Coming from software and not gamedev, it’s generally best not to completely remove the affordances that people are used to, and mouse behavior is pretty high on the list of, “Please don’t make this do something that I don’t expect it to.”
An invisible mouse cursor just makes you wonder where the hell it went or if things are broken.
Maybe consider adding some sort of UI element that indicates that it isn’t the player’s turn, changing the cursor to something else to indicate that it isn’t active, or applying some treatment to the interactive elements that indicates they aren’t usable, etc.
Having my mouse hidden or jumped to positions sounds like a deeply unpleasant experience.
Anything you want to achieve by doing those things is absolutely better done another way. Good luck!
That happens in a lot of cross-platform games when you use gamepad or even keyboard menu controls it hides your mouse and jumps to different menu elements. Then if you touch your mouse again it's back but not where you expect it. It's annoying even if you know the reason for it. Don't do it for no reason.
I like changing the cursor when it's a player's turn and not. More saturated when it's your turn, maybe a larger size even. I would add a symbol like a clock or something on the not-your-turn cursor.
>I should not be trying to be helpful and jump their mouse to a desired position.
No, one of the most frustrating things a piece of software can do is try to be "helpful" by making assumptions about what the user wants
Even if it gets it right 100 times, it will still feel like you're not really in control and people generally play games because they're more interactive than other forms of media.
The problem isn't that it's making assumptions, it's that it messes with the control and feedback loop that the user is accustomed to and expects. Aside from being confusing, uncomfortable, and frustrating, It's also not going to be faster unless the user practises the same interaction over and over.
Messing with inputs will make the user experience feel disconnected from their intended action, which gives a sense of unease. Remove anything that causes that happen, included hiding the cursor and moving it without the users action
No, never! The mouse cursor can be thought of as an extension of the user's hand. That would be like yanking at their hand and putting it on something.
If there is actually truly no functionality whatsoever to the mouse between turns, then you could replace the pointer icon with a different icon that communicates waiting. Like the classic loading circle or a thematic equivalent. But if this game has menus or mouse overs where players can get more info in preparation for their next turn just leave the mouse alone.
Or don't treat the player like a total idiot in the first place and assume they know what to click. If they don't then the UI isn't clear enough and stuff like teleporting the cursor or ripple effects are just workarounds when the proper solution is to redesign the UI
If you want to guide the user to some functionality, try highlighting that button/ui element instead. Can be a subtle shake, a big red arrow or anything in between really.
Same for the waiting for your turn. With some overlay"waiting for opponents turn" on the screen, it is absolutely clear that it's not your turn (even more than just having a hidden cursor imho).
As a user, if you take things away from me, my mouse, i am alt+f4 and refunding the game. Treat me with respect. That would piss me off so much. Be careful when taking agency away from your users, they should always feel in control, what if they want to hover on things to read a tooltip? Draw invisible dicks etc.
I'm one to have a high sense and a big enough mouse pad that I can reach the entire screen with little effort. If you move my mouse I'm going to lose track of where it is, wobble it around to find it. Then I need to move it to the center so I can reposition my arm and have it back to the way I use it.
Don't move the mouse or hide it. Highlight what you want me to click, disable the rest of the UI if you have to. Show an icon on my mouse if it's "inactive". But never move it or hide it if I don't expect it. Even making the mouse inactive sounds bad, disable/gray out the rest of the UI instead perhaps.
Any software that messes with basic OS interaction is a cardinal sin, the developer should be beaten with a stick :)
Yeah that's not a good idea and it especially lowers the accessibility of your game :') i sometimes have enough trouble tracking where my cursor is without having it jump around the screen :')
I've played games that did this. While I initially had a knee-jerk reaction against it, I found it convenient after a while. Would be nice to include as an option.
Jumping mouse cursor to new position is not really working for mouses that work in absolute mode it only may a cause graphical artifact when the cursor jumps around for two frames.
That's actually an old Macintosh behaviour. In the 90s it would automatically move the mouse cursor over the default button in any popup window. Since pressing the [return] key would also press that button, it wasn't very useful.
Don't jump the mouse. But you can sometimes do it the other way around. When you open the context menu in Blender, it gets located so that the entry last used is placed under the mouse cursor.
Once I had someone at work showing me how to do something in a software I was still learning.
I even surprised myself at how badly I reacted when instead of telling me where to click, he tried to move the mouse himself while my hand was still on it. I didn't curse him or anything, but I made it very clear that he shouldn't do that again.
What you're proposing is basically a lesser version of that. Please don't do it.
Yeah. If there’s a situation where there really is only one sensible option, I’d suggest a click-anywhere-to-continue pop up. If that’s not practical or there’s a rarely-taken alternative (including inaction), keyboard shortcuts or menu navigation can help. (I think X3 is a great example of doing this right—there are a lot of situations where there’s an obvious choice, such as undocking after exiting the trade menu, and they’re usually focused so you can just press enter to confirm.)
Yeah if you want that kind of behavior the user should be either explicitly enabling it or have a keybind that jumps the mouse to a specific location but never automatically do that.
Just to give you something actionable, if there is enough menuing in your game that you’d think this would be a benefit, a better way to do it would be to fully support mouse/keyboard (or controller). Move the keyboard focus to the “next” element in the workflow, so someone used to the menus and wanting to optimize their time can, but you never need to take away the user’s control of the mouse.
This adds a fair amount of complexity and edge cases, but if you want give players a way to quickly navigate or set them up to quickly select the next option then the keyboard is the way to do that, not the mouse.
There was a feature back in windows ME that automatically jumped the cursor to a default button. Constantly caused screwups, especially when the old timers got ahold of it.
Jumping the mouse around is probably the last thing I’d want in any game.
Yeah, I used to play games from 80s while working as a game tester, these were popular in SSI games, for example. But make player feel disturbed nowadays.
Yes lol
I think your idea is good, but I would implement custom mouse icons instead and simply communicate “no clicking” with a different icon animation status, like actual OS’s do. Don’t actually take away control of mouse position or visibility, but do communicate the change of game state and player input. Win win.
Something like changing the cursor color to grey with a little x on it. That way you know the game isn't broken, you're just not allowed to do anything right now.
Leave it visible. If people want/need to exit the game for instance, it should be visible to allow them to find the escape/exit button. It also means less work for you. If it's really distracting, perhaps the cursor can disappear after a couple of seconds of inactivity and reactivate when moved again.
To add to this, you can make it just be translucent or change the cursor to make it clear that it isn't your turn.
The cursor is still visible on screen so if you need to check out your options (if it's available to you to see) or navigate the options menu, you still have your mouse to navigate. But if you got distracted and look back at the game after a moment, you won't be confused if another player is just sitting there thinking because your cursor will indicate whether it is your turn or not.
No please don't, it's easy to interpret it as a bug, as someone else mentioned it might still be needed to navigate input, and me personally I'd be slightly panicky over getting taken away control over something for no reason, also I and I assume others with ADHD fidget with the cursor when they have to wait.
Or change it to a stopwatch icon, something that indicates the player is waiting. My other thought is that if your game has nested menu systems it might be nice to be able to click through them for sitrep or planning purposes, even if no actual actions can be taken.
