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SCUMM Interface vs. Sierra Icon Bar?

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Jul 4, 2015
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Which of these two classic adventure game interfaces do you prefer, and why?
space-quest-9.jpg

20060504195152!Monkey_Island_1_Amiga_demo.png
 

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Of the two exact examples provided above? Sierra's, by a triple combo.

# Sierra's interface has 6 commands compared to LucasArts's 12, making it far easier to determine which command is needed. In addition, SQ4 only uses the "Taste" and "Smell" commands for entertainment value, they're not needed to complete the game. That brings it down to 4 commands vs 12, which may actually be overboard on the simplification.

# Sierra's interface is made from icons, not snippets of text. It reduces the emphasis on language, which can be a problem for those that are unfamiliar with the language in question...though language-impaired players will have problem with the rest of the game regardless, but it's the thought that counts!

# Sierra's icon interface is hidden at the top of the screen, only called down by moving the mouse up to the bar. This allows Sierra games to use 95%+ of the game screen for the game world itself. LucasArts's interface is constantly visible, leaving the game world with only 75% of the screen for itself.

But what I'm mostly wondering about is why you chose these two games in particular. LucasArts's next ScuMM release, Monkey Island 2, reduced the number of commands down to 9 and made the inventory use graphical icons, so right there the gap between the two games closes sharply. Meanwhile, Sierra's games continued using variations of the same interface for a few more years (even after LucasArts changed their interface again to do away with the command bar completely) and in some cases they even brought back the command bar (Leisure Suit Larry 6), so Sierra really lost their lead quickly after this "snapshot" of yours.
 
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Sam and Max hit the road used a similar system to sierras: though you didn't had an icon bar, you alternate between icons/actions by right clicking the mouse button, and the last icon would be the inventory item currently selected. It was the first "verbless" lucasarts adventure. Just identical to sierra's interface. And it was scumm. About the 12 verbs in MI1, turn on and turn off were useless, and the VGA versions of MI 1 had the same amount of verbs than MI2.

MI1 came after indyana jones last crusade, which used the scumm verb system used in maniac mansion and zak mckracken, which means that you actually had to click the verb walk to, look at or what is. Monkey island 1 streamlined this by making walk and look instant actions to be used in situations that would obviously requires them. Also, it happened with the door in which it would highlight the open/close verbs since that would be the expected actions regarding that object. MM, ZM and indy 3 didn't have these.

Also, After sam and max, we had full throttle and the dig released at almost the same time, and FT had a tattoo with icons that appeared on right click and you would select actions, and the dig had a far simple interface: right click would mean just the look verb, and right click would be representative of all active actions (pick/use/open/close/push/pull). For inventory, you would click a side icon. Then we had Curse of MI which brought back the full throttle interface. But all LA adventures were all practically sentence based, and you would actually see the sentences appear on screen even if there was no verb interface. But in the end, I aways felt the lucasarts system to be much more intuitive, and i'm also considering the fact that you could use keyboard shortcuts.

The screenshots in the OP are there just as a means of illustrating the topic, and not meant to be the specific games to be judged.

Oh, and sierra games didn't have a highlight object feature, making pixel hunting a little more difficult. Like the snake scales in the crime scene in gabriel knight. In LA games, you had a lot of pixel hunting, but if an object was in the the background, if you hover the mouse pointer over it, you would have the object's name appear on the screen. Indy 3 and before had the "what is" verb, but later games had this action "on" by default.
 

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