How important is it to have Mouse support?

[Tarelther]

I'm reminded of an awesome quote by the Angry Video Game Nerd in his review of the Power Glove.

"Now, what's the most important aspect of any game? Well, being able to <expletive> play it!"

Mouse support helps more people play the game. I can only see this as a good thing.

 

[Frostyfirefly]

I got The Cat Lady on gog.com a few months ago and there is no mouse support, just keyboard; and it's a great horror game too! Although, the save system is terrible, you have to manually delete saves from outside the program.

I guess it just depends on how well implemented mouse / keyboard support is.

 

[Ellie Jane]

My sister just bought a tablet, and is getting frustrated at the simplest things not really working with a touch screen. She's getting a clip on keyboard anyway, but that shouldn't matter; computers these days do not always have or need keyboards, and I think games shouldn't require them if at all possible - and for something as simple as most RPG Maker games it is possible.

Pathfinding, menu selection via mouse, and alternative buttons to open menus etc, it's all doable, and I think we ought to at least consider it, especially if going down a commercial route.

 

[Galenmereth]

Ah, but there's way more to a touch interface than it is to enabling mouse support. With mouse, you have great precision even with the cheapest mouse on the tiniest screen. But with fingers tapping on a touch screen in any size from an iPad Mini to a 12" tablet? Things start getting tricky fast. You have to keep a lot of things in mind when designing menus that are meant to be navigated with a touch screen:

• Call to action - What can be tapped? Where do you tap to go back to the previous menu? How is that made clear? How do you design the process of selecting a consumable item, showing a description, then selecting a target for said item and confirming, without it being obtuse?
• Hit area - You have to have as large hit areas as possible, while still making it intuitive. You have to really think of interface element sice and positioning to accommodate this. Did you know Apple skews your touch input on their devices a good few millimeters up because that makes it "feel" right while technically it's not? This is because your fingers doesn't actually touch the screen where you think it does, because it's in the way of the actual point of touch.
• Error correction - With touch interfaces, the whole screen is a button, so hitting the wrong thing at the wrong time will happen. So you need to make sure players don't accidentally lost the game because they shoved that puzzle boulder the wrong way by accident. You have to make it easy to reset such puzzles, or have confirmation without it being repetitive (nobody wants to answer yes ten times in a row when shoving a boulder a tile at a time). And what about battles? Selecting that final action and starting your party's attack sequence by accident - woops. But nobody likes repeatedly tapping confirm buttons either.
• Screen size - Some tablets are small, some are big. If your hit boxes for tapping aren't well done, and perhaps even have variations depending on the screen size and device, some devices will be a nightmare to play on. Testing for this is a nightmare. Trust me, I've done it. I never want to do it again T_T

These are some of the headaches that, while not all unique to tablets and touch interfaces, rear their ugly heads prominently when you develop for them. This is why people often "slap on" virtual buttons; because it's actually more reliable. A pure touch interface is an absolute gargantuan task to get right unless you design your game for only one or two devices. Don't for a moment think every game with virtual controls on touch devices are there because of lazyness; most of the time, they're the necessary evil to getting to ship the game at all.

 

[Jay_NOLA]

Some older gamers will look to see if you have mouse support as they may have trouble using a keys for a long period of time bad due to arthritis  and other medical issues.

So if you know that older gamers are part of your target age range it is a good idea to have a mouse control option.

 

[Galenmereth]

Some older gamers will look to see if you have mouse support as they may have trouble using a keys for a long period of time bad due to arthritis  and other medical issues.

Isn't it the opposite, though? My mother has arthritis, and for her, using a mouse is near impossible for any stretch of time. I got her an iPad, though, and that works very well for her. But typing on a keyboard has always worked well for her, while using a mouse to navigate hasn't worked since she got the dicease...

 

[Shaz]

Yeah, I don't think a mouse is necessarily better for people who have difficulties using their hands (not just elderly people). I often see comments on the BFG forums from people who are elderly, have arthritis, have hand injuries, etc, who find using a mouse difficult. Mind you, the BFG forums I visit are time management games where fast clicking is necessary (and it's the fast clicking these people have issues with), and that wouldn't likely be the case with an RPG.

 

[Ultimacj]

It depends on the game and it NEEDS mouse use or not.  If your game relies on a point and click format or could use that format in any way that a player would consider it to be much more easier to use then yes I would put support in.  If your game purely uses KB or / and controller/gamepad format, probably not.  Hope this helps!

 

[amerk]

Or, as has been pointed out, it depends on the portal you're going through. Some game portals require mouse, regardless if you feel your game needs it or not, and refusing to put it in means they won't accept your game.