Context-sensitive controls have been around a lot longer than we tend to think. The phrase became commonplace when used to describe third-person action games around the early 2000’s that used cover systems and the like, implementing one button press for a wide array of mutually exclusive maneuvers based on the player’s position relative to environmental objects. However, the idea existed long before that, with many games using a generic ‘action’ button to talk to NPCs, search bookshelves, flip switches, and so forth.
It’s a common experience, playing a game like this, to have the character you’re nominally controlling do something you didn’t want or expect them to do. Occasionally this is entirely your fault, if you just panic and clumsily mash the wrong button or forget what does what, but just as often it’s because, when the game’s controls are context-sensitive, that context is liable to change or to be misread – say, when two objects with different interactions are right next to each other, or even when one moves to intercept your interaction with the other.
Because of this, these control systems can lead to frustration. There is an alienation between the player and the character they’re controlling when they aren’t sure quite what that character will choose to do when they press a button. Sometimes, this can be interesting! If a character interacts with an object in a way we don’t expect – by stealing it, by commenting on it, by breaking it – this can help to separate the character from the player in a way that communicates story and personality. More often, though, an unexpected action just makes the player feel lost, unable to understand the relationship between the character and the world they occupy.
So where is the division between when these schemes work and when they don’t work? They can be said to completely work when the outcome of a button press is clear beforehand, and to completely fail when the outcome is completely unpredictable, but seldom are either of these true. Many developers try to add on-screen prompts telling the player what action the button press will take but, at the speed of gameplay, when the context starts shifting quickly, these stop being very useful. An approach to ameliorating this is to have the contextual action be intentionally obscured, but to fall within a fairly narrow set of expectations – for instance, an ‘up’ button that climbs onto small walls, jumps over railings, and climbs up ladders, or a ‘down’ button that crouches, climbs down ledges, and hides under tables.
The outcome of a button press is not necessarily directly derived from the action the character takes – that is, though the player may know that when next to a window the ‘dodge’ button is supposed to dive through it, they may have not noticed that the window has bars on it and give their character a concussion. Perhaps this is a silly example, but the important point is that the player’s decisions are respected, even if they’re bad decisions.
Poorly implemented, these systems can cause frustration. Well-implemented, they can boil a control-scheme down to its essential elements and preserve a sense of intuitive flow. Creatively implemented, they can determine the emotional distance between the player and the character they’re controlling, and give them a new insight into that character’s internal world.
Context is a powerful thing.