Post #1930804

2026-05-03 18:21 UTC

Was watching a bunch of ST and Amiga games that we would today call &quot;First Person Shooters&quot;. The graphics are simple, but acceptable, and usually around 10fps. The surprising thing is that almost none of them use the mouse - they&#39;re all keyboard or joystick controls. And these aren&#39;t DOS ports - they were all first on either ST or Amiga. I guess we just never thought of it? Even years later, Doom&#39;s mouse controls were pretty funky, and lots of people didn&#39;t use them.

Replies (8)

@Setok@attractive.space 2026-05-03 18:26

@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place I think the limited performance and honestly also limited viewpoints probably worked better with keyboard than mouse in many cases. Possibly things like Vector being an exception?

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@fschulze@mastodon.social 2026-05-03 18:42

@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place personally I never liked using the mouse in Doom, it just felt wrong to me, even years later. I was among the first mouse users in Quake in my group of friends and it just felt right

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@MouseByTheSea@mastodon.gamedev.place 2026-05-03 18:44

@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place What games were those out of interest? My memory is poor these days, the only game I can recall playing on the amiga that used mouse as analogue input, outside of point and clicks, was Virus (Zarch) and Powerdrome. Having loved DM, EofB, etc, on the amiga, I recall my friend getting a PC and eventually Ultima Underworld with its full 3d and mouse control - blew me away.

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@poetaster@mastodon.gamedev.place 2026-05-03 19:20

@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place my 13 year old informs me PS5 controller or keyboard (i had to build it). No other options.

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@mcmartin@mastodon.gamedev.place 2026-05-03 19:58

@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place I'd say even Quake doesn't quite have it at the start. Default controls used mouse buttons for motion! WASD had to be invented and IIRC it emerged from Quake's competitive scene. I played Descent back then and thought mouselook was obviously busted since it gave infinite turning speed so clearly this would just be a passing fad, etc.

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@Rk@mastodon.gamedev.place 2026-05-03 20:56

@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place when doom came out i still had a 286 at home, playing it with a friend of mine on his dad pc was mind blowing. at the time the mouse i had was tuned for autocad and god, it was bad!

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@cloudthethings@hachyderm.io 2026-05-03 21:02

@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place all the FPS games I played on the Acorn were the same!

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@kojack@mastodon.gamedev.place 2026-05-03 22:20

@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place The first modern-ish mouse look I can remember playing on a PC was Terminator Futureshock by Bethesda in 1995. True 3d indoor and outdoor levels, 3d polygon enemies, first person combat with a heap of weapons, jeep driving sections with mouse look gun turret independent of vehicle steering and flying sections in a hunter killer. Pretty cool for a year before Quake.

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