Moving Around in Croquet

We note that a number of users accustomed to game navigational conventions were befuddled by navigational controls in the Jasmine release. The whole three button Squeak mouse thing doesn't seem to work at all for most users. We definietly need a better way to get around.



Several conventions for keyboard/mouse navigation have emerged in the 3D gaming world and we are treating these as a starting point for the navigational interface of Croquet implementations intended for use in educational settings. Doing so will accommodate existing 3D-savvy users and reduces the potential for frustration until a more appropriate solution can be devised and developed.



We find that Doom III’s navigational interface design is a good starting point. As in many other first-person-shooters, controlling movement and selection within Doom III requires only a mouse and keyboard - and all modern computers have these already. Arrow keys and the “WASD” keys can be used to move about the environment. Use of the arrow keys is an intuitive way to control movement within the space and redundancy with “WASD” keys will allow right-handed users to use their left hand for navigation while using their right hand for mouse-look and select functions.



Some of the literature on navigation in 3D environments shows that users who are unfamiliar with game conventions presume the mouse is used for moving around the space. We feel that the solution to this conflict in user expectations is to set the navigational defaults to keyboard control and then provide user-configurable preferences to accommodate experimentation with mouse-based navigation. Users will ultimately tell us what works best.