I use a Wacom tablet at work. I’ve used one for several years now, and have acclimated to the way the things operate. Sometimes, it’s even easier to use than the much-ballyhooed Cintiq, since my hand isn’t in the way. I’ve helped other people learn how to use them, and every time, dedicated computer users start with Mouse mode.
Why? It’s literally like using a mouse, and the whole reason of using a tablet is to work more naturally, as if you’re drawing or painting on paper. The Pen mode treats the tablet like a piece of paper, mapped to the same scaled “piece of paper” as your computer monitor’s “desktop”. Mouse mode treats the expensive tablet and pen like just another mouse, albeit pressure sensitive. Don’t bother with a tablet if you’re going to use Mouse mode.
So what about the Wii? I’ve had occasion to ponder games like Bejeweled or Peggle on the Wii. We can play these on the computer with a mouse and have a high degree of precision in our control. On the Wii, the wiimote makes for a much less precise tool. This is also true in the comparison between the Nintendo DS and the Wii. My wife likes the Trauma Center games for the DS, but we won’t even bother with the Wii version; it’s way too much work trying to do precision surgery with a lightsaber.
Short story long, cursor control with the wiimote can be a pain in the neck for precision work, especially with smaller TVs and when sitting farther from the screen. What if it worked more like a mouse? Say, the cursor moves based on the motion sensing of the wiimote, rather than the “laser pointer” mode, and only moves when the “mouse” is in contact with the “mouse pad”, say, the trigger being held down? I’m not much of a Wii veteran, so I’m not sure if that would be more trouble than it’s worth… but it’s one of those things that I’ve pondered here in my little game designing world.
Any thoughts?
My brother-in-law got us a Wii — including WiiSports and Zelda — as a wedding present (I guess that tells you quite a lot about how all three of us are crazy gamers, heh) in October. Though fun, we rarely play it as we’re more PC gamers at the moment … Anyway, I agree with you on the pointer being rather annoying. Just a simple task like naming your Mii can be an exercise in frustration due to how the pointer can skim across several different letters while you’re trying to hold it steady enough to click on one damn button in particular. I do liken it to using the mouse on the TV screen, though it’s much less comfortable and accurate. I would never play Bejeweled on the Wii, for example — that would probably make me throw the Wiimote out the window.
I don’t know how it could be improved, though. I’ve never had the opportunity to use a Wacom tablet (well, a long, long time ago I was given a rather low quality tablet and pen, but that doesn’t really count — the tablet was half the size of a normal A4 or 8.5 x 11″ sheet of paper, and the pen was attached to the tablet by a wire that I could only describe as being too short to hang a mouse, much less comfortably move around).
I go through phases where I sometimes dream about getting one, though. I’m much less artistically inclined than I am in the literary field, but I remember art classes during my school years as being great fun. I used to draw as much as I wrote when I was younger, but as the years went by my artsy side kind of fell by the path and I haven’t really done anything with it in a good long time. I sometimes think having a tablet would encourage me to get into things more, but at the same time I know that that logic is a bit faulty — it’s like saying that you’d play golf if only you had a set of expensive golf clubs when you could, in fact, play golf with the clubs you already have (pencil + paper, mouse).
I made the decision last night that I would finally crack open my Illustrator disc and teach myself vector drawing and illustrating. Guess I’m rectifying the situation.
By the way, Tesh … do you know of any PC version of Panel de Pon (aka Planet Puzzle League, aka Tetris Attack, aka one of the mini games in Wizard101 that I mentioned being addicted to and you saying that you once had the 2nd highest score and that you had that due to being a Puzzle Pirates maniac)? I reformatted my computer a week or so ago and I’m not really sure about downloading and reinstalling Wizard101 just to play it when the mood hits me. Heh. I’d been trying to find a version I could either play online or download and play (such as those various BigFish casual games) but it seems that there’s a plethora of match-3 Bejeweled-type games but no Panel de Pon.
Which makes me a sad panda.
Offhand, I don’t know of any, but a quick Google search for “tetris attack free clone” turned up these:
http://download-free.programas-gratis.net/php/search.php?buscar=tetris%20attack&viene=0
http://blockattack.sourceforge.net/
http://www.clickfornick.com/software/2007/12/crack-attack-free-tetris-attack.html
http://www.shoecakegames.com/stacknsplash/ (This one’s not free, though it does have a trial version.)
I haven’t tried any of these yet, so I can’t speak to their stability or viral safety, but it looks like a few people are trying to make good Tetris Attack clones, anyway.
My parents got a Wii for my younger siblings, and my wife loves going over to their place to play it. It’s a great little casual system, and the motion sensitivity of the Wiimote is fun… just not the best for precision work.
You have Illustrator? Nice.
I’ve been making do with DrawPlus. Vector art isn’t quite the same thing as Photoshop, but it’s still a lot of fun to tinker with. That ambigram design I did in my Mini Portfolio post was done with DrawPlus. Good luck with Illustrator!