One question has vexed me for some time, and I would appreciate the insight that any Boomers might have.

Simply, why does any game developer of a first-person game ever use the 90 degree slide show format anymore. Clunky and disorienting, it may have wowed us all when Myst came out in '93, but now?

I just replayed Amerzone and the first two Draculas, made in 1999 and 2000. These games all had a user-friendly 360 panning interface, so this is not new technology.

So why was the slide-show format regrettably not consigned to the dust-bin of gaming history from the time Amerzone hit the store shelves. (Out of curiosity, does anyone know which game was the first to use 360 degree panning?)

Yet people are still sticking with it almost fifteen years later. The Nancy Drews still use it, and I read that the upcoming Bracken Tor games will also.

I'll get the Braken Tor games when (and if) they come out, and I know I'll enjoy them, as I did Barrow Hill but the fly in the ointment will still be that the playing experience was unnecessarily detracted from by the use of an obsolete and klutzy interface.

And of course one wonder why, when a clearly superior alternative has existed for almost fifteen years.

Antoinetta

Antoinetta when I get immersed in a game I don't always notice if its a "slide" show. But I do prefer "panning".

I prefer it to not have 360 panning because it tends to make me seasick so I am glad they are still making them that way. I see nothing archaic about it, I just see them as being different.

Different strokes and all that but as for me, if a game has the slide show system then it ruins it for me and I no longer buy any games that do.

I prefer my games with the panning because I like to feel like I am moving in a game. Of course, my preference is 3d person basically for just that reason.

I never used to have a problem with panning games. But now when I have the least bit of queasiness (either from something I ate, or just from being too tired), playing a game with panning will magnify the queasiness to the point where I'll have to lie down to keep from throwing up. So I'm very glad there are still some first person games that allow me to play them when I'm not feeling 100% -- which is really when I need games the most because I can't do much of anything else.

Scratches gave the player a choice of panning or still screens, which was nice. Unfortunately it's also rare.

I think the more options we find developers still feel able to offer us - the better !!

I agree with you, oldman. The slide-show style feels unnatural to me. I don't want to click and move half way up the road. I find myself clicking back a lot to make sure I didn't miss something. Much rather see my little avatar run up that road, searching everywhere! I'm a scenery gazer in games too. I'll stop and just pan around to enjoy the graphics!

That said, I have gotten nauseous in some free-swinging 360 games. When that happens, I try to find some way to slow the mouse speed or make the movement not so sensitive.

But ironically, it's probably the "unnatural" aspects of panning movement (also 3D movement) that cause seasickness.

There's nothing wrong with preferring a panning style -- I used to prefer it myself before I started to have problems with panning. But I don't think snapshot/slideshow is unnatural when it actually mimics how I look at things. In real life, when I move my eyes or turn my head to look at something, I do not carefully peruse every inch of viewing space between what I'm looking at before and what I'm looking at after. I'm interested in the endpoints, not the in-between. And generally I blink my eyes when I turn my head to look in a completely different direction. It's not that different from going to a different screen in a snapshot-style game.


I don't like that either, but it's not something that's exclusive to snapshot style games. It can happen with any node-based game. Cameron Files 2, which had panning, was one of the worst for it. One click would take me halfway through the museum, past many of the displays, and I kept going back and forth because I though I'd missed a hotspot.


Unfortunately that doesn't work for me anymore. I have to either close my eyes or look away from the screen while it's moving. Sometimes I can get away with looking a foot or two to the right or left of the monitor and getting some idea of what's going on with peripheral vision. Either way is a lot worse than clicking through still images because I have to pay so much attention to not getting sick.

Well, we may differ on what we prefer in games, but I can certainly relate to having something not work for me the way it used to! In my case, my eyesight is not what it was, nor are my "lightening reflexes." Small print? Forget about it! Dexterious hand movements? Not gonna happen!

Not sure what has caused your recent dizziness trouble, but for my issues, it's just a matter of aging.

Probably the same thing here.
Whatever used to compensate for the movement the eyes were seeing not quite matching up with where the stomach was going -- it doesn't do it right any more.

Scratches had both styles....

As everyone says, it's just good to have options.

Sometimes I wonder if the med I take for hypertension causes as many issues as it treats. Warning: May cause drowsiness, upset stomach, dizziness, or headaches. Don't operate heavy machinery ... So, is a computer heavy machinery? Hmm.

Maybe the cost to an Indie developer also comes into the mix [I don't know.]

