itch.io

If you wish to use Scratch when developing your games, that’s your own prerogative.

However, sometimes sacrifices have to be made to develop a properly cohesive gameplay experience. Mouse-based controls were originally considered for this game, however, the problem of ‘where should the door/camera/turn around buttons go on the screen’ posed major problems.

Furthermore, the door uses a ‘hold the button to keep the door closed’ system (much more intuitive than a ‘toggle whether the door is closed or not’ system), in an attempt to deliver players a much more satisfying ‘slamming the door in the face of an enemy/cowering in fear’ experience. This simply would not work on a mobile device (or, at very least, would be extremely uncomfortable). And, of course, the player is not allowed to check cameras or turn around whilst the door is closed (as allowing the player to perform these tasks risk-free would detract from the intended panicked experience), so then that opens up the can of worms known as ‘should the player have to then open the door manually, or risk player frustration by making the door open automatically if the player touches another button?’ - both of which would lead to a particularly unsatisfying gameplay experience.

And when the choice is between providing a somewhat-contrived-and-relatively-crap gameplay experience (by adding clunky mobile controls) or ‘telling people to play on PC instead (and making the game playable in-browser so the player can use any type of PC to play it)’, it makes sense to pick the latter over the former.