Little and Big Mr Roehm

[zyote]

Long time listener, first time caller.

I have a question. In the Kickstarter video, you show some portions of the game that show Mr Roehm in the same area twice! Is this some sort of trickery?  Is he magic? Is the second and slightly smaller Mr Roehm perhaps his younger brother?

Let's get to the bottom of this!

[Blackthorne]

The first rule of little Mr. Roehm is that we don't talk about little Mr. Roehm.  Little man, big ego.


Bt

[zyote]

I reckon he's a secret game story element, that only i've noticed. Perhaps one of the characters from the INCLUDED MINI GAMES!!! #YOUHEARDITHEREFIRST

[Blackthorne]

Seatec Astronomy, zyote.  SEATEC ASTRONOMY.


Bt

[Corrigan]

What I'd like to know is...who's been writing all over our screenshots in what looks a lot like comic sans?  This vandal must be rooted out!

[nidoking]

Well, when there's a hand floating around handing things to Mr. Roehm while both of his are still firmly attached to his arms... whose hand did you think that was? When a third eye eerily roams about the town staring at everything... whose eye is it? The crossed swords that randomly take a swing at passersby... WHO'S HOLDING THEM?

I think we may finally have our answer.

[Blackthorne]

There's strange things afoot at the Circle K tonight!

And, yah - Comic Sans?  The greatest insult of all!!


Bt

[zyote]

In all seriousness. The first time i saw screenshots of this game, i thought the walk cursor WAS the character, due to the fact it was in the same exact style and quality as the game character.

If anyone was to take a pass at updating the cursors ever, my suggestion might be to make it more abstract, and not so realistic to help this.   I believe sierra's game cursors varied in style and color usage from game to game, but (correct me if i'm wrong here) most of them where monochromatic, which i felt probably helped usability.

Also with stuff like documentation, or hint books and such:

"To walk in the game, click the Mr Roehm cursor where you want Mr Roehm to walk."

If it was more abstract, you might not have this challenge.

I reckon you should instead just put Little Mr Roehm into the mini-game instead. He likes it there anyway i'm sure!

 

[Lambonius]

but (correct me if i'm wrong here) most of them where monochromatic

All of the Dos versions of the VGA Quest For Glory games had colored cursors that looked like mini versions of the character.  KQ5 did, too.  QFG4's were even animated!  The cursors usually were monochrome in the Windows versions, though.

[zyote]

Animated!!

thats crazy. so it really was just a resized version of the main walk cycle.  how weird!  I did remember playing kq5 and it having colored ones.  But again, i think it's kinda more difficult to understand, than a more abstracted and simplified cursor.

[nidoking]

I think it's very simple. One moves when you move the mouse, the other doesn't move until you click. Granted, we apparently have one documented instance of someone finding this design confusing, but we also have documented instances of people thinking their CD-ROM drive was a cup holder and other people asking for a software fix for a power supply that was on fire, and those designs haven't been changed to make the reality clearer. I think we just have to accept that there will be people who think the cursor is a character and design the interface to suit the other 99.99995% of the gaming population. Then again, I'm not in charge of the interface design, so maybe it will change for the final version.

[Jerminator]

Well, the main thing we are looking at here is functionality. I could see making the walk cursor more general with a different scheme. The issue is we don't just have a walk cursor. We have walk, sneak, and run. Which means making a detailed cursor to represent all three of those actions in the same style would be problematic.

[Lambonius]

I think this is really one of those things that is only confusing when looking at still screenshots, not when actually playing the game.  The moment a player moves his or her mouse, the difference between the cursor and the ego sprite is immediately clear. 

[Blackthorne]

Yeah, Lambo - you hit it on the head.  In the game, it's obvious it's the cursor because it's the only thing that moves when you move the mouse.


Bt

[Goatmeal]

...Granted, we apparently have one documented instance of someone finding this design confusing, but we also have documented instances of people thinking their CD-ROM drive was a cup holder and other people asking for a software fix for a power supply that was on fire, and those designs haven't been changed to make the reality clearer.

As the disk count began to increase for their games, Sierra began to write little bits of text to keep your interest while "disk #3 of 8" was installing, for instance; on one of those screens, didn't Sierra allege that someone called up their help line after removing the 5¼" magnetic media from its plastic sleeve upon being asked to insert the "disk" into the drive?...

[s_d]

...but we also have documented instances of people thinking their CD-ROM drive was a cup holder...and those designs haven't been changed to make the reality clearer

It would be difficult to confuse a slot-loaded CD-ROM drive with a cup-holder.

As an aside... every good villain needs a mini-me.  I learned that from Austin Powers.