Confusing gadgets: make design guidelines

[Simon]

<Nepster> Yes, more guidelines for objects would be nice. This needs a proper forum topic though and I am currently not in the mood to make one.

You play a level in a new tileset, and there is a little house. Is this an exit? Trap? Teleporter? Receiver? Who knows? It's whatever the set designer liked that day.

Whatever looks like a house or archway, I suppose it's an exit. Bonus points if the house has torches. This guideline was set in stone in L1. Very consistent, very good. L2 Sports had the dumb flag in the Sports tribe, but that doesn't violate the rule that every archway is an exit.



L2 began violating the guideline with the airlock. This doorway looks like an exit, because up to here, all the archways were exits. But it's not, it's a trap.



L3 Egyptian has this awful fake exit, and the rotatable wall with hands, of which I didn't find a picture. Both are traps.

Please don't make traps that look like archways. Avoid avoid avoid. If it looks like a building with an inviting door, it's good to enter.



Whatever the L2 devs were smoking, they made this, and it's the L2 Scottish set. This looks like terrain or decoration, but it's again a trap.



Compare with the coastal suction function! This is perfect trap design. The coastal suction function hovers above the path, with a dangeorus tube coming out that aims at the lemmings. It looks mechanical, and not at all like a house. Obviously a trap!

Teleporters must look reasonably different from receivers. Door open or door closed? I don't look at that, I look at the shape of the thing. And if it looks like a house, convince me first that it's not an exit. It's not enough if it doesn't animate. If it doesn't animate, convince me first that it's not terrain.

There's a teleporter in the marble set, it has striped pipes coming from it. Why shouldn't these be solid? They look exactly like the other pipes. Beware of levels that connect real pipes to the fake pipes.

Teleporters could get a consistent symbol throughout all tilesets. Real life has no teleporters, so we must invent something. A lightning bolt? A star? Something that doesn't yet have meaning in Lemmings!

-- Simon

[Simon]

We're examining a level in a yet-unknown tileset. These questions come up:

a) Of all the gadgets strewn around the level, which gadget is most likely the exit?
b) Of all the types of gadget possible in NL, given a gadget tile, which type is most likely?

Both are important. If a) fails, the player can't even begin to form a strategy.

Culture helps the tileset designer with a): Almost every level has exactly one tile that's an exit. A level may have multiple exits, but they will all look alike. There is only one kind of different exit. And the player knows that. This means for the tileset designer: Even if your exit doesn't look 100 % like an archway, or house, the player will correctly identify the exit if everything else looks even less like an archway.

As a corollary, we get "don't make traps look like archways", which I postulated in the first post already.

b) is important, too. Unlike with exits, of which the player expects exactly one kind per level, the player doesn't know yet how many traps there are. Maybe there are no traps, and everything is terrain! Maybe it's a teleporter, then it's probably required in the solution. If we don't recognize it as such, we, again, can't form a strategy.

If you test tilesets, make levels with them, and watch players play them. Maybe ask a) and b), but that might skew the expericence already. In user testing, you're advised to watch and take notes, without interfering with questions that have specific answers. Many of us here have become sensible to user-friendliness and design, you'll get good answers even without specific questions.

-- Simon

[Nepster]

Why do I wish to have design guidelines?
Recently I played a few levels in newly created styles and got confused what objects were exits, traps, teleporters or something completely else. I certainly recognize the difficulty in making good objects and I know there cannot be a set of hard rules that distinguish bad objects from good objects.
So I would like these design guidelines have two functions:

• Give style designers hints what to change, if they are unsure how to make their object better recognizable.
• Warn style designers when there is a danger that their objects can mislead the player and tell them when to be extra careful with their objects.

And please always keep in mind that there are always stupid users like me, who don't get the reference to pop culture or haven't played the other game you ripped the graphics from. So please do not rely solely on such references when determining an object's function.


Exit guidelines:

• It looks like a building
• It has an open door that is lemming-size (usually 6-7 pixels wide and 8 pixels high)
• There are steps leading up to the door
• The interior of the door is not black, but colored lemming-friendly (usually a blue sky over green grass)
• There are animated torches, flags or similar parts at the top

Notable offenders in existing styles are some of the L2 exits:
- The flagpole in Sports has none of these characteristics.
- The highland exit has no door at all, while at least keeping the bulding characteristic.
- The Space exit is a doorframe (see my characterization of teleporters below), not a building. The door a lot bigger than a lemming and of the same size as the door in the airlock-trap (see Simon's post). The interior at least signals that it is a gateway to a completely different place, even though it doesn't look as positive as it could be.
- A very similar problem has the L3 biolab exit.
- One of the exits in the LemPlus Horror style is just a doorframe with black interior (which makes it very similar to teleporters). At least it satisfies guidelines 3) and 5).

