I think this deserves its own topic, because I find that the UX of this segment of the game is far rougher than any other segment that comes before. In fact, I think the Closing Argument minigame needs a complete overhaul.
- The panel stock is shoved all the way to one side and takes up very little screen real estate; as a result, a very important component of the minigame does not draw the player's gaze. Meanwhile the comic book pages are given a far larger space than they actually use, with an overly generous amount of blackspace padding.
- There is a large box that says "Page" in the lower-left corner of the screen, and a smaller box on the upper-right corner of the comic page which shows the current page number. These two UI elements need to be consolidated into one; this would help free up screen real estate to give the panel stock more breathing room.
- On keyboard, WASD controls a highlight cursor on the far right, while Q and E change comic book pages. It's very disorienting for adjacent controls to control entirely different elements on-screen.
- The order of operations the player needs to take to place panels feels backwards from how it should be. I look for a blank panel which I know how to fill, then look in the stock for a match. However, the game makes me select a stock panel first, then click the blank panel where I think it belongs. This feels clunky and unintuitive, and slows me down as I have to think from end-to-start each time I want to place a panel.
- To rectify the above two issues, WASD should be used to select blank panels, instead of selecting from the stock on the right. While you have a blank panel selected, the hint for that blank should appear, even if you aren't hovering the mouse cursor over it.
- Pressing Space should choose a blank panel, and move the cursor to the stock, where the player can select from the stock. Pressing Space on a stock panel should select that panel and attempt to insert it into the chosen blank panel; or, the player can press Esc or Backspace to return to blank panel selection.
- Alternatively, the player should be able to simply click-and-drag stock panels into the blanks where they belong, and click on the left and right arrows to switch pages. In any case, it should be possible to play the minigame using the keyboard only or using the mouse only.
- It is not clearly communicated how padlocks are cleared away from the stock panels. I thought the stock panels would be gradually unlocked as I placed panels correctly, but it seems that they clear away the first time you highlight them. I'm not entirely sure what the point of this mechanic is, and it either needs to be more clearly explained, or axed entirely.