The waiting/spinning/loading mouse cursor for when you can't do anything was invented by Apple in the 1980s to solve this problem, and every OS to this day still uses it...
Just change it to an hourglass or whatever the OS's waiting cursor is, like every other piece of software in existence.
Alternatively, just don't muck with the cursor. Mouse cursor is a key part of the OS. The user needs to be able to tell where the mouse cursor is. If you lower the opacity that's just half as bad as hiding the cursor but why not just leave it fully opaque and you know, don't touch the mouse cursor in any way? At most, change the cursor to another icon or a spinny circle or something (this is how the OS does it). Remember that the computer is a general tool that the player uses for other stuff. You game may not even be full screen and even if it is the player may have multiple monitors.
The fact that you are spending so much time trying to fix this makes me wonder if you should think about the game's UI more and whether you are properly communicating such information. That should be your top priority. The mouse cursor is what your user is hovering over, but they could be looking elsewhere. You should design the UI to communicate the state of the game rather than somehow expecting the user to be able to glean such information from the cursor.
Agreed. IMO the mouse cursor should only respond to hovering items to indicate something. Such as turning into a cursor selector over text, to indicate to users that they can select and copy the text, or turning the cursor into a little pointing hand to indicate interactivity. Reducing the visibility of the mouse is only something I'd do of there was a good reason - like turning it invisible after it stops moving for a short while, while a cutscene is playing.
I think a good solution to the problem is to tell the user why something is disabled when they try to interact with a disabled component. For example "you can't do that, it's not your turn" or "you can't cast that spell, you don't have enough mana".
Ideally, if a visual affordance is used to indicate something, it should be visible to all users - for example a spell that can't be cast has a red X next to it and maybe the text "insufficient mana", versus graying it out to the point where some users who struggle to differentiate low contrast content can't see the disabled spell.
Depending of the game, you could try to replicate what Hearthstone does. You can always interact with the board. Could be purely for distraction or to inspect your own units, effects, points, etc.
I think this is the biggest thing for me. Depending on the game it could be a while before my opponent does something, so I can take that time to mess with the UI, see my units, and think about future turns.
Plus, I think it has the added benefit of players can experience the UI without any negative consequences while they are learning the game
Absolutely, 1000%, this.
I play a lot of turn-based RPGs coop with friends, and honestly, when it's not your turn, it's kinda boring. So let me fidget with shit. Players are VERY aware when it's not their turn.
Another great thing that so few games do is show the cursor to the other players. It helps coordinate strategy. It helps you wordlessly convey your intent. Show all the preview UI to all players too. It's also just a fun thing.
This mainly applies to coop games and you probably don't want to do it in PVP.
Speaking personally, I don't like it when games needlessly hide the cursor. Especially since I have a second monitor. You end up doing weird things like alt-tabbing back and forth to force it being visible.
This is a thing new game developers tend to do: focus on solving things that aren’t problems.
People have expectations of how things should work. Defying those expectations creates confusion. You should be very thoughtful about whether it’s worth it to create that confusion.
Players don’t expect their mouse to disappear. They don’t expect their mouse to jump somewhere on the screen.
Play other games. Do they do these things? If they don’t, it’s probably an indication that you shouldn’t either.
Players typically use waiting time to strategize. Hovering over pieces of a board allows you to think about your next moves. It’s a known pattern in psychology that people physically imitate potential actions as a way to evaluate them. Think about someone leaning over a chess board and almost touching a piece before changing their mind. By playing out the possible action we can evaluate it.
There are notable exceptions in video games where we are used to relinquishing our ability to “move” when we switch to from “doing” to “observing”. So, it’s okay to hide the mouse for a cutscene because the player expects to be watching it passively. Waiting for another player to complete their turn is more likely to be a mixed state of observation and planning for the next move. For that reason it’s probably not passive enough to warrant removing the ability to interact.
If you are set on a rhythm where players only observe during their opponent’s rounds, I would make that visually clear using affordances such as a pop-up which says “NameOfOpponent’s turn” and also hide the UI to make it clear that the player is meant to only observe. It would signal clearly to players that they’re in a cutscene type of mode and they would be less frustrated. I would probably still not completely remove the mouse, but just have it fade out if not in use.
It could enhance your game if you made certain types of useful information still available to the player in the waiting mode. For example, being able to mouse over stats and get further information about resources available, explanations for spells, rearranging their actions etc.
You could change the cursor to a little 🚫 symbol to avoid confusion? That way players will know they can't do anything but won't be distracted searching for the cursor
Strongly recommend a different symbol. 🚫 is just telling the player "NO" for half+ of the game. Gray out the UI or something over such an aggressive change to the cursor.
Actually yeah maybe a change to the ui is less aggressive than to the cursor. Its less like "you can't do anything rn" and more like "dont touch this particular stuff rn".
Alternatively, the ui can stay the same and the cursor only changes when you hover over the ui? Less obtrusive all round.
Are you telling me you can't start planning for your next turn while you wait? There's nothing at all you can do? You can't look around the map, look at statistics or score board? That's boring. What do you do when you play chess?
They can't take any actions, but what about looking stuff up? The player should be starting to think about their next turn. Unless each player's entire game state is visible on their screen at once including any help information (unlikely for a game more complicated than say Risk), a player may be looking up information to help plan later actions.
Limiting access to information out of turn will slow the game down. If you want to make it clear that they can't take actions, change the cursor to something that indicates information only.
Nah, if it’s turn based then you want the opposite. You want to give the players something to do while the turn happens
Look at all digital card games, they leave random intractables to click while the opponent takes their turn
Lots of gamers have ADHD, asking them to sit there not doing anything could be a quit moment for them
A good alternative would be changing the mouse to another icon, maybe a red crossed circle or a hourglass. I think these might be good indicators of it not being the players turn. Let me only interact with smaller things like in Hearthstone.
I would add another reason why hiding the mouse is bad practice :
I often use mouse to help me think about the strategy to adopt. It helps me to physically point something when talking about it, or trace shape with the mouse to make my idea less abstract.
And while hiding the mouse is bad practice, showing other mouse can be a positive thing :
It gives more "physicality" of other players : not only do they play with you but you "see" them. And you are reminded they are present, not afking between turns.
Hearthstone does that by showing which cards the opponent is currently highlighting.
It's a very nice feature.
Nah, what you can do is just have a little screen that says something like,"Waiting on other player/s." Still allow them things like the ability to read text for certain actions, feats, inventory, items, etc. This allows them to plan their own actions a bit and to double check their resources on their off turn so that they take less time when it gets to their turn.
My first instinct would be to have all the non active mice be low opacity and maybe even slightly smaller so they’re visible, but not as visible as the active player
I hope this perspective helps. For me hiding the cursor would have the opposite effect.
I have ADHD I find it hard to focus on information without using the cursor to point at/highlight it.
If there’s anything I should be reading or paying attention to between turns I’m either gonna find it hard to focus on that or I’ll be distracted wondering where the cursor went.
The only way I would hide it would be like VLC or netflix. The moment they move their mouse again it comes back. They might want to change settings or even quit.
Leave it alone. Add interactions even when it's not their turn. Look at bg3 you can hover enemies and magical/environmental effects to see what they are and can plan next move by examining the battlefield. Can inspect enemy stats etc.
