2014-12-16 19:16:50

Every now and then I'm asked how to actually use a mouse, by someone who has never used one before.  (Yes, this is Swamp related.)

I find that I have difficulty explaining it properly, because I've been using a mouse for far too long to remember what it's like to first learn it.  Many people here in the community have only recently become accustomed to using the mouse to play games (Swamp), and I wondered if anyone would be willing to explain it in a way that would get new players past the initial hesitation to use this strange new tool.

I've been told that an audio tutorial would be more helpful than written text, but I'm sure anything is better than nothing.  I'll save the tips and advice somewhere so I can always have it ready to send out to the next person who asks me about this.

- Aprone
Please try out my games and programs:
Aprone's software

2014-12-16 19:36:22

NVDA has a feature that will play a tone when you move the mouse, using pitch/pan for position, and volume for the brightness of whatever it's over. It also can read whatever text the mouse passes over, but I find this not overly useful (maybe if it had the focus clicks like voiceover?).
If they're an NVDA user, or are willing to play with NVDA, it might be worth messing around with that, to get use to how the mouse works? I'm not really sure it's the best idea, but it's the first thing that came to mind.

看過來!
"If you want utopia but reality gives you Lovecraft, you don't give up, you carve your utopia out of the corpses of dead gods."
MaxAngor wrote:
    George... Don't do that.

2014-12-16 21:38:14

hi aprone.
I myself have used the mouse for the first time playing swamp but I didn't encounter any problems doing it, I find the process of using the mouse very intuitive. I think that some folks make a confusion about walking in swamp because they might think that they have to move the mouse to walk which is wrong. A good advice for someone who wants to play swamp is to move the mouse only left and right, if the mouse gets too close to an object they have to just lift it and place it somewhere in the other direction so they have enough space to move. also the mouse sensitivity is very important, I suggest that every beginner plays with the settings to see what fits them best by moving the mouse in the game and seeing how much the movement of the mouse affects the panning.
I hope my post was helpful.

“Get busy living or get busy dying.”
Stephen King

2014-12-17 06:43:09

Well I must admit swamp wasn't my first game with the mouse, I also used it in rail racer and in some experimental arcade games written in 2008 by a chap called Bryan. actually sinse those included audio tutorials and served as something as an interactive how to on mouse control it's a shame they're no longer around (I checked the page where they used to be and got a 404), one even involved being a cleric throwing spells at nasty monsters which was cool!   
Unfortunately, I can't reccord an audio tutorial sinse both swamp and Daytona need headphones to play and I can't reccord and use headphones at the same time sinse I use sterrio mikes (and playing swamp on speakers would be a nightmare).

I will however try to give as best text description as possible sinse I do know there are blind people out there who have trouble trying something new.

holding the mouse:

I always myself hold the mouse with my right hand (particularly because in swamp all the important keyboard controls can be activated left handed). I have my thumb along the left edge and the heal of my hand towards the back so that my index finger is on the left mouse button and my middle finger is on the right button. I can then slide the mouse along with my thumb and ring fingers. If I needed the mouse wheel I'd probably shift my index finger along a little.

Moving the mouse:

Because I am not the best spacially coordinated person, I prefer myself to use the edge of my desk to orient me (particularly because I have a good sized computer table). So when I'm playing swamp I actually have the back of my hand over the edge of the table which gives me a good streight edge to move along. I can then pretend essentially that the mouse is like one of those big lever rudder controls that some boats have that are like single levers which move in a groove left and right, this also makes it easy to pick the mouse off the table and shift it right if I need more left than my amount of room allows (though with the default sensativity in Swamp it seems okay). Sinse I have the back of the table as a guide to a streight edge, moving the mouse streight up and down is easy, which will do for things like operating the throttle in Rail racer where you need to push the mouse forward or pull it back.

For something like Daytona, I pick up the mouse and move it forward into a blank space on my desk where I have room to swing it around a little and do the circles and such. This is a little less precise, but that is why Daytona is a harder game, because your not just going in streight lines, your going in curves and circles, ---- but hay, making gold isn't easy big_smile.

I don't really think there is anymore I can say, sinse other than that it's all practice, practice practice! Maybe people should go and try a space invaders game that uses the mouse like Judgement day, or maybe the new shades of doom 2.0 on training mode (where the monsters stand still), to get the knack (sinse quite apart from the mouse Swamp is not exactly an easy game to begin with).

Hth.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)