Most other L2 exits miss only one of the characteristics: Either the steps leading up to the door or the positively colored interior. I think this is fine.


Teleporters and Receivers design guidelines:
As Simon already noted, there are no distinctive features that are unique to teleporters and receivers. So for now there are only secondary characteristics to distinguish teleporters/receivers from exits:

• It looks like a doorframe
• It has a door that is larger than a lemming (usually at least 12 pixels high)
• There are no steps are leading up to the door
• The interior of the door is black or at least does not hint at a gate-way to a completely unrelated place

How does this characterization fit existing teleporters? Let's check:
- Marble: Slightly too bulky to be considered a doorframe, but frames a large black door.
- LemPlus-Space: Satisfies everything, even though the door is only slightly larger than a lemming.
- Purple and Martian: Similar to the LemPlus-Space teleporter, but the interior is not completely black. It still manages to have a more-or-less neutral look, so this is fine.
- Psychedelic and Circuit: Satisfies everything.
- L2-Space: Again an L2-object that isn't similar to any other of its kind. But to be fair, the "IN" and "OUT" signs are pretty good hints, at least once the player is aware that there is not only an "IN"-object, but an "OUT"-object as well.


Teleporters versus Receivers guidelines:
There isn't yet any rule I can see that can be applied to distinguish many teleporters and their receivers. So here are two possibilities that make their function very clear to me:

• Teleporters have the word "IN", receivers have the word "OUT" written on them (this would help as well to distinguish them from exits)
• Teleporters have an open door, receivers have a closed door^*

Here is how existing teleporters/receivers do:
- Marble, Purple and Martian: Satisfy guideline 2).
- Psychedelic and Circuit: Has a lighter color scheme, but satisfies neither guideline.
- LemPlus-Space: This has no difference at all. This is very bad, though I would guess that these teleporters were originally created to be two-way-teleporters.
- L2-Space: Satisfies guideline 1).

^*) Simon claims that this is not a good distinction. I think it certainly helps. Whether or not it is sufficient in itself depends on the the relation of teleporter size to door size in my opinion: If the (closed) door uses 50% of the space of the teleporter (like in the Purple or Matian style), the difference should be pretty visible. If on the other hand the door uses only 15% of the object space (like in the Marble style), this might be not enough itself.

Traps:
Can be anything, but should satisfy:

• They usually have no doors and no framing part with empty interior
• They differ a lot in appearance compared to normal terrain
• Even when inactive they should project a certain sense of danger to lemmings

- Even L2 does all of this pretty well, with the flowery exception in the highland style.
- The dragon trap in the medieval style and the grabber in the cave style are barely recognizable when inactive, but the very cute animations. So they still manage to leave the player with a positive impression.
- This is inverted with the spider in the outdoor style: It has even moving eyes and looks very predatory, but in fact is pure terrain! Bad!
- The pipe trap in the Dune tileset was problematic before it got the red exclamation mark, because it looked very similar to normal terrain and did not project danger.
- The stomper in the wooden frame in the factory style does not (yet) follow guideline 1), so can be confused with either exits or teleporters.

[namida]

My main concern is that a lot of users strongly value artistic capability, and I'm not sure how much this would limit them. While some extent of guidelines is a good idea, I would also like to consider how we could address this in a more-universal way that does not depend on graphic set designers being held to certain guidelines - perhaps some kind of icons (similar in nature to those that exist now for teleporters and windows to indicate certain things), that could be displayed when using Clear Physics Mode and/or on mouseover. (on that note, should the existing icons also be always displayed when in such mode?)

The primary thought here - it's impossible to fully satisfy both (a) users who want display as functional as possible, and (b) users who want as much artistic capability as possible, even if this means sacrificing some extent of functional display. This is why I've been recently trying to find solutions that accomodate both types of users.

[Simon]

My main concern is that a lot of users strongly value artistic capability, and I'm not sure how much this would limit them.

These are different:
(c) = (I create design X for this gadget, whoops, players mistake it. Had I only known before.) and
(d) = (I create design X for this gadget, whoops, it violates guideline Y. I don't care, Y is too limiting.)

I believe (c) is much more common than (d). I believe that designers like cognitive ease for players.

If (d) happens, then yeah, beef up the engine.

Or beef up the engine anyway, and let's nonetheless make our concerns known to tileset designers. I'm sure they appreciate when we view their tiles as-is, and when we don't immediately reach for the emergency brake, clear-physics.

Nepster's guidelines are lists of items. Your exit can satisfy all items of the exit guideline. But it's okay if you forgo an item sometimes, as long as you satisfy all other items. It's still an exit.

-- Simon

[ccexplore]

I would also like to consider how we could address this in a more-universal way that does not depend on graphic set designers being held to certain guidelines - perhaps some kind of icons (similar in nature to those that exist now for teleporters and windows to indicate certain things), that could be displayed when using Clear Physics Mode and/or on mouseover. (on that note, should the existing icons also be always displayed when in such mode?)