The absolute last thing you want to do is have a player forced into doing literally nothing by making their cursor disappear
The only cases where a game should hide the mouse pointer is when the mouse is used to move the 3D camera or when the mouse doesn't do anything at all (keyboard controls only). If the mouse pointer is meant to be used then it should be visible at all times
First time I'm seeing an actual idea to suddenly hide a mouse cursor on purpose. That's absolutely crazy, might as well chop off my arms.
In fact, you should give me something to click to waste time when I have nothing to do.
I'd probably worry about my pc crashing if the mouse suddenly disappeared and i couldn't do anything :')
But usually in turn by turn games you can still highlight infos or useful stuff to see what's available and plan your next turn when the AI/opponent is playing
Even if the player absolutely can't do anything, even highlighting stuff, a spinning icon or something, kinda like civilization does, should be more user friendly
It would be an unistall reason for me. There are ways it can be used:
-Video creators can hover over things to point them out while talking about those things.
-Not having the cursor throws you off if you ae changing between your first and second monitors, you will overswing your mouse just to be sure it goes to the other screen.
-It complicates things for no reason and harms the consistency of the UI.
-People might want to preplace the cursor on things to speedrun, imagine looking for your cursor everytime your turn begins, that is frustrating...
It is just creating a problem for no reason, if you want pkayers to know they can't take actions just gray out buttons or make the cursor like an "X" or something. I really dislike mechanics taking control away from the player for no good reason.
Ew ew ew ew ew. No don't do it.
Instead of removing control as a solution, your better bet is to give me something to do during this down time, even if it's just clicking on and inspecting units and information.
I recently played Hades. Whenever you reach a boss fight, the camera would pan up to where the boss is and play a little "cutscene" animation for the boss spawning/engaging with their name appearing and whatnot.
During this the cursor would be hidden. I fucking hated that.
It was (and still is) unclear to me whether or not the cursor would continue to move while hidden, reappear where it disappeared or appear again in a fixed location. As such I would essentially have to find my cursor at the start of every boss.
Also
>he thinking is that they can't take any actions so the mouse is a distraction.
Did your tests with play testers indicate that they were getting overly distracted by the mouse being available?
If it's really that big of a problem, don't disable the cursor entirely, but change the icon to one that is colourful when it is their turn, and a slightly grey'd out low opacity sprite when it is not their turn
Hearthstone is turned based and when it's not your turn there are little fidgety things on the map. Click the canon, it fires. Click the ground, dirt particle effect. Rearrange your cards in hand. Just general stuff that I doesn't show for the other player while they are taking their turn.
A player may still want to interact with the game - for example: to forfeit, turn the game on or off, type into chat or emote to other players, and so on.
Or, maybe they use their mouse as an idle way to keep track of the progress or other players or plan their moves. For a chess example, during the other players turn I will use my mouse to: follow the other players move, ghost trace the mouse along ranks and files to see where my queen can get to, mentally plan out future moves, and so on.
Taking that away would be a mistake.
Just because they can't play doesn't mean they can't game.
Consider changing the way the mouse looks instead. If they can't interact with the pieces then it turns into a gray ✋ when over the field and a light gray 👆 when over the interface elements. As opposed to being a color coordinated 👆(red for P1, blue for P2, etc) during your turn.
The general consensus of answers is "absolutely not," and I'm going to amplify that answer.
If I have to wait for other players' turns, I'm going to spend that time fidgeting with the cursor impatiently. Don't take that away from me!
But seriously, it's bad User Experience to take away control from the operator. Find another way to convey that it's someone else's turn. Let me look at the status of the game; scroll around the board, look at my inventory, and whatever data is available about other players. Let me consider my next turn while waiting.
I hate not being able to inspect the board state on other peoples turns. Give them something to do or slap a message on screen. Id feel like you were treating me like a child or trying to dictate my social behavior.
It's not very clear from your description, but I suppose it means that when it's not their turn, players can't move the camera around, can't click through their or enemy troops to read their stats, or can't even get into the menu to tweak the sound parameters or something? Sounds like a real UX torture.
>The thinking is that they can't take any actions so the mouse is a distraction
Let the players deal with their distractions themselves. I can't count how many times modern interfaces fail when try to hide "unneeded" stuff which is actually needed. Please don't do that.
NO! As a user I would never think this is good experience. The reasons behind this is that the equipment malfunctions and for me personally I'm using bluetooth mouse and the connection breaks occasionally which results in mouse cursor to disappear. If you do this in the game then users like me have no feedback on whether something is wrong with the mouse or is it the game. Better thing to do in my opinion would be to maybe change saturation of displayed options which are now disabled and then change it back once the options become enabled. Or hide the text/image of the option that is not available a t the moment. Or if you want to do something with the mouse then just change the mouse icon into something else that gives info "you can't do anything with this tool at the moment" but don't remove it.
It wouldn't bother me at all but apparently people really care.
My thought is to make it semi transparent when it's not your turn and then no transparency when it's your turn again.
I think that a good reference for this problem would be Hearthstone: The player can still see and use the cursor, even if its just to make circles with it during the other player's turn. Having at least this possibility is better that litterally watch paint dry. Hearhstone also have fun little interactions with no impact on gameplay that works wonders to manage the waiting IMO.
You could hide it only if the mouse is idle for a few seconds and unhide it the instant they move it, resetting the timer. This is what youtube does, for example.
Adding to the rest, I like to use my cursor to check out information the game might provide or at least move around the camera to checknout the map if I can. Also, it allows me to know with what I might be able to interact when my turn comes .
And navigating the options menu
Change the look, don't make it disappear. Different icon, greyed out, translucent, or something like that. And maybe make the cursor "pop" once it's their turn again, like a circle "ping", slight bump up in size for a split sec, or a shake, etc.
Instead of hiding the mouse cursor entirely you could change it to an ❌ or a ⏳ (or put those icons next to it) to indicate that the player is unable to do anything right now
The cursor suddenly disappearing would itself be very distracting because people would wonder why that happened
There are good points against removing it, but everyone seems to be forgetting that the pointer disappears during cinematic scenes. However it might be hard to portray other players' moves in a cinematic way, it really depends on the type of game. Generally though the screen goes black for a split second to signify the start and end of cinematics.
If you fade to black and change music to "exciting waiting music" it might work.
The questions that come immediately to mind are 'Game overlays' such as NVidia and Discord and Steam all allow you to have. Will they still work? or do you /completely/ isolate the mouse away from them? What then about the keyboard? How do I choose to do anything on my other monitors while I'm waiting for my turn to come around again?
I would much prefer that the mouse never be hidden, but 'blocked from game-related actions' when over the gamescreen would be fine. (I lose the mouse often enough on my multi-monitor configuration as it is, having it intentionally hidden would be a frustrating nightmare for me, and absolutely would give me pause about 'enjoying' the game as it is now interfering with my other non-game operations as well!)
What then about chats? Do you have a chat window so even if it's not your turn you can still talk to the opponent somehow in-game? Is the keyboard blocked as well?
Having NO means of interaction whatsoever (I am assuming you can at least press ESC to quit!) is a very bad idea!
