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"Choose Interaction Then Hotspot" - Stuck on Interaction

edited October 2014 in Technical Q&A
Hey there,

This could be one that a lot of people have the answer to. My game uses "Choose Interaction Then Hotspot", but when a player chooses an interaction and then just clicks somewhere on the (non-hotspot) ground, I would of course like the cursor to go back to walk mode and move them there.

Unfortunately, this doesn't happen. The cursor stays stuck in whatever interaction the player has clicked on, and there doesn't seem to be any way out of it. 

Under settings, I've set "Cancel interactions with:" to "Click off menu", which I assumed would do the trick, but it seems to have no effect. That's weird, because I feel like that is exactly what it's for. Could be a bug? Anyone run into this?

Thanks!

Comments

  • Perhaps another case of wrong syntax.  That would be better worded as "Close interactions with", as it's related to the Menu that appears before an Interaction has actually begun.

    What you're looking for is in the Hotspot Inspector.  If an Interaction is set to Walk To or Walk To Marker, the player will be able to cancel Interactions by clicking away so long as Cutscene while moving? is unchecked.  Note that the "cancellation window" is only open while the Player character moves towards the Hotspot / Marker - once the Interaction ActionList has begun, you can't cancel it midway through.
  • Hey Chris,

    Not sure I'm explaining the problem properly, so hopefully this quick test game in AC will help illustrate:


    As you can see, the game starts with the default cursor, and you can click around the ground to move. So far, so good. This uses Unity Navigation in case that matters.

    Then, when you click on an interaction ('Use' or 'Talk to') you can then click on the hovering cube to utilize that interaction. This is also fine.

    BUT - when you click on an interaction ('Use' or 'Talk to') and then *don't* click on the hovering cube, i.e. you click somewhere on the ground, nothing happens. You stay stuck on the interaction cursor. In fact, even if you do interact with the hotspot, you're still stuck on that interaction afterwards.

    Ideally, what would happen is that if you click on an interaction and then don't click on a hotspot, the game would jump back to the main / walking cursor, and move the player to that point instead. Or, if it wasn't a valid place to move to, it would at least cancel the interaction and go back to the main cursor.

    But from what you're saying, I feel like it's supposed to do this already - but it doesn't. Any ideas?
  • Oh, and one more thing on this: It also doesn't go back to the walk cursor *after* a successful interaction with a hotspot. That is actually probably the most important thing that keeps things from flowing.
  • So basically, you want it to reset after any click?
  • Right! Reset to the main / walk cursor after any click that doesn't hit a hotspot, and also after an interaction with a hotspot finishes.

    I think this approach should be universally valuable. This is basically how things work in AGS and classic LucasArts 9-verb SCUMM games, which I'm assuming are what most people using the Interact > Hotspot setting for...?

    If that's  too complex, though, the most glaring aspect of how it messes with game flow is just that when you're stuck in an interaction mode, clicking on a non-hotspot area causes nothing to happen, i.e. the character does not move to that point on the screen.

    I appreciate you looking into this. I realize that most people are probably happy to just use context-sensitive and call it a day, but I need a classic feel here. :)
  • Perhaps we had different classic games in mind: the old Sierra games would NEVER change the cursor for you - you'd cycle through them, or click their icon from above, and the cursor would remain as it was until you changed it.

    Still, you're right about the LucasArts games behaving this way.  I'll look into it.
  • Thanks Chris! We shant descend into a classic Sierra / Lucasarts debate here, but maybe another time. :)

    If nothing else, I think it's a style that translates much better into the absence of right-clicking - macbooks, tablets, etc. 
  • No worries - in for 1.40.
  • Awesome! Thanks!
  • Hey Chris,

    Just letting you know that this works perfectly in 1.40! Thanks again!
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