Design Challenge: One Button

[jillduffy]

Discuss your ideas, ask questions, and heckle others here about GameCareerGuide.com's Game Design Challenge: One Button.

[Sina Jafarzadeh]

Hm, the assignment details are indeed extremely minimal

I guess direction pads and direction sticks aren't considered as a button?

[simonc]

I don't think direction pads/sticks are allowed - just a button. Here's a good Gamasutra feature we ran on the concept (with some Flash demos!) a couple of years back:

http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20...green_01.shtml

[DjWeston]

Being able to use the directional pad and/or analog sticks or not is essential information. If we can have that cleared up it would be helpful. I would say that analog sticks should be usable without clicking them as a button function but the directional pad does act as a set of buttons. Anyways, any clarification on this subject would be appreciated.

[jillduffy]

"One-button" game means the only thing the player touches is one button.

No sticks. No mouse movement. Just the one button.

[ChipmunkDJE]

Ok, so what about the Wii? I'm not talking about motion controls, but just to be able to aim at the screen and "click" the one button where you want?

Also, can the DS screen be considered one button? Could I make a design idea using no other buttons on the DS beyond the screen itself (and the power button to turn it on, of course)?

Can "mouse motion" be considered one button? Where everything is determined just by the way you move the mouse?

I'm not trying to nit-pick the rules, but I have tons of wonderful ideas that sprang off of these questions, and I would like to know if they are submittable or not. Thank you for your time in answering these questions.

[jillduffy]

Let's leave it up to you to convince us that your ideas are so good on the Wii or DS that using only the touch screen or only the motion sensor is considered "one button."

[rooperi]

There is also difference between analog & discrete buttons.. also, if you have advanced HW, it might be able to detect hovering situation.

I guess discrete case (simple on/off) is what is expected..

[ronnoc10]

http://www.gamemakergames.com/?a=view&id=2856 - Is the most impressive one button game I've ever seen, but I've never seen anything as complex as a FPS before...

Of course, being FPS doesn't necessarily make it not a rail-shooter, which simplifies things a bit...

[DjWeston]

Well based on what has been said the analog stick is the better button to use. It's clickable and can be rotated to signify direction. Those two functionalities will supply more options than a simple "on/off" style button.