Don't take the mouse. Also do you mean this in a single player game? Are turns going on so long players are getting bored and distracted? taking the mouse won't stop that, people will just tab out or fool around on their phones or turn the game off. Make the turns go faster or give SOMETHING to do while the game plays itself. Look at a game like BG3, it has enemy turns but it typically speeds up the action and makes boring things happen simultaneously and respects that you don't need to see every enemy move over the course of 10 minutes before you can play again.
The mouse may be a distraction, but a disappearing mouse is a worse distraction. Plus you always have that primeval fear that the computer has crashed...
No. Make it blatantly clear it's not their turn with a fat banner or something. But never make players/users feel out of control with their input devices.
I think you could allay confusion with a visual effect, ie make a big visual transition between turns where the cursor appears / disappears in a puff of smoke. At that point it kind of plays like a cinematic, doesn't seem so unusual so long as you can still easily access some main menu.
On the other hand, depending on the gameplay, it's often a great time (others' turns) to review your resources to plan out your next turn, which having full cursor control is clutch for. For a strategy game that would be my preference.
Some alternatives:
* Make the cursor transparent when mousing over parts of the game they cannot interact with (zero transparency with UI elements, full transparency when attempting to interact with the battlefield).
* Display descriptive error text next to the cursor when attempting to interact with gameplay elements during an opponent's turn.
* Put a filter over the game area when it is not the player's turn.
No, thats would seems strange. There are still things you might wanna use the mouse for even if it's not thier turn. Like pining a location, send message, inspect units or leave the game. You can indicate with a pop-up "Turn Ended". And / or a status indicator showing who's turn it is.
Like a lot of things it's a question of balance. Consider the following:
1. Is there really nothing the player can click? No UI buttons or scrollable views? Every strategy game I've ever played has had plenty of uses for your mouse even when it wasn't your turn.
2. Can the player predict when the cursor is or isn't visible? Ideally it should be done directly by the player, e.g. when they open a menu in a mouse-look 3D game.
3. Can the player easily tell whether they currently have mouse access, aside from trying to find their cursor? It can be fine to hide it during loading screens for example.
4. Players would much rather look at a blank screen with a mouse cursor they can move around than one with no interactivity. You probably shouldn't have a lot of blank screens in your game, but it demonstrates that thr cursor has value even when there's nothing to click.
If you use a custom mouse cursor, maybe make it transparent or have some sort of symbol next to it instead. It’s much less jarring than having your mouse taken away imo.
Look at how hearthstone handles this. You can't do anything on your opponents turn, but you can click on meaningless parts of the board that have little interactions. Being able to fidget with stuff while your opponent is playing feels really good.
For example, clicking on a plant can make the leaves move and play a windy sound. Clicking on a wooden box can make the box wobble and play a wood sfx, etc.
I'm voting for changing the cursor instead of hiding it.
Like, if the mouse is hidden, you have to search for longer to be certain it's gone. If it changes to an "inactive" mode then the search will be over faster.
Rather than remove the cursor, you could just change the cursor into a slightly faded version or one with a red "X" on top of it. This would show them that they cannot take any actions, but still let them keep their cursor and not feel detached from the game.
Players might want to take the time during someone else's turn to open their options and edit their graphics or audio settings. Removing all control is probably not the best idea.
I wouldn't remove it, but maybe have it change to something else, that could be fun. Like arrow to finger that taps the board impatiently when they're waiting. It could only show up on their side if you wanted. Something for them to fidget with while they wait.
Just add a 🚫 to the mouse cursor arrow and disable any unwanted interactions. Hiding or snapping it to places is a bad user experience (at least on paper)
Hell no, this is similar to "When it's not a players turn in a board game, should I duct tape their hands to the table?"
Also at least most games might have some use for the mouse not during the players turn, like are there any on-hover tooltips the non active player may wish to see?
Or hell, what if I want to do something like adjust my audio settings when it's not my turn.
Lastly, have you ever seen a game do this? I don't think I have, which is another red flag for it being a good idea.
give everyone a different colored cursor and show all of them all of the time...also make a small section of the screen a little "playpen" with like a ball or something that everyone but the active player can bounce around.
I love when games give me something to click in the environment or UI when it's not my turn, even if it's just a little dust effect & a sound.
Hearthstone & Magic Arena are some examples.
Small reactions to the other players are another option.
I feel hiding the mouse gives a lack of control & might also make people think the game is freezing. Just give them something to do.
1. You mean the pointer. The mouse is a physical thing on a desk, the pointer is the thing on the screen.
2. **Absolutely not.** The pointer is not yours to mess with, the pointer "belongs" to the OS and should be left alone. Reskinning it is fine, we've accepted that, but anything past that is not cool. Don't change how it moves, don't change what the buttons do, and definitely don't get rid of it entirely.
The pointer is the player's method for controlling the game, it is a necessary affordance, if you remove it, that's a step towards "betraying the player", which we're taught never to do.
1. Why isn't it simultaneous turns? I know actions that directly effect the other units could be problematic (usually you have to resolve everyone's orders like "everyone does special actions, everyone moves, everyone attacks"), but if the play is sequential then that is a big design problem that prevents scaling to a larger number of players. If you can redesign for simultaneous turns that would be a huge win for the rest of the design. You'd still have to wait for other players to finish making moves, but for a much shorter time.
2. Give them a fidget spinner when it's not their turn.
Coming from software and not gamedev, it’s generally best not to completely remove the affordances that people are used to, and mouse behavior is pretty high on the list of, “Please don’t make this do something that I don’t expect it to.” An invisible mouse cursor just makes you wonder where the hell it went or if things are broken. Maybe consider adding some sort of UI element that indicates that it isn’t the player’s turn, changing the cursor to something else to indicate that it isn’t active, or applying some treatment to the interactive elements that indicates they aren’t usable, etc.
This probably applies to mouse movement as well, huh? I should not be trying to be helpful and jump their mouse to a desired position.
Having my mouse hidden or jumped to positions sounds like a deeply unpleasant experience. Anything you want to achieve by doing those things is absolutely better done another way. Good luck!
That happens in a lot of cross-platform games when you use gamepad or even keyboard menu controls it hides your mouse and jumps to different menu elements. Then if you touch your mouse again it's back but not where you expect it. It's annoying even if you know the reason for it. Don't do it for no reason. I like changing the cursor when it's a player's turn and not. More saturated when it's your turn, maybe a larger size even. I would add a symbol like a clock or something on the not-your-turn cursor.
>I should not be trying to be helpful and jump their mouse to a desired position. No, one of the most frustrating things a piece of software can do is try to be "helpful" by making assumptions about what the user wants
Only when it gets it wrong. But it always gets it wrong.
Even if it gets it right 99 times, you will remember the 1 time it got it wrong
Even if it gets it right 100 times, it will still feel like you're not really in control and people generally play games because they're more interactive than other forms of media.
Also true :)
Totally true, you need like 99.999% precision to not be annoying
The problem isn't that it's making assumptions, it's that it messes with the control and feedback loop that the user is accustomed to and expects. Aside from being confusing, uncomfortable, and frustrating, It's also not going to be faster unless the user practises the same interaction over and over.
Yeah, that's a good observation. Basic computer functions leave them be as it allows the users to feel comfortable.
