No inertia?

[Fost]

I asked a few developers for feedback on how they thought the demo performed in helping new people get into the game. Developers are great because they have game dev insight, but also because they are pressed for time - so anything that requires too much thought will turn them off instantly.

One of the things they mentioned was the controls being difficult to get used to and feeling 'muddy' or 'sloppy' at the start. I wondered if this was inertia, so I built a 'no-inertia' patch. Of course, then I realised that the best people to try this would be Mr. Robot players themselves!

If you'd like to try it, grab this file:

http://www.moonpod.com/board/images/misc/MrRobot.002

and put it in the root of your install dir.

I'd appreciate any thoughts from both new and expert Mr robot players alike.

[Agrajag]

I think while inertia may make it a bit more difficult for new users to get into the game (and makes some sections of the game slightly more challenging), it makes the game seem more "real". And once you've played for a few minutes you get used to the inertia.

Although the inertia makes it very hard IMO to use the mouse controls. Maybe yes inertia for keyboard and no inertia for mouse? That would probably make things even more confusing though.

[Fost]

[Weeble]

After playing for a short while I think I prefer this no-inertia version. My only concern would be whether it makes it easier to accidentally push crates you didn't want to, but even if it does it probably balances out by making it easier to stop yourself too. This feels like it fits the game a bit better, anyway. Asimov feels much more agile with it, which fits my perception of Asimov as compact, mobile and versatile.

[Sergenth]

The only thing I don't like about the no-inertia patch is that Asimov floasts very far over the edge of any surface. I kinda miss the stress of wondering if I was about to slip off, but the main reason I don't like it is because it looks funny. I am prepared to get over that since playability should as a last resort, trump believability.

However, I have no doubt that this patch makes the game more accessible, and does make the "long jump" over two squares and up one half square easier, so much easier that I went from a ~80% success rate to a clear 100% success rate.

One thing I know I want now... a rubber bouncing floor, to tilt the challenge scale back towards action. Yes... I was holding down Ctrl and was enjoying it.

[Fost]

[Zharmad]

Hmm... I prefer inertia, or at least some sense of inertia. Even though I know the puzzles in my adventure is very difficult even for me with them on.

[Blizgerg]

I haven't tried the no inertia patch yet but I want to say that I personally did not notice that there was inertia until someone mentioned it on the forum.

I haven't played a whole lot of games. In the past I have had enough money to get a game I wanted every other year or so. But one game that I played with my friends a lot, until we could beat every single level, was Super Mario Brothers for Super Nintendo. I think that game had a certain amount of inertia in it so I think that is why I did not notice.

[Cornhuskermac]

Is no one else going to answer? This is a pretty important issue! I, personally, would not want to see future Mr. Robot incarnations (Mr. Robot 2?) lacking inertia, just because people who cared didn't care to answer this poll!

[punman]

I don't like mr robot with no inertia. The inertia adds a lot of character to the game. It just seems wrong to be able to turn 90 degrees in mid-jump. Mabye it could be played around with - less inertia, stop-on-a-dime, no inertia while pushing blocks, but please don't take it out completely.

As mentioned above, Asimov bobbles around at the edges of ledges, which is awesome and somehow induced by inertia as he doesn't bobble in the no inertia patch. On moving walkways Asimov would kind of snap to the center of the walkway sometimes and sometimes he gets pushed off, which was annoying because it was inconsistent. This doesn't happen in the no-inertia game, which I found to be better.

[Fost]

[punman]

[Zharmad]

This snapping thing happens for crates too, and I have been using on that phenomenon to do some trickier things with crates.
About whether or not to fix this up, I don't quite know whether anyone required players to use this 'feature' for their user adventures.

[Fost]

Crate snapping is a completely separate feature that we put in so it was easier to line crates up - it's not affected by interia settings.

[Weeble]

On the topic of crate-snapping, somebody, ages ago, suggested that crates should not snap instantly, but rather slide into place, albeit quickly. Is that feasible? Crate-snapping is very important, but still looks quite ugly.

There's also a general problem of how supported objects move. If I find time I'll make a room to demonstrate. A crate can be resting 90% on a piece of floor and 10% on another crate/moving platform/conveyer belt, but will move along with that object rather than stay put. If it's partially on two different dynamic objects, I'm not sure how the game determines which one it moves with. Ideally, I think that a supported object should be moved only by the object directly underneath its center-point, except in cases where there is no object directly beneath its center-point, in which case you can pick an arbitrary supporting object or the closest one or something like that.