Some suggestions towards controls & more

[Vega-Paradox]

As lovely as it is to see OpenTTD on 3DS, it isn't too practical.

What I mean by that? Well, as it is, it's almost the same as it is on PC. Everything is done with a cursor, which isn't too necessary when you have the d-pad and several other buttons to shove things onto. Using the stylus to interact with the menus alright, but it can be very finicky and sometimes a bit frustrating. Additionally, having everything on the bottom screen means that all the menus can get cluttered easily. Some menus don't even have full functionality. An example being the options for towns where the button to carry out advertising campaigns, bribing local authorities, etc. is hidden, and you can't resize the menu to see said button.

My suggestions:

• Move the viewport (where the game world is displayed) to the top screen, along with the majority of the action menus like construction, industry map, graphs, & finance menus. The console that's currently displayed on the top screen could be accessible via game options.
• Keep the bottom bar (where the date, company name, and bank account balance is displayed), zoom in/out, pause, fast forward, options, save, sound & music, news info, and land area info on the bottom screen. Probably towards the sides, so the middle of the bottom screen could be used for displaying news headlines, warnings & other notifications, as well as displaying the on-screen keyboard.
• To prevent further clutter of menus, or in the event that the above suggestions don't fit well, you can collapse many options into a singular button, e.g. replace all the construction buttons for railways/roads/airports/waterways with one construction button that opens a drop-down selection menu, and from there you can select railways/roads/airports/waterways construction.
• For my biggest request so far: get rid of using a mouse cursor for everything (well, obviously keep it for selecting things on the bottom menu, but for that stuff, you can just make it invisible, as it looks out of place on a 3DS) and use the d-pad plus the A/B buttons to interact with menus. An example of this, the Pokemon games. Take Black & White 2 or Pokemon X/Y or Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire, any of the newer games. Options for opening your bag, viewing pokemon in your party, are on the bottom menu. You can press these easily using the stylus or even just your finger, but you can also use d-pad to select them (context is important). Additionally, there's dialogue options when you go to a store to buy pokeballs or potions, and you use d-pad to sort through the store's catalog, and your use A to select them, B to cancel. That's how menus on the top-screen should be handled. The X and Y buttons I don't have much of an idea for other than X potentially being a secondary method of opening the options menu, and Y being a method of filtering through different options when you're constructing things.
• For construction: refer to the previous item(s) in this list for filtering through the construction menu options. Once you select a construction option, you use d-pad to move the selection box around. Press A to construct the item, and B to cancel. If you're placing a road, train track, waterway, or any construction with multiple rotations (e.g. bus depots, railyards, which have multiple options for which orientation to place the item) you could use the X button to flip through them. A preview of the item you're placing would be needed for that, though.
• Use the analog stick for camera movement, as the d-pad is a bit too clunky. Would also be nice to have an option in settings (I haven't checked for it yet but it may be there already) for the sensitivity of camera movement.
• Some of the game options are pointless, like being able to set your game resolution to 1920x1080 (which is irreversible once you select such a thing, you have to close the game and restart it).
• A loading screen or some text in the console to indicate the game is loading and not actively crashing your 3DS
• I think I saw this on your to-do list, but working sound effects & music would be absolutely wonderful.

I think that's about all. I apologize in advance for just how much I've wrote here, but I thought I'd be detailed.

You could refer to Simcity 2000 for the GBA as well as the OpenTTD port for Android by pelya (which has some issues of menu clutter, but overall the sidebar menus are really nice, and there's even an option to close all the currently opened menus) as they're great examples of what I'm talking about.

[EnergeticBark]

Thank you! This is a great list of ideas to work on. I have some mixed thoughts on moving the viewport to the top screen though. Construction would be much much slower without the precision, dragging, and dropping the touchscreen gives. I feel like having the whole bottom screen be dedicated to windows and menus would be somewhat of a waste. I think the opposite might be a better idea, using the top screen for certain menus which can be navigated by the d-pad + buttons, and the bottom for precise placement. Everything else I can totally agree with. I need to find some use for the buttons and the circle pad, and these are nice examples.

[Vega-Paradox]

Construction would be done by moving the d-pad to select a spot to place an item (not sure if I specified that) but I can agree. The bottom screen could be utilized for a lot more, and stylus can be more precise. I'm glad to see your response and I can't wait to see what the next update brings. Keep up the great work man!

[MMDaino]

Hi! I love this project and the first thing i noticed after starting a game is that controls are right handed only, as left handed player i'd love to move around the map with d-pad or A/B/X/Y buttons so i can use the stylus with my left hand!

I didn't open a new issue because this one seemed similar to me but. I'll create a new one if needed :)

[wiggleforlife]

If anyone's out there, regarding the top viewport, I wonder if we could take advantage of the 3DS' full resolution (only used for 3D games officially) and have a bigger view of the map when the menus aren't present.