Two new ways to navigate the camera
Hey Unreal devs,
In today’s Behind the Design we’ll explain why we added alternative navigation options.
Our goal is to be the most accessible Real-Time Strategy Game.
So it’s super important that players can navigate the playground as easily as possible in a way they are either familiar with or enjoy.
This is why we added the two navigation options “Camera Panning” and “Camera Drag” on top of the base method, “Border Scroll”. ( Camera and Navigation post)
Camera Panning
We technically already implemented Camera Panning: when using one of the arrow keys, the camera will move in that direction. During a playtest, players expressed that they would like to use WASD keys instead which is possible by changing the hotkeys. But we thought since WASD is used for movement and combat order hotkeys, there might be a better way we could fulfill this wish. So we added Panning similar to the Mouse Panning when you press the Middle Mouse Button in documents or on a webpage.
Easy to understand since it’s already common practice, and – even better – also easy to add to the game.
Camera Drag
During playtesting with genre newcomers, we noticed that this was the first way they tried to move the camera/playground. So we decided to add Camera Drag as an option. It makes sense that this would feel natural since it’s the closest to how smartphones are navigated. Some programs have this behavior too and often show a hand as a cursor while the drag is active.
When pressing the Drag Key, the player can Drag & Drop the playground to change the camera’s position.
Endnotes
We might have to adjust the cursor when those navigation methods are being used for better identification.
If you have any questions or are interested in the game, let us know on our Discord about what we should post next.