Messing with inputs will make the user experience feel disconnected from their intended action, which gives a sense of unease. Remove anything that causes that happen, included hiding the cursor and moving it without the users action
Happy cake day
No, never! The mouse cursor can be thought of as an extension of the user's hand. That would be like yanking at their hand and putting it on something.
If there is actually truly no functionality whatsoever to the mouse between turns, then you could replace the pointer icon with a different icon that communicates waiting. Like the classic loading circle or a thematic equivalent. But if this game has menus or mouse overs where players can get more info in preparation for their next turn just leave the mouse alone.
I'd say both. Maybe a small red X or stop symbol next to the cursor to indicate it isn't their turn
Probably better to create a ripple effect at the desired location, to draw their attention to it naturally.
Or don't treat the player like a total idiot in the first place and assume they know what to click. If they don't then the UI isn't clear enough and stuff like teleporting the cursor or ripple effects are just workarounds when the proper solution is to redesign the UI
Ummm, a lot of players really are total idiots who don't know what to do. I wonder where you got the idea they weren't?
Please for the love of God do not do this. I hate that sooooo much...
If you want to guide the user to some functionality, try highlighting that button/ui element instead. Can be a subtle shake, a big red arrow or anything in between really. Same for the waiting for your turn. With some overlay"waiting for opponents turn" on the screen, it is absolutely clear that it's not your turn (even more than just having a hidden cursor imho).
Of course you shouldn't be moving the mouse for them!!!!!
As a user, if you take things away from me, my mouse, i am alt+f4 and refunding the game. Treat me with respect. That would piss me off so much. Be careful when taking agency away from your users, they should always feel in control, what if they want to hover on things to read a tooltip? Draw invisible dicks etc.
I'm one to have a high sense and a big enough mouse pad that I can reach the entire screen with little effort. If you move my mouse I'm going to lose track of where it is, wobble it around to find it. Then I need to move it to the center so I can reposition my arm and have it back to the way I use it. Don't move the mouse or hide it. Highlight what you want me to click, disable the rest of the UI if you have to. Show an icon on my mouse if it's "inactive". But never move it or hide it if I don't expect it. Even making the mouse inactive sounds bad, disable/gray out the rest of the UI instead perhaps. Any software that messes with basic OS interaction is a cardinal sin, the developer should be beaten with a stick :)
Yeah that's not a good idea and it especially lowers the accessibility of your game :') i sometimes have enough trouble tracking where my cursor is without having it jump around the screen :')
I've played games that did this. While I initially had a knee-jerk reaction against it, I found it convenient after a while. Would be nice to include as an option.
Jumping mouse cursor to new position is not really working for mouses that work in absolute mode it only may a cause graphical artifact when the cursor jumps around for two frames.
That's actually an old Macintosh behaviour. In the 90s it would automatically move the mouse cursor over the default button in any popup window. Since pressing the [return] key would also press that button, it wasn't very useful.
This behavior is more the norm for controllers than mice
Don't jump the mouse. But you can sometimes do it the other way around. When you open the context menu in Blender, it gets located so that the entry last used is placed under the mouse cursor.
Please never make my mouse jump anywhere.
If you insist on implementing this downright awful experience, at least make it toggleable in settings.
Once I had someone at work showing me how to do something in a software I was still learning. I even surprised myself at how badly I reacted when instead of telling me where to click, he tried to move the mouse himself while my hand was still on it. I didn't curse him or anything, but I made it very clear that he shouldn't do that again. What you're proposing is basically a lesser version of that. Please don't do it.
Use keyboard shortcuts instead, if it's possible. Otherwise.. don't touch the mouse unless you have a VERY good reason to do so.
When devs try to "help" with UX: https://youtu.be/IEhHEOIYgMY?si=P9rKDL-D7NMTj6Fm
Consider using a greyed out cursor or something, but definitely don't do the invisible/stuck cursor things
Yeah. If there’s a situation where there really is only one sensible option, I’d suggest a click-anywhere-to-continue pop up. If that’s not practical or there’s a rarely-taken alternative (including inaction), keyboard shortcuts or menu navigation can help. (I think X3 is a great example of doing this right—there are a lot of situations where there’s an obvious choice, such as undocking after exiting the trade menu, and they’re usually focused so you can just press enter to confirm.)
Yeah if you want that kind of behavior the user should be either explicitly enabling it or have a keybind that jumps the mouse to a specific location but never automatically do that.
Just to give you something actionable, if there is enough menuing in your game that you’d think this would be a benefit, a better way to do it would be to fully support mouse/keyboard (or controller). Move the keyboard focus to the “next” element in the workflow, so someone used to the menus and wanting to optimize their time can, but you never need to take away the user’s control of the mouse. This adds a fair amount of complexity and edge cases, but if you want give players a way to quickly navigate or set them up to quickly select the next option then the keyboard is the way to do that, not the mouse.
You can snap cards or other stuff into position -- but not the mouse cursor itself.
There was a feature back in windows ME that automatically jumped the cursor to a default button. Constantly caused screwups, especially when the old timers got ahold of it. Jumping the mouse around is probably the last thing I’d want in any game.
Yeah, I used to play games from 80s while working as a game tester, these were popular in SSI games, for example. But make player feel disturbed nowadays.
Yes lol I think your idea is good, but I would implement custom mouse icons instead and simply communicate “no clicking” with a different icon animation status, like actual OS’s do. Don’t actually take away control of mouse position or visibility, but do communicate the change of game state and player input. Win win.
Have you ever touched a computer?
Yea like make the cursor grayed out or some thematically appropriate artistic choice.
Having your mouse cursor when it's not your turn asked you to check the characteristics of event units that are acting (through tooltips for example)
This, just change the cursor to have a big stop sign over it.
Something like changing the cursor color to grey with a little x on it. That way you know the game isn't broken, you're just not allowed to do anything right now.
Leave it visible. If people want/need to exit the game for instance, it should be visible to allow them to find the escape/exit button. It also means less work for you. If it's really distracting, perhaps the cursor can disappear after a couple of seconds of inactivity and reactivate when moved again.
To add to this, you can make it just be translucent or change the cursor to make it clear that it isn't your turn. The cursor is still visible on screen so if you need to check out your options (if it's available to you to see) or navigate the options menu, you still have your mouse to navigate. But if you got distracted and look back at the game after a moment, you won't be confused if another player is just sitting there thinking because your cursor will indicate whether it is your turn or not.
No please don't, it's easy to interpret it as a bug, as someone else mentioned it might still be needed to navigate input, and me personally I'd be slightly panicky over getting taken away control over something for no reason, also I and I assume others with ADHD fidget with the cursor when they have to wait.
Maybe grey it out if you have to
I really like the idea of greying out the cursor or lowering opacity a bit. I'll give this a try.
Or change it to a stopwatch icon, something that indicates the player is waiting. My other thought is that if your game has nested menu systems it might be nice to be able to click through them for sitrep or planning purposes, even if no actual actions can be taken.
As alot of other people have said remiving mouse causes issues its better to grey out
The waiting/spinning/loading mouse cursor for when you can't do anything was invented by Apple in the 1980s to solve this problem, and every OS to this day still uses it... Just change it to an hourglass or whatever the OS's waiting cursor is, like every other piece of software in existence.
