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Comment by naravara | Hacker News Reader

When I first got an iPad I was almost certain this was going to herald a great resurgence of point-and-click style adventure games. I still don't really understand why it didn't. Unwillingness to pay for software I suppose?

The interaction is perfect for a touch screen, the display is amazing, and the casual demographic seems like the ideal one to pick it up. Even puzzle games, like Phoenix Wright, would have worked well. It's really a shame that stuff like Candy Crush ended up dominating the space instead. There are some bright spots, like "The Room" or some Professor Layton games, but they're few in number.

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Hovering the mouse was an essential mechanic in all the best point-and-clicks. Games that don't give a hint that an object is interactable on hovering are impossible to play. Games that highlight all interactable objects from start are boring and cut all the fun of discovery.

That could be a a reason.

What about 'drag-to-hover' and 'tap-to-interact'? I don't feel like this is an unsolvable UI problem, when some core apps have 3-finger-pinch-and-drag-while-swiping gestures.

Never saw a 'drag-to-hover' design, but guessing from the name, could be a very neat solution to the problem I mentioned.

Worth trying. Startup idea: buy the rights of a critically-praised-comercially-failed adventure game from the 90s, port it to iPad with this mechanic. :)

I would play.

No need, just install scummvm on any android device (I don't know if it's available on iOS) and play the many Lucasarts titles. It has 'drag-to-hover' and 'tap-to-click' as well.

Drag-to-hover and click-to-click is common on touch screens. Try out scummvm or the various remasters of adventure games for android tablets. Highly recommend Broken Sword, Grim Fandango, Day of the Tentacle, etc.

Currently play Broken Sword on pass-the-tablet with screen duplicate streaming to the wall size tv, for effectively social couch coop. Try it with friends and family, or whoever you happen to be locked in with at the moment.

The original Kings Quest (on my PCjr, at least) had an interesting quirk that anything that was movable was drawn last. So you just had to spot that the rock appeared a second after you entered the screen, or the mushroom suddenly showed up, that it was something you could interact with.

The fun part was trying to figure out the magic phrase to affect an object, as not all of them were as obvious as "move rock" or "eat mushroom".

There's probably several ways around this. One could just be making everything interactable in a "drag it around" sense, but only some things actually able to interact with other objects or able to be placed in a bin for later.

Although, come to think of it, game design that compels you to put every random thing in a bin because "it might be handy later" is one of the things I hate about open world games and their crafting/inventory systems.

Alternatively, they could just make you double-tap to interact and single tap to take a closer look or something. 3D touch had some interesting possibilities as well.

I had a good experience with a PNK adventure on a large Android phone. My guess is these adventures are now competing with all other kinds of games. And the modern tech allows for so many possibilities.

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