Infinitap Games

In Retro/Grade for the PC port, I went and added a bunch of back buttons to the menu which were designed for controllers to just cancel out of. It was a pain in the ass, and they looked kind of crappy.

I am working on a cool new screen for Neverending Nightmares, and I think the back button ruins the look. Do you think PC gamers will instinctively hit escape, or will they be disappointed that you can't navigate only with the mouse?

Thanks for your advice!

As a primarily PC gamer, I'm always confused by "back-buttons" when hitting Escape doesn't work. Having both I would be okay with (even though I doubt I for one would ever use them), but it's not really a priority for me. Having Escape available is essential, though. Some ports don't have that, which is really stupid.

I would be fine if Escape were the only option, that's also my automatic default.

I'm trying to think of games with back buttons now, usually I don't pay much attention to them. I think most PC games default to Esc while most console and ports make you click a button, like gagaplex said. I think as long as it's consistent it shouldn't be an issue for most people.

Maybe escape and backspace

Ideally, I think I'd like to make escape go back on PC, and B on gamepads. Doing a back menu option isn't so bad, but I hate doing a "floating" back button or icon.

It sounds like I can get rid of them safely. Does anyone object?

Not at all.

Honestly I think most players have kind of an "instinct" for what buttons to push for games. The only people I really see struggling if you don't spell it out explicitly would be non-gamers (horror-fans) who might pick up the game...and even so I think this group would figure it out.

As for me personally, I would rather use hotkeys then click a floating back button. Mice piss me off for menus.

Thanks for your feedback! Does anyone disagree and feel we really need back buttons?

Of course you'll be able to try it in the next demo build, which has a ton of really cool stuff.

What some games did rather than a "floating" back-button is to simply have "back" or "exit" or "back to main menu" as one of the options in the list. So, if you had...
"Graphics
Audio
Controls
Pancakes
Back to main menu"
...assorted in a list like that, I think that would be less weird than how many console games have a back-button off to the side or in a corner or whatever. Included in a list, the same basic thing seems less out of place somehow.

Well I mean implementing both the option to use Esc and having a menu option called "Back to Main Menu/Previous Menu" couldn't hurt I suppose

Gives people the choice to use one or the other if they so desire. I mean personally I usually just use Esc to return from menus but that's just me

We are working on creating the Nightmare selection screen that will show the graph of the nightmare and all the branches. We had a button that said "Back" in the bottom, and in my mind, it looked really bad, and I couldn't figure out a way to make it look good. Unless it's necessary, I'd prefer not to have it. Maybe we'll add "Back" options in most of the menus, so there is a mouse way of doing things. I don't think we'll have a back on the level select.