The Next Big Thing - Gameplay
When the game starts, you are confronted with a profile screen, where you enter your avatar name and picture. You may also enter an optional password here if you wish. By pressing the large arrows left and right you can toggle between difficulty levels of the game:
Low: hotspots and help on.
Medium: hotspots on but help off.
High: hotspots and help off.
When you are finished with these settings, press OK at the bottom right. Move the cursor to the top of the screen to see more controls: the In-Game Menu:
Key icon or F1: This is the help menu. It is the Hint system described by the master of ceremonies.
Magnifying lens icon or F2: This shows the hotspots in the active game screen.
Suitcase icon or tab key: This is the inventory screen.
Puzzle piece or F3: This shows the gamers’ progress or checkpoints.
Wrench icon or ESC key: This is the control panel or the main menu.
See a dashboard, the game’s Control Panel. The game options are on the different parts of the panel.
The speedometer at left has the sound options: sound off or on and volume up or down.
The people icon has the credits.
The picture at right shows the avatar and the game difficulty level options usage (key-hints and magnifying lens-hotspots locations). The bar is at the maximum and will lower during usage.
The ON-Off below the avatar is for the subtitles.
The small bar at bottom right of the avatar shows the statistic of the game progress (time, mouse clicks, objects collected and miles covered, calories consumed, zombie movies opened and so on…).
The monitor shows the currently active screen at the moment.
Below that monitor are save game (left-disk), load game (middle-folder) and delete game (right-trash can).
When save disk icon is selected, enter a description of the saved game. Then press enter key of your keyboard. To load a game, click on the folder icon and the picture of the saved game you want. There are scroll arrows at both sides of the frame. Press the ESC key to get out of save game frame before a save is done.
To exit the active screen, use the back arrow at bottom left of the page. To exit the game itself, use the button at bottom right of the page.
Additional Info:
Double clicking on an exit arrow skips the walking to the next screen.
The ESC key skips the intro.
Left click to pick up an item to use on another item or character.
Right mouse click selects the item for examination (eye) and then left click again to do the action.
Left click skips dialogues.
