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With the girl you can either walk or run,
when walking, with the left stick or the WASD keys, the girl can move forward & backward, leftward & rightward, and combine the two movements to move diagonally.
At any time, with the right stick or the mouse, the player can rotate the girl on her Y axis, and the camera on it X axis.
when running , with the shift key or X button, the girl can only go forward, also the player can rotate the girl with two differents type of input, first like usual with the right stick, and second with the A&D keys or horizontal axis of the left stick.
Also when running, it's impossible to move the camera vertically, and the camera slowly get back to a precise position behind you, so the girl is aproximaltely on the middle of the screen.
I've noted that the design goal when running is to keep the player to look forward, so I've searched for camera references on 3D platformer computer games, and it has been difficult, since that most of them don't separate walk and run, use fixed camera during important phases (like Prince of Persia The Forgotten Sands) or don't focus on looking forward when running (like Tomb Raider Legend).
So the problem is that when a player use a keyboard, if he runs, A&D rotation interfere with the mouse rotation, giving the impression that controls are glitchy.
I do understand that having the two option is a plus, but in some ways it can lead to misunderstings, I believe that minimalism is also correct when it comes to controls.
So first, turning with A&D allow less control than with the mouse because it's capped to a certain amount of turn per second, and one of the main reason to play on PC is to have more control.
Plus it allows the player to play with only one hand, which lower immersion, since the purpose of controls is to be teached, assimilated, in order for the player to use them naturally, without thinking about them.
So here is my proposition to adress the problem.
Deactivate the keyboard rotation from the begining, and allow the player to enable it if desired in the options ; so we stick to the platform standart (according to the 4th Nilesen's heuristic) wich means rotation is only mapped on the mouse.
when walking, with the left stick or the WASD keys, the girl can move forward & backward, leftward & rightward, and combine the two movements to move diagonally.
At any time, with the right stick or the mouse, the player can rotate the girl on her Y axis, and the camera on it X axis.
when running , with the shift key or X button, the girl can only go forward, also the player can rotate the girl with two differents type of input, first like usual with the right stick, and second with the A&D keys or horizontal axis of the left stick.
Also when running, it's impossible to move the camera vertically, and the camera slowly get back to a precise position behind you, so the girl is aproximaltely on the middle of the screen.
I've noted that the design goal when running is to keep the player to look forward, so I've searched for camera references on 3D platformer computer games, and it has been difficult, since that most of them don't separate walk and run, use fixed camera during important phases (like Prince of Persia The Forgotten Sands) or don't focus on looking forward when running (like Tomb Raider Legend).
So the problem is that when a player use a keyboard, if he runs, A&D rotation interfere with the mouse rotation, giving the impression that controls are glitchy.
I do understand that having the two option is a plus, but in some ways it can lead to misunderstings, I believe that minimalism is also correct when it comes to controls.
So first, turning with A&D allow less control than with the mouse because it's capped to a certain amount of turn per second, and one of the main reason to play on PC is to have more control.
Plus it allows the player to play with only one hand, which lower immersion, since the purpose of controls is to be teached, assimilated, in order for the player to use them naturally, without thinking about them.
So here is my proposition to adress the problem.
Deactivate the keyboard rotation from the begining, and allow the player to enable it if desired in the options ; so we stick to the platform standart (according to the 4th Nilesen's heuristic) wich means rotation is only mapped on the mouse.
