Topic UI Feedback (Inventory screen & more)
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In Response to B_E
I took the recent 8.1 release as an opportunity to play a bit of OC again. Inspired by some of the discussions over at Clonkspot, and rather than joining the discussion there, I thought I'd contribute here a bit by sharing some direct feedback I had during a round today.
For context: I used to be an avid Clonk Rage player, and played a little OC around the initial release. A lot has changed since then, and I only really picked it up again recently, so only have a few hours of recent play time.
I haven't completed the tutorials recently (apart from the first one), but dabbled in the first few rooms of the Tower of Despair a few weeks ago (and had a lot of fun!).
Today I was playing some "The Raid" as my first real mission and really got exposed to the inventory system. I'll keep this feedback mostly orientated towards the UI, since I had a very negative experience and got frustrated.
Slow and non-skippable Dialogs
It started off with the dialog system. I missed being able to skip dialog, especially as I read relatively fast. The timing seemed a little to slow to be just about annoying.
Dialogs don't stop the Clonk
Okay, this is not really a UI issue, but it was annoying enough: whenever I talked to someone while walking, the Clonk would continue to walk until the dialog ended. I'd expect the Clonk to stop.
Picking up items from the lorry
Using the elevator and holding the lorry is fine - but what then? Most of the game thus far prompted me actively to press buttons do things - stuff like [ Space ] for dialog, or calling the elevator. After I was holding the lorry, I was stumped. What now? I only then really discovered the inventory screen and started to get a feel for how items are transferred.
Large items
The barrel for the loam really confused me - so I accidentally took it out of the building because I thought I would have to combine them in hand. *Somehow* I dropped it, and then had to try for minutes to pick it up again. I know from the Tower that boompacks are also a "large item", and I remember picking them up and flying with them, but the barrel really confused me.
The vizualisation in the inventory screen also confused my - I saw water under the barrel and first assumed, it got unloaded into the building. The I figured it's more likely a view of what's inside the barrel? I didn't know what was going on, the information also seemed to be duplicated somewhat by the barrel tooltip.
Inventory screen/Game Menu
Oh boy, this was the big one. I *hated* the usability of the inventory menu screen. I had struggle transferring things from the ground to a specific slot, and the whole left part for my Clonk felt somewhat redundant with the slots at the top. I appreciate the idea of wanting to make this a generic
"transfer objects between two arbitrary containers" screen, but using it just didn't really feel helpful.
Having played a lot of smaller indie games recently, I also kept trying to hit "Escape" to exit the menu. Obviously, it kept opening the "Leave game?" screen. I think this is a common enough pattern for modals nowadays that we might want to support this directly. I think having Escape as a generic "just take me back to the" game is a useful functionality, especially as windows and modals get more complex. Often enough, the actual game menus end up on one of the other F keys nowadays.
The final straw in my session today was me hitting the Respawn button accidentally while struggeling with my inventory. I think respawning is such 4th wall action that breaks me out of the game, that it shouldn't be in the same menu as the inventory management. The hierarchy and separation just didn't make sense to me, and I got really frustrated by this.
In conclusion:
All in all I did have some I think I should probably spend some more time with the tutorials and see whether this helps me, but I wanted to share this experience as as an unexperienced player (once again). I definitely want to play a bit more if time permits, and am looking forward to some more Tower sessions and playing some Arena's again. I really don't fancy settling after having touched the inventory system, but would like to see if I can think of some imporvements. Maybe we could start a bit of discussion here?
Hope this helps!
For context: I used to be an avid Clonk Rage player, and played a little OC around the initial release. A lot has changed since then, and I only really picked it up again recently, so only have a few hours of recent play time.
I haven't completed the tutorials recently (apart from the first one), but dabbled in the first few rooms of the Tower of Despair a few weeks ago (and had a lot of fun!).
Today I was playing some "The Raid" as my first real mission and really got exposed to the inventory system. I'll keep this feedback mostly orientated towards the UI, since I had a very negative experience and got frustrated.
Slow and non-skippable Dialogs
It started off with the dialog system. I missed being able to skip dialog, especially as I read relatively fast. The timing seemed a little to slow to be just about annoying.
Dialogs don't stop the Clonk
Okay, this is not really a UI issue, but it was annoying enough: whenever I talked to someone while walking, the Clonk would continue to walk until the dialog ended. I'd expect the Clonk to stop.
Picking up items from the lorry
Using the elevator and holding the lorry is fine - but what then? Most of the game thus far prompted me actively to press buttons do things - stuff like [ Space ] for dialog, or calling the elevator. After I was holding the lorry, I was stumped. What now? I only then really discovered the inventory screen and started to get a feel for how items are transferred.
Large items
The barrel for the loam really confused me - so I accidentally took it out of the building because I thought I would have to combine them in hand. *Somehow* I dropped it, and then had to try for minutes to pick it up again. I know from the Tower that boompacks are also a "large item", and I remember picking them up and flying with them, but the barrel really confused me.
The vizualisation in the inventory screen also confused my - I saw water under the barrel and first assumed, it got unloaded into the building. The I figured it's more likely a view of what's inside the barrel? I didn't know what was going on, the information also seemed to be duplicated somewhat by the barrel tooltip.
Inventory screen/Game Menu
Oh boy, this was the big one. I *hated* the usability of the inventory menu screen. I had struggle transferring things from the ground to a specific slot, and the whole left part for my Clonk felt somewhat redundant with the slots at the top. I appreciate the idea of wanting to make this a generic
"transfer objects between two arbitrary containers" screen, but using it just didn't really feel helpful.
Having played a lot of smaller indie games recently, I also kept trying to hit "Escape" to exit the menu. Obviously, it kept opening the "Leave game?" screen. I think this is a common enough pattern for modals nowadays that we might want to support this directly. I think having Escape as a generic "just take me back to the" game is a useful functionality, especially as windows and modals get more complex. Often enough, the actual game menus end up on one of the other F keys nowadays.
The final straw in my session today was me hitting the Respawn button accidentally while struggeling with my inventory. I think respawning is such 4th wall action that breaks me out of the game, that it shouldn't be in the same menu as the inventory management. The hierarchy and separation just didn't make sense to me, and I got really frustrated by this.
In conclusion:
All in all I did have some I think I should probably spend some more time with the tutorials and see whether this helps me, but I wanted to share this experience as as an unexperienced player (once again). I definitely want to play a bit more if time permits, and am looking forward to some more Tower sessions and playing some Arena's again. I really don't fancy settling after having touched the inventory system, but would like to see if I can think of some imporvements. Maybe we could start a bit of discussion here?
Hope this helps!
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