Point and click
Point-and-Click ( English for pointing and clicking on something ) is a standard operating concept for computer programs in which the user uses a pointer of his input device, usually a computer mouse , to point to certain areas of a graphic with the help of a pointer of his input device, usually a computer mouse User interface and the subsequent pressing of a key on its input device (click) triggers a predefined action.
Applications in computer games
Adventures
The emphasis on an operating concept focused on the computer mouse as point-and-click is mostly, but not exclusively, found in adventure games and is considered a separate sub-genre there , with different types of implementation .
The mouse buttons are also used differently, with the left mouse button mostly used to perform certain actions. The right mouse button has different meanings. Sometimes it is used to trigger standard actions (e.g. right-clicking on a door opens it) or it has a universal function (e.g. regardless of the screen position, the object clicked with the right mouse button is viewed). In rare cases it is used to call up the inventory .
In the early 1980s, text adventures with or without stationary graphics were common in the adventure genre. In 1984, the Californian company Silicon Beach Software's Enchanted Scepters was the first point-and-click adventure. Its user interface was partly based on that of the Apple Macintosh : All the required command components could be put together using drop-down menus . The Déjà Vu: A Nightmare Comes True by ICOM Simulations , published the following year , already had buttons for the vocabulary and a graphically displayed player inventory. Lucasfilm Games (later LucasArts ) published Labyrinth, his first graphic adventure game in 1986 , which already showed the beginnings of the later very successful interaction system SCUMM .
Strategy games
The classic point-and-click control looks in strategy games such. B. Command & Conquer , KKND or Warcraft, the selection of units or the marking of several units with the left mouse button, so similar to the functionality in graphical user interfaces of current operating systems (e.g. the GUI of Windows or KDE ). After the selection, a further left click usually sends the units to the cursor position, while the right mouse button is usually used to cancel the current action or to cancel the unit selection.
Other control systems provide that the selection of the units can be canceled with a left click in the “void” (for example somewhere in the landscape), the right mouse button is then usually used to carry out the standard action. For offensive units z. For example, moving to the cursor position or attacking the target if the cursor is over an enemy object, the standard action.
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ Point & Click Adventures . In: Retro Gamer . 3/2015, June 2015, p. 20.