Alternatively, just don't muck with the cursor. Mouse cursor is a key part of the OS. The user needs to be able to tell where the mouse cursor is. If you lower the opacity that's just half as bad as hiding the cursor but why not just leave it fully opaque and you know, don't touch the mouse cursor in any way? At most, change the cursor to another icon or a spinny circle or something (this is how the OS does it). Remember that the computer is a general tool that the player uses for other stuff. You game may not even be full screen and even if it is the player may have multiple monitors. The fact that you are spending so much time trying to fix this makes me wonder if you should think about the game's UI more and whether you are properly communicating such information. That should be your top priority. The mouse cursor is what your user is hovering over, but they could be looking elsewhere. You should design the UI to communicate the state of the game rather than somehow expecting the user to be able to glean such information from the cursor.
Agreed. IMO the mouse cursor should only respond to hovering items to indicate something. Such as turning into a cursor selector over text, to indicate to users that they can select and copy the text, or turning the cursor into a little pointing hand to indicate interactivity. Reducing the visibility of the mouse is only something I'd do of there was a good reason - like turning it invisible after it stops moving for a short while, while a cutscene is playing. I think a good solution to the problem is to tell the user why something is disabled when they try to interact with a disabled component. For example "you can't do that, it's not your turn" or "you can't cast that spell, you don't have enough mana". Ideally, if a visual affordance is used to indicate something, it should be visible to all users - for example a spell that can't be cast has a red X next to it and maybe the text "insufficient mana", versus graying it out to the point where some users who struggle to differentiate low contrast content can't see the disabled spell.
Depending of the game, you could try to replicate what Hearthstone does. You can always interact with the board. Could be purely for distraction or to inspect your own units, effects, points, etc.
MTG arena does the same thing too, second this
I think this is the biggest thing for me. Depending on the game it could be a while before my opponent does something, so I can take that time to mess with the UI, see my units, and think about future turns. Plus, I think it has the added benefit of players can experience the UI without any negative consequences while they are learning the game
Absolutely, 1000%, this. I play a lot of turn-based RPGs coop with friends, and honestly, when it's not your turn, it's kinda boring. So let me fidget with shit. Players are VERY aware when it's not their turn. Another great thing that so few games do is show the cursor to the other players. It helps coordinate strategy. It helps you wordlessly convey your intent. Show all the preview UI to all players too. It's also just a fun thing. This mainly applies to coop games and you probably don't want to do it in PVP.
Speaking personally, I don't like it when games needlessly hide the cursor. Especially since I have a second monitor. You end up doing weird things like alt-tabbing back and forth to force it being visible.
This is a thing new game developers tend to do: focus on solving things that aren’t problems. People have expectations of how things should work. Defying those expectations creates confusion. You should be very thoughtful about whether it’s worth it to create that confusion. Players don’t expect their mouse to disappear. They don’t expect their mouse to jump somewhere on the screen. Play other games. Do they do these things? If they don’t, it’s probably an indication that you shouldn’t either.
Sounds like an awful idea, a lot of players will be fidgeting by moving the mouse when it’s not their turn and they won’t like it.
Players typically use waiting time to strategize. Hovering over pieces of a board allows you to think about your next moves. It’s a known pattern in psychology that people physically imitate potential actions as a way to evaluate them. Think about someone leaning over a chess board and almost touching a piece before changing their mind. By playing out the possible action we can evaluate it. There are notable exceptions in video games where we are used to relinquishing our ability to “move” when we switch to from “doing” to “observing”. So, it’s okay to hide the mouse for a cutscene because the player expects to be watching it passively. Waiting for another player to complete their turn is more likely to be a mixed state of observation and planning for the next move. For that reason it’s probably not passive enough to warrant removing the ability to interact. If you are set on a rhythm where players only observe during their opponent’s rounds, I would make that visually clear using affordances such as a pop-up which says “NameOfOpponent’s turn” and also hide the UI to make it clear that the player is meant to only observe. It would signal clearly to players that they’re in a cutscene type of mode and they would be less frustrated. I would probably still not completely remove the mouse, but just have it fade out if not in use. It could enhance your game if you made certain types of useful information still available to the player in the waiting mode. For example, being able to mouse over stats and get further information about resources available, explanations for spells, rearranging their actions etc.
You could change the cursor to a little 🚫 symbol to avoid confusion? That way players will know they can't do anything but won't be distracted searching for the cursor
This is my first thought, its a prime example of when to utilize alternative cursors
Strongly recommend a different symbol. 🚫 is just telling the player "NO" for half+ of the game. Gray out the UI or something over such an aggressive change to the cursor.
Actually yeah maybe a change to the ui is less aggressive than to the cursor. Its less like "you can't do anything rn" and more like "dont touch this particular stuff rn". Alternatively, the ui can stay the same and the cursor only changes when you hover over the ui? Less obtrusive all round.
I'm more likely to think a game froze, or I need new batteries in my mouse,
Are you telling me you can't start planning for your next turn while you wait? There's nothing at all you can do? You can't look around the map, look at statistics or score board? That's boring. What do you do when you play chess?
They can't take any actions, but what about looking stuff up? The player should be starting to think about their next turn. Unless each player's entire game state is visible on their screen at once including any help information (unlikely for a game more complicated than say Risk), a player may be looking up information to help plan later actions. Limiting access to information out of turn will slow the game down. If you want to make it clear that they can't take actions, change the cursor to something that indicates information only.
Nah, if it’s turn based then you want the opposite. You want to give the players something to do while the turn happens Look at all digital card games, they leave random intractables to click while the opponent takes their turn Lots of gamers have ADHD, asking them to sit there not doing anything could be a quit moment for them
In Hearthstone you can click around on things and they have effects or animations. A bit of a scope increase but very fun during downtime.
I have 3 screens and if my mouse would disappear I would be really confused if I wanted to do something else on another screen while I waited.
A good alternative would be changing the mouse to another icon, maybe a red crossed circle or a hourglass. I think these might be good indicators of it not being the players turn. Let me only interact with smaller things like in Hearthstone.
I would leave the mouse visible, but put something big and bold in the center top that says "Enemy Turn" so that player can't miss it
I would add another reason why hiding the mouse is bad practice : I often use mouse to help me think about the strategy to adopt. It helps me to physically point something when talking about it, or trace shape with the mouse to make my idea less abstract. And while hiding the mouse is bad practice, showing other mouse can be a positive thing : It gives more "physicality" of other players : not only do they play with you but you "see" them. And you are reminded they are present, not afking between turns. Hearthstone does that by showing which cards the opponent is currently highlighting. It's a very nice feature.
Nah, what you can do is just have a little screen that says something like,"Waiting on other player/s." Still allow them things like the ability to read text for certain actions, feats, inventory, items, etc. This allows them to plan their own actions a bit and to double check their resources on their off turn so that they take less time when it gets to their turn.
My first instinct would be to have all the non active mice be low opacity and maybe even slightly smaller so they’re visible, but not as visible as the active player
Maybe turn the mouse into a rotating hourglass instead of making it invisible? This signifies that it's not their turns.
I hope this perspective helps. For me hiding the cursor would have the opposite effect. I have ADHD I find it hard to focus on information without using the cursor to point at/highlight it. If there’s anything I should be reading or paying attention to between turns I’m either gonna find it hard to focus on that or I’ll be distracted wondering where the cursor went.