But whatever the reason for slideshow being used, I'd rather have a "good" game with slideshow than a "mediocre" one with panning

I like the "slide show" format, particularly in horror games, as I think it adds to the suspense/surprise aspect of that type of game. In fact, I think it works better for that type of game.

I prefer the slide show interface and am very happy that a number of game
developers are still using it and, apparently, do not consider it obsolete.

As for the 360 degree panning interface being "a clearly superior alternative",
I do not see it that way - it is just "an" alternative.

For an "adventure game", I appreciate...

good pictures (I prefer "still frames")
a good story (with no graphic violence)
interesting puzzles (not too difficult)


If I "demand" expensive and "labor intensive" details,
many games may Never be completed.

Especially when Many very good developers
struggle, to get paid fairly, for their work.

Some of them may be tempted to give up.
They would love to complete their game,
if they can afford the low pay.

I have to admit I don't like the slide show format. I want to look closer at something or get farther away from it and I can't and it's annoying.
Anything, from the node to node (I believe that's what it's called) that Billy uses in LHOD to a full pan is better as far as I'm concerned.

And speaking of Bill, are you tired of action/RPGs yet? Thinking of a new AG?

Gil.

I think what people are calling "slideshow" in this thread is the "node to node" (node-based movement) with no panning -- Games like Barrow Hill, the Carol Reeds, or the first Dark Fall.
For example, from ***the Jave synopsis of Barrow Hill at JA+***
And from the ***Barrow Hill review at Adventuregamers***


Many games with panning are also node-based. In the Kheops games, you can pan 360, but you hop between nodes to move around.

The Carol Reed games are exactly what I was thinking of when I said I don't like the slideshow format. Especially indoors, I turn abruptly from one unrelated view to another and it leaves me disoriented. If that is node-based movement, Billy uses it a great deal better in LHOD. He never jams me in a corner and makes it impossible to for me to relate to where the rest of space is. I don't feel constrained in LHOD, as if I'm wearing a spacesuit, unable to see anything else around me and with someone holding my arm to keep me from turning.

I have played Barrow Hill and had much the same reaction thought not as strongly.

Evidently I need a crash course in correct terminology.

Gil.

Jenny, that's how I meant it - I thought the two were interchangeable. If not,
I also need a crash course in correct terminology.

Jema,
You're correct that they are interchangeable, but I don't think everyone realizes that. I thought they were different at first too. I even thought "slideshow" was different from "snapshot." I thought "snapshot" just meant still frames while "slideshow" meant you saw the images move to the side when they were changed, like they did with the old slide projectors they had when I was in elementary school, like ***this one***, or ***this one*** or even some of ***these***. And the only game I knew that did that was Chateau D'Or on an old 233 MHz computer, so it was confusing to see games like Myst referred to as "slideshow" games.

But after seeing so many reviews, articles, and forum posts in recent years that used both "slideshow" and "snapshot" to describe any game with movement like the original Myst, or the first two Dark Fall games (or ***Last Half of Darkness***), it became obvious I had the wrong idea and they were the same thing. In fact, "slideshow" seems to have overtaken "snapshot" as the description. I guess few people remember those old slide projectors where you saw the slide move to the side when it was being changed, which is why I still like "snapshot" better.


I agree it's better when there are more views and that they relate to one another. If Carol Reed games disorient you, don't ever play S.P.Q.R. Not only do you land in completely different areas over 100 feet away, but they are absolutely nothing like what you were clicking on from the previous view. In S.P.Q.R., you pretty much are wearing a spacesuit (actually a time travel device). Of course S.P.Q.R. had other problems, like that so much of your time was spent reading one scroll after the other. But it had many fans who enjoyed the historical aspects of the game.

This was also the huge downer for Myst and games of that ilk, I used to just keep getting lost. It's a very disorientating system. The only game where I managed to persevere was Barrow Hill. That is one game that I should have loathed but it just drew me in and was the gem of that year.

Getting lost can happen in games with panning too. Remember the jungle maze in Beyond Atlantis (Atlantis 2) where the game apparently rotated you at the end of each click? You wouldn't know which direction you had come from and it made it very difficult to map the maze.

True but in Myst I seemed to spend more time re - finding locations I'd already been to than on the puzzles. You either have an eye for the slideshow system or you don't and I, as a general rule, don't.

It remains one of the few adventure games I've never finished (in fact Ive never finished any of them come to think of it:-)).

I love slide show type games. Please make more and more and more of these.