, hence showing you how much longer you have to run. Another awesome feedback system is Skyrims directional compass, located at the top of the screen. Instead of the traditional mini map, which is used in a lot of RPGs Skyrim utilizes a compass that functions not only as a directional guide but also displays: tracked quests, cities, enemies, as well as numerous other important locations. These icons also scale with your relative distance to them, getting either larger or smaller as you approach or distance yourself. Enemy health also displays here when in combat.

                Feedback can also be seen when under attack, physically or from other various ailments such as poison, frost or fire. When hit by an enemy blow blood will splatter and blur the screen as well as induce blood splatter across the viewport. Another is the weight system, where if you are utilizing armor, which has a higher weight than you can currently carry your character becomes overburdened and begins to move extremely slowly.

                 Feedback in Skyrim submenus is generally successful. On the CONTROL menu we are provided up to date feedback on our: quest progression, general stats such as or questing, magic, crafting and crime history. In the SKILLS menu we can see a hugely successful aspect of Skyrim’s feedback system. On the top we can see our name, race and level as well as a progression bar to see how far into that level we are. Also displayed are our 18 skills, these include: Two-handed, lockpicking, archery, alchemy and speech. Each provide individual and specific feedback and are displayed with a brilliant control system that is easy to interact with and give you up to date feedback on your skill level and progression into that level. Each node gives you a required level as well as description. Here we can also see our Magicka, Health and Stamina levels. This is also where we go when we level up to put more points into said categories and become more powerful.  

3.       RPG Interface Challenges/Problems/Fixes

As Harvey Smith, Studio Creative Director for Midway Studios-Austin states: Role-playing games poses difficult interface problems. RPGs carry massive expectations and desires of fans. Also, representing a complex, evolving character in a richly detailed world, with a wide variety of inputs into that world, the game designer must juggle a lot of balls (and keep the text on the balls legible as they are flying through the air.

One personal interface problem I had was when in Skyrim’s 3^rd person perspective the camera zooms too close into the character, as a result the only practical way to play in 3^rd person view is with weapons drawn, which although it zooms the characters out providing a better view slows the character run speed down dramatically.

The largest failure of Skyrim though was in its layout of its item system. Although we are provided with positive feedback on our carry weight, gold and health in these menus, as well as individual positive or negative armor effects the sub menus are poorly organized and can often lead to player mistakes and trouble. The problem? Your treasure is mixed in with trash. In the Apparel menu everything from crappy armor you have picked up to sell to your best crafted gear is all clumped together. Even though Skyrim attempts to counter act this with a favorites menu, all your good gear is still grouped with your trash. A more detailed menu could be provided for as an example potions. Potions could be further divided into a health potions, magic potions, stamina potions and misc. potions category. As the book points out players could also be given the chance to organize armor according to its strength, which Skyrim makes a big deal out of. Ex: Ebon, Daedric, Steel armor.

As the book states any action that might result in frustration for the player should be made difficult to accomplish by accident. As an example if a player accidently sold their Daedric armor chest piece to a vendor they are only given 2392g, however to buy it back it will cost them 17126g. A fix to this would be to let players buy back items for the same price. Friend pointed out, “Oh, well – that’s capitalism!”

Better control menu to switch from: magic to one-handed to two-handed. This could be accomplished with a button set up like the book references in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic where a single button switches between blaster and light saber or L4D2 where by pressing “Y” a player switches between A main handed weapon and their offhanded pistols or melee weapon.

Adventure – Limbo

Platform exclusive title on Xbox Live Arcade. The game is an Adventure/Puzzle/Platformer. The player guides an unnamed boy through dangerous environments and traps, for an unknown motivation (We at the end find the search to have been for the boy’s missing sister. The developer built the game's puzzles expecting the player to fail before finding the correct solution. Playdead called the style of play "trial and death", and used visually gruesome imagery for the boy's deaths to steer the player from unworkable solutions. Provides a really dark presentation, compatible to film noir. 

1.       Control Schemes:

Limbo is 2d side scroller. Limbo possesses a uniquely simple control scheme with only two buttons (A – Jump and B – Action, as well as the joystick move control. 

2.       Feedback Schemes:

Limbo has no health bars, stamina bars or special menus or setups. Instead the only feedback we receive is from our character, who is a completely black silhouette of a young boy. His health is either on or off, if his eyes are glowing white he is alive; if his eyes go black he is dead. The only other feedback we receive is through dying. Did we do something wrong, are we going about something the wrong way? We will figure it out soon enough because traps and death are everywhere and when you fail – you know it! As a result feedback is almost entirely through the environment itself. The game can provide us insight through recognition of danger or foreshadowing where we need to go with recognizable ropes, pulleys, flies, spikes, shadows, and dangerous obstacles.

Simulation – Tower Defense

1.       Control Schemes:

Since Tower Defense is on a smart phone, game control can have a completely different feel from that of a typical console game; however, in reality can provide a lot quicker and more enjoyable control. The basics are all there, the game starts with a: Start, Options and Info buttons. Start brings up the Campaign or Challenge game modes. Options brings up our music, sound options, as well as a more smartphone related section: Twitter and Facebook – where you can post your scores and challenge friends. Info gives us a game guide, scores as well as a cinematic of the story.

One of the beautiful things about control on a smart phone is how much control the player actually has. As a player we are provided with informational feedback on what the upcoming map will be as well as what the enemies will be and can then choose from a variety of turrets and weapons to defend against the oncoming onslaught. The player also sets the pace of the game with a play/pause button as well as personal strategy and speed (either 1x or 2x) and can unleash up to 3 oncoming enemy waves at one time.

2.       Feedback Schemes:

General feedback is displayed at the top. These include: our economy (number of resources, which we get from killing enemies), lives (number of times an enemy can penetrate our defenses and hit our base), and score (points earned from surviving each round and killing units). On the bottom we are given feedback on the upcoming waves of monsters, through form of visual symbols, each representing a different type of enemy. Also shown are the number of waves we have survived as well as total number of waves we need to survive to beat the level.

The whole map is gridded out into areas where we can place turrets and cannot. To place a turret we click in an empty grid square and the turrets we previously selected on the startup menu appear alone with the cost of each turret. This is feedback as we can see which ones we can afford to place and which ones we don’t have enough resources for.  After placing a unit we can also click it again and either sell it or upgrade it to the next level. Money gained for selling it, cost to upgrade and increase in power level are all displayed. Every unit can be upgraded twice. Feedback can also be seen in the form of either an empty base (for level 1 units), a solid metal base (for level 2 units), or a glowing blue base (for level 3 units). This provides great feedback to know what has been upgraded and what can still be upgraded. An equally important feedback device when placing a unit is a circle that surrounds it. This shows the range of fire for each turret, this also displays each time, when you click any unit to show its next possible upgrade range or the fully upgraded range.

We also receive feedback in the form of in game visuals. The closer the enemies get to our base or the more that break through our defenses, the worse we are doing. Vice versa if we are slaughtering them and the enemies are not making any dent in our defenses than we are to assume positive feedback that our strategy and gameplay is working. Should enemies penetrate our defenses we not only see our lives go down but our home base begins to smoke and eventually flame up should it become extremely damaged.

3.       Simulation Fixes

Players can easily accidently sell a unit. When placing them the player receives a secondary check question of “OK?” they must hit to assuredly place the unit. This is not the case when selling it, so when a clumsy iPhone player, in the excitement of a game accidently sells a fully upgraded unit there is nothing you can do and no check to prevent this from happening.