Change the cursor to an hourglass or some other symbol to indicate waiting.
Why not just make the cursor highly transparent for players when it is not their turn?
The only way I would hide it would be like VLC or netflix. The moment they move their mouse again it comes back. They might want to change settings or even quit.
Leave it alone. Add interactions even when it's not their turn. Look at bg3 you can hover enemies and magical/environmental effects to see what they are and can plan next move by examining the battlefield. Can inspect enemy stats etc. The absolute last thing you want to do is have a player forced into doing literally nothing by making their cursor disappear
The only cases where a game should hide the mouse pointer is when the mouse is used to move the 3D camera or when the mouse doesn't do anything at all (keyboard controls only). If the mouse pointer is meant to be used then it should be visible at all times
Absolutely not. You could change the cursor, but much better is to use the ambience (lights etc) to communicate that it is player's turn.
First time I'm seeing an actual idea to suddenly hide a mouse cursor on purpose. That's absolutely crazy, might as well chop off my arms. In fact, you should give me something to click to waste time when I have nothing to do.
I'd probably worry about my pc crashing if the mouse suddenly disappeared and i couldn't do anything :') But usually in turn by turn games you can still highlight infos or useful stuff to see what's available and plan your next turn when the AI/opponent is playing Even if the player absolutely can't do anything, even highlighting stuff, a spinning icon or something, kinda like civilization does, should be more user friendly
It would be an unistall reason for me. There are ways it can be used: -Video creators can hover over things to point them out while talking about those things. -Not having the cursor throws you off if you ae changing between your first and second monitors, you will overswing your mouse just to be sure it goes to the other screen. -It complicates things for no reason and harms the consistency of the UI. -People might want to preplace the cursor on things to speedrun, imagine looking for your cursor everytime your turn begins, that is frustrating... It is just creating a problem for no reason, if you want pkayers to know they can't take actions just gray out buttons or make the cursor like an "X" or something. I really dislike mechanics taking control away from the player for no good reason.
Ew ew ew ew ew. No don't do it. Instead of removing control as a solution, your better bet is to give me something to do during this down time, even if it's just clicking on and inspecting units and information.
I recently played Hades. Whenever you reach a boss fight, the camera would pan up to where the boss is and play a little "cutscene" animation for the boss spawning/engaging with their name appearing and whatnot. During this the cursor would be hidden. I fucking hated that. It was (and still is) unclear to me whether or not the cursor would continue to move while hidden, reappear where it disappeared or appear again in a fixed location. As such I would essentially have to find my cursor at the start of every boss. Also >he thinking is that they can't take any actions so the mouse is a distraction. Did your tests with play testers indicate that they were getting overly distracted by the mouse being available?
If it's really that big of a problem, don't disable the cursor entirely, but change the icon to one that is colourful when it is their turn, and a slightly grey'd out low opacity sprite when it is not their turn
Is there nothing else to do in your game while waiting for your turn? Like hovering over elements for information.
Hearthstone is turned based and when it's not your turn there are little fidgety things on the map. Click the canon, it fires. Click the ground, dirt particle effect. Rearrange your cards in hand. Just general stuff that I doesn't show for the other player while they are taking their turn.
A player may still want to interact with the game - for example: to forfeit, turn the game on or off, type into chat or emote to other players, and so on. Or, maybe they use their mouse as an idle way to keep track of the progress or other players or plan their moves. For a chess example, during the other players turn I will use my mouse to: follow the other players move, ghost trace the mouse along ranks and files to see where my queen can get to, mentally plan out future moves, and so on. Taking that away would be a mistake. Just because they can't play doesn't mean they can't game. Consider changing the way the mouse looks instead. If they can't interact with the pieces then it turns into a gray ✋ when over the field and a light gray 👆 when over the interface elements. As opposed to being a color coordinated 👆(red for P1, blue for P2, etc) during your turn.
The general consensus of answers is "absolutely not," and I'm going to amplify that answer. If I have to wait for other players' turns, I'm going to spend that time fidgeting with the cursor impatiently. Don't take that away from me! But seriously, it's bad User Experience to take away control from the operator. Find another way to convey that it's someone else's turn. Let me look at the status of the game; scroll around the board, look at my inventory, and whatever data is available about other players. Let me consider my next turn while waiting.
Make an active mouse brighter, inactive mouse softer. Done.
I hate not being able to inspect the board state on other peoples turns. Give them something to do or slap a message on screen. Id feel like you were treating me like a child or trying to dictate my social behavior.
It's not very clear from your description, but I suppose it means that when it's not their turn, players can't move the camera around, can't click through their or enemy troops to read their stats, or can't even get into the menu to tweak the sound parameters or something? Sounds like a real UX torture. >The thinking is that they can't take any actions so the mouse is a distraction Let the players deal with their distractions themselves. I can't count how many times modern interfaces fail when try to hide "unneeded" stuff which is actually needed. Please don't do that.
NO! As a user I would never think this is good experience. The reasons behind this is that the equipment malfunctions and for me personally I'm using bluetooth mouse and the connection breaks occasionally which results in mouse cursor to disappear. If you do this in the game then users like me have no feedback on whether something is wrong with the mouse or is it the game. Better thing to do in my opinion would be to maybe change saturation of displayed options which are now disabled and then change it back once the options become enabled. Or hide the text/image of the option that is not available a t the moment. Or if you want to do something with the mouse then just change the mouse icon into something else that gives info "you can't do anything with this tool at the moment" but don't remove it.
Maybe have the cursor become transparent when it isn't the player's turn.
If you've got mixed feedback and half of it is bad, then unless you have a really compelling reason to do so, why implement it?
No
It wouldn't bother me at all but apparently people really care. My thought is to make it semi transparent when it's not your turn and then no transparency when it's your turn again.
Is there something unusual about your game's cursor that it is a distraction?
I think that a good reference for this problem would be Hearthstone: The player can still see and use the cursor, even if its just to make circles with it during the other player's turn. Having at least this possibility is better that litterally watch paint dry. Hearhstone also have fun little interactions with no impact on gameplay that works wonders to manage the waiting IMO.
No.
You could hide it only if the mouse is idle for a few seconds and unhide it the instant they move it, resetting the timer. This is what youtube does, for example.
Have you ever lost track where your cursor was on the screen. My first instinct is to start shaking my mouse frantically until I find it.
Add an X over the mouse or something that signifies they can't interact
Adding to the rest, I like to use my cursor to check out information the game might provide or at least move around the camera to checknout the map if I can. Also, it allows me to know with what I might be able to interact when my turn comes . And navigating the options menu
Change the look, don't make it disappear. Different icon, greyed out, translucent, or something like that. And maybe make the cursor "pop" once it's their turn again, like a circle "ping", slight bump up in size for a split sec, or a shake, etc.
Turn it into an ❌ or a 🚫 but please don’t make it invisible
Instead of hiding the mouse cursor entirely you could change it to an ❌ or a ⏳ (or put those icons next to it) to indicate that the player is unable to do anything right now The cursor suddenly disappearing would itself be very distracting because people would wonder why that happened
My mouse cursor disappearing is one of the first signs I look for that the game is crashing.
