daid / daid/EmptyEpsilon

[Enhancement] Escape button unintuitive during game

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#2,455 1 comment 1 reaction 0 assignees View on GitHub

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Dominant language
Lua
Stars
869
Forks
222
Avg merge
18h 33m
Merged PRs (30d)
1

Description

Using escape to leave a screen in game seems to cause accidental return to the role select screen.

  • I've seen new player go back to the ship select screen (including myself)
  • Jadael also expressed that they went back to the ship select screen several times from the GM screen each sessions

One way Jadael put it was that "Escape is the only button where I feel a little surprised at what just happened nearly every time I use it" and I tend to agree with that.


I believe reflex escape presses can come from

  • Wanting to deselect a target as a GM, as Science, as Weapons, as Relay
  • Wanting to stop an alternate mode such as probe sending in relay or unit placement in GM

However, because a lot of the time it's from a reflex the reason could change depending on the person.


I think separating the use of escape in and out of the game would be important. I feel like many game do that either by pausing, showing a menu, or providing alternate functionalities.

I could see improvement by

  • Having a popup with a "do not show again" tick mark
  • Showing a menu linking to the settings and a "back to role select" button (perhaps additional settings for the GM)
  • Having alternate uses of escape like deselecting targets or ending alternate modes.

[EDIT] : Corrections to first paragraph after I checked some of the behaviours

Contributor guide

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First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by reproducing Escape from the role-select, ship-select, GM, Science, Weapons, and Relay screens, including target deselection and alternate modes. The issue lists several possible solutions but does not identify files, tests, or a single expected behavior; done would require an agreed interaction design and verification that Escape no longer causes accidental navigation.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
lua
Domain
game-dev
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
25/100

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