Hi Steve,
Welcome to the forum! I am so hoping for the best for you, in your creative endeavors.

On the topic - it seems to me that the best way of navigating around a game (point and click, keyboard, combo, mind control!) has not been invented yet. Any ideas - little tweaks to current navigation or "for the future" suggestions - anything that makes sense to you!

On how you advance the story, gameplay, how you progress in a game - it also seems to me that the best thing to do has not been invented yet. Puzzles are OK, action is often too fast and difficult for me (though I like the "physicality" of it), and I'm only at the beginning of attempting to play an RPG game. Do you have any thoughts on other things we could do in a game to advance the story, including alternate solution paths, or well, anything!

Finally, I love to hear more about the kind of game you'd like to do, that you can share with us (we don't want you to give away your "secrets"). I read you like a more personal story. Care to elaborate?

Thanks, mszv, it's good of you to say.

The problems with the controls for BSTSD have bugged me since I read the first complaints. Only the other day I awoke very early with this playing on my mind, but with an idea ticking over. So there I am at five in the morning writing up ideas for a mouse/keyboard interface. It's a shame I have no project to attach it to.

Basically, the story advances in a game when you trigger the next plot point. Often these are revealed in a cut scene as a reward for getting through a level, but if it's done as a direct result of some gameplay, like a puzzle where you have to combine two pieces of information, then it's much more satisfying for the player. I'm not sure there is an ideal solution because every game will have it's own story development requirements.

I was on a cruise a couple of months ago, which gave me a lot of time to think, and one evening we watched the film, Love Actually. Here's a film that's written beautifully, has an incredible cast of characters played by some wonderful actors, has real highs and lows, emotionally, yet there are not aliens, conspiracies, or maniacal antagonists about to take over the world. Imagine being able to create the gaming equivalent of that.