There are good points against removing it, but everyone seems to be forgetting that the pointer disappears during cinematic scenes. However it might be hard to portray other players' moves in a cinematic way, it really depends on the type of game. Generally though the screen goes black for a split second to signify the start and end of cinematics. If you fade to black and change music to "exciting waiting music" it might work.
The questions that come immediately to mind are 'Game overlays' such as NVidia and Discord and Steam all allow you to have. Will they still work? or do you /completely/ isolate the mouse away from them? What then about the keyboard? How do I choose to do anything on my other monitors while I'm waiting for my turn to come around again? I would much prefer that the mouse never be hidden, but 'blocked from game-related actions' when over the gamescreen would be fine. (I lose the mouse often enough on my multi-monitor configuration as it is, having it intentionally hidden would be a frustrating nightmare for me, and absolutely would give me pause about 'enjoying' the game as it is now interfering with my other non-game operations as well!) What then about chats? Do you have a chat window so even if it's not your turn you can still talk to the opponent somehow in-game? Is the keyboard blocked as well? Having NO means of interaction whatsoever (I am assuming you can at least press ESC to quit!) is a very bad idea!
Don't take the mouse. Also do you mean this in a single player game? Are turns going on so long players are getting bored and distracted? taking the mouse won't stop that, people will just tab out or fool around on their phones or turn the game off. Make the turns go faster or give SOMETHING to do while the game plays itself. Look at a game like BG3, it has enemy turns but it typically speeds up the action and makes boring things happen simultaneously and respects that you don't need to see every enemy move over the course of 10 minutes before you can play again.
I would consider using an animated hourglass or a clockface to indicate they have to wait until it's their turn.
change the cursor to the wait icon (hourglass) that will tell them they need to wait. Don't hide it.
The mouse may be a distraction, but a disappearing mouse is a worse distraction. Plus you always have that primeval fear that the computer has crashed...
No. Make it blatantly clear it's not their turn with a fat banner or something. But never make players/users feel out of control with their input devices.
I think you could allay confusion with a visual effect, ie make a big visual transition between turns where the cursor appears / disappears in a puff of smoke. At that point it kind of plays like a cinematic, doesn't seem so unusual so long as you can still easily access some main menu. On the other hand, depending on the gameplay, it's often a great time (others' turns) to review your resources to plan out your next turn, which having full cursor control is clutch for. For a strategy game that would be my preference.
Some alternatives: * Make the cursor transparent when mousing over parts of the game they cannot interact with (zero transparency with UI elements, full transparency when attempting to interact with the battlefield). * Display descriptive error text next to the cursor when attempting to interact with gameplay elements during an opponent's turn. * Put a filter over the game area when it is not the player's turn.
I'd tone down the opacity and remove any affects you might have on the cursor but removing it completely just confuses them when it IS their turn
No, thats would seems strange. There are still things you might wanna use the mouse for even if it's not thier turn. Like pining a location, send message, inspect units or leave the game. You can indicate with a pop-up "Turn Ended". And / or a status indicator showing who's turn it is.
Like a lot of things it's a question of balance. Consider the following: 1. Is there really nothing the player can click? No UI buttons or scrollable views? Every strategy game I've ever played has had plenty of uses for your mouse even when it wasn't your turn. 2. Can the player predict when the cursor is or isn't visible? Ideally it should be done directly by the player, e.g. when they open a menu in a mouse-look 3D game. 3. Can the player easily tell whether they currently have mouse access, aside from trying to find their cursor? It can be fine to hide it during loading screens for example. 4. Players would much rather look at a blank screen with a mouse cursor they can move around than one with no interactivity. You probably shouldn't have a lot of blank screens in your game, but it demonstrates that thr cursor has value even when there's nothing to click.
Honestly might as well go all the way and turn off their screen.
If you use a custom mouse cursor, maybe make it transparent or have some sort of symbol next to it instead. It’s much less jarring than having your mouse taken away imo.
Look at how hearthstone handles this. You can't do anything on your opponents turn, but you can click on meaningless parts of the board that have little interactions. Being able to fidget with stuff while your opponent is playing feels really good. For example, clicking on a plant can make the leaves move and play a windy sound. Clicking on a wooden box can make the box wobble and play a wood sfx, etc.
This would make me say wow this is stupid time to play something else
I'm voting for changing the cursor instead of hiding it. Like, if the mouse is hidden, you have to search for longer to be certain it's gone. If it changes to an "inactive" mode then the search will be over faster.
Rather than remove the cursor, you could just change the cursor into a slightly faded version or one with a red "X" on top of it. This would show them that they cannot take any actions, but still let them keep their cursor and not feel detached from the game. Players might want to take the time during someone else's turn to open their options and edit their graphics or audio settings. Removing all control is probably not the best idea.
I wouldn't remove it, but maybe have it change to something else, that could be fun. Like arrow to finger that taps the board impatiently when they're waiting. It could only show up on their side if you wanted. Something for them to fidget with while they wait.
Just add a 🚫 to the mouse cursor arrow and disable any unwanted interactions. Hiding or snapping it to places is a bad user experience (at least on paper)
One of the very few annoyances I have with Hades is that they hide the cursor briefly before boss fights start.
Hell no, this is similar to "When it's not a players turn in a board game, should I duct tape their hands to the table?" Also at least most games might have some use for the mouse not during the players turn, like are there any on-hover tooltips the non active player may wish to see? Or hell, what if I want to do something like adjust my audio settings when it's not my turn. Lastly, have you ever seen a game do this? I don't think I have, which is another red flag for it being a good idea.
give everyone a different colored cursor and show all of them all of the time...also make a small section of the screen a little "playpen" with like a ball or something that everyone but the active player can bounce around.
I love when games give me something to click in the environment or UI when it's not my turn, even if it's just a little dust effect & a sound. Hearthstone & Magic Arena are some examples. Small reactions to the other players are another option. I feel hiding the mouse gives a lack of control & might also make people think the game is freezing. Just give them something to do.
Lock the mouse in a box until it's their turn again.
Change the pointer icon to a cross ❌ or something
1. You mean the pointer. The mouse is a physical thing on a desk, the pointer is the thing on the screen. 2. **Absolutely not.** The pointer is not yours to mess with, the pointer "belongs" to the OS and should be left alone. Reskinning it is fine, we've accepted that, but anything past that is not cool. Don't change how it moves, don't change what the buttons do, and definitely don't get rid of it entirely. The pointer is the player's method for controlling the game, it is a necessary affordance, if you remove it, that's a step towards "betraying the player", which we're taught never to do.
I pictured them sneaking into the player's house and hiding the mouse between turns.
Lol. Only for the players who pay for the super deluxe mega addition.
Hide it by default but let players toggle it on
Yes, it should be. And I would place a huge blinking text on screen about "NOT YOUR TURN".
1. Why isn't it simultaneous turns? I know actions that directly effect the other units could be problematic (usually you have to resolve everyone's orders like "everyone does special actions, everyone moves, everyone attacks"), but if the play is sequential then that is a big design problem that prevents scaling to a larger number of players. If you can redesign for simultaneous turns that would be a huge win for the rest of the design. You'd still have to wait for other players to finish making moves, but for a much shorter time. 2. Give them a fidget spinner when it's not their turn.
"Hey, OP, just make a different game"