Looking at Interfaces

So here's the first reference I wanted to look at. Obviously from Phoenix wright. To use an item you select it on the bottom screen and press present. Simple enough. You also get the description of it at the same time. Given we wont have the luxury of duel screens (though we could just dedicate the bottom half to items if we really wanted) I reckon this would be a little overkill which might make you wonder why I even bothered showing it. Moving on.

So in hotel dusk featuring THE MAN Kyle Hyde you have a separate screen for the items. When you want to use an item you select it and then you go back to the normal screen and your mouse cursor is that item and to use it you click on the screen (at least I THINK that's how it worked). Quite like that system, simple, it works.

So here I'm looking at the monkey island special edition as the original monkey island's system was pretty dense and a bit clunky by todays standards but it works. Thinking about it though the special edition really isn't all that different. You call up the menu and select either the use or look item, your cursor icon changes and then where ever you click you'll get a description of that thing or you'll use the item. I think again its a bit ott. But I wont hold it against monkey island special edition as it had to stay true to the original.

Just because I like to shoehorn discussion of this game into anywhere I can. At least thank me for not looking at the metal gear solid system but I figured that would be a pointless thing to look at given its a 3d game, and has nothing to do with what we're doing here. Anyway good old policenauts! So in this game you can click anywhere on the screen, if you click on something you can interact with a small menu (which here is in Japanese) will pop up with a list of ways you can interact with that object. Given its a game by Hideo Kojima pretty much everything you click on has a description and each description can be essays in length. To talk to people you just click on them, and even by clicking on different areas and selecting 'look' or 'use' you can get different results.

I was going to then look at Kojimas other point and click game snatcher until I realised its not actually a point or click as you never point or click. Its all menu based so when you select look a list of the items in the room appears. And I'm pretty sure we're not gonna go for anything like that so it seems a bit pointless to go into here.

Anyway, I'm a bit tired so not sure what conclusion to come to on what system works best, but I made this post to see what ya'll think.