Even just a simple "quick reference" card that can be shown and hidden on a hotkey, showing all the different objects available in the level (or the set) grouped by type, is probably good enough in this regard.

The primary thought here - it's impossible to fully satisfy both (a) users who want display as functional as possible, and (b) users who want as much artistic capability as possible, even if this means sacrificing some extent of functional display.

Not only that, some of the guidelines can be fairly subjective (eg. "really? you want to use steps to differentiate between exits and teleports, when I barely even noticed them on L1/ONML until you pointed it out?"), therefore some users will sometimes still get confused on some things, even if it may look or feel obvious to others.  It's very helpful to try to use certain guidelines as a primary way to help minimize confusions, but ultimately there should be no need ever to either guess or assume--provide a simple fallback for the user to quickly check and verify, so they can get it out of the way quickly and actually worry about solving the level.

It's not even a "different types of user" thing.  Even on a set designed with the strictest adherence to the strictest set of guidelines for minimal confusion probability averaged across all players, I would much appreciate the option to learn it all quickly with 100% certainty, even if mere assuming probably would get it right for me at, say, 99%.

The thing to remember is that while the number of custom sets will grow over time, I believe (hope?) that it'll still grow far slower than the number of new levels.  Therefore whatever issue an unfamiliar set brings will be a one-time thing per each new set--at worst, you get burned and you learned immediately, and you move on.  It is not something like a user interface design issue that will plague the user time after time across levels.  Having the option to quickly get the learning out of the way is something I can't imagine anyone arguing against.  Again, by all means promote guidelines as good best practice, just don't make it the sole means to address this.

[Nepster]

It's very helpful to try to use certain guidelines as a primary way to help minimize confusions, but ultimately there should be no need ever to either guess or assume--provide a simple fallback for the user to quickly check and verify, so they can get it out of the way quickly and actually worry about solving the level.

Very good point. I just implemented several more helper icons that get displayed when hovering over the corresponding object. The details can be found in another thread.

Not only that, some of the guidelines can be fairly subjective (eg. "really? you want to use steps to differentiate between exits and teleports, when I barely even noticed them on L1/ONML until you pointed it out?"),

I would like to stress again, that my lists above only mention indicators for an object to be of a certain kind. Certainly none of them alone is sufficient that an object must have a certain effect. If some designer will ever make a teleporter with steps and realizes due to the points above, that there is a potential for confusion, then my post has fulfilled its job. I don't want anything more.

[mobius]

Just as I was afraid of: these "helpful" game mechanics are becoming a hindrance.

I've seen namida's video demonstrating the indicator's for trap and exit.... this is ridiculous! First of all; this kind of thing, while has it's uses when used too much gets ugly and in the way of playing the game. I don't need or want to see "TRAP" hovering over every trap in the game; that's ugly! Once I've figured out this is a trap, I know it's a trap. Those letters are blocking the scenery of the game.

Besides this it's not necessary; Simon's complaining about not being able to tell what's what when you come to a new graphic set. I expect this; whenever I play any new game or new anything of any kind I expect that I need to explore and experiment to discover how it works. And I find that fun and fascinating to learn this information on my own. I don't want to read a manual that tells me exactly what to do.

Having a certain amount of helpful mechanics that facilitate long or repetitive tasks is awesome. I do not however, want my game playing experience to be dictated and guided, I don't want all the secrets revealed to me before I even begin, this defeats the whole point in playing the game.

It didn't before; and still does not irritate me in the slightest to have to repeat steps because I discovered something new; learned some trap was there that I didn't realize. Yes, it's surprise, sometimes I like surprises, I like being surprised, it's fun.
What irritates me is repeating steps over-and over when I already know everything for making a simple mistake.
If the payout is far less than the workload; it's not fun.

I agree with most of the guidelines about how to make graphic sets. And if this is really an issue; it should be taken up with the maker of a graphic set to make this a little more user friendly. IMO; NOT these markers in the Player.

[ccexplore]

I've seen namida's video demonstrating the indicator's for trap and exit.... this is ridiculous! First of all; this kind of thing, while has it's uses when used too much gets ugly and in the way of playing the game. I don't need or want to see "TRAP" hovering over every trap in the game; that's ugly! Once I've figured out this is a trap, I know it's a trap. Those letters are blocking the scenery of the game.

My understanding is that these sorts of things can be easily toggled on and off during gameplay, and is likely off by default.  I'm sure namida's video is for demonstration purposes only and do not imply everyone is forced to see whatever it is showing permanently on every single level across every play.  I don't believe anyone's suggesting to display any of the helpful visuals permanently everywhere without the user's consent or a way to easily and quickly control when it's shown.