Forgiving aim: gathering that finds what you meant

Chopping a tree should never be a test of mouse precision. In a gathering game you swing thousands of times, often while walking past trees packed close together, and every time you miss the tree you obviously meant, the game feels clumsy. In Mytheria, our pixel-art co-op game, the aim is forgiving: the game works out which tree you meant, and the swing hits everything within its arc.

Every clip below was filmed in the game.

How do you make aiming forgiving in a game?

Make the target easy to hit and the swing generous. Treat the pointer as bigger than it looks, so brushing the edge of a tree counts. When the pointer is between things, or there's no pointer at all, pick the nearest reachable thing in the direction you're facing. Then let the swing cover an arc and hit everything inside it, so the exact target matters less.

The short answer

How Mytheria's gathering aim works:

• The pointer counts as touching a tree when it's within 19 pixels of the tree's picture.
• Otherwise the game picks the nearest reachable thing within 60 degrees of your aim.
• A new target has to be clearly better before the pick changes, so it doesn't flicker.
• An axe sweeps 100 degrees and a pickaxe 70, and everything inside the arc is hit.
• Once a swing starts, its target and direction don't change.
• Holding the key keeps swinging, and each new swing picks again, so you move from tree to tree.

Hit everything in the swing

The most forgiving thing a swing can do is hit more than one thing. In Mytheria every gathering swing is an arc in front of you: as far as the tool reaches, plus a little for the size of each tree or rock, across the tool's angle. Everything inside the arc takes the hit. In this clip, the player holds the gather key beside three birches. Each swing hits all three, and on the third, all three fall:

The tools differ in this arc. An axe sweeps a wide 100 degrees, because trees grow in groves. A pickaxe sweeps 70, because rocks sit apart and are hit one at a time. The best axes sweep 125. The arc decides how much the player gets for each swing, which makes it one of the settings that changes the feel of gathering the most.

Make the pointer bigger than it looks

With a mouse, if the pointer is on a tree, that tree is the target, and "on" is generous. The game counts the pointer as a box reaching 19 pixels out on every side and checks it against each tree's whole picture, so touching the edge of the leaves counts. If two trees overlap the pointer, the one whose picture is centred closest wins.

Only things you can actually hit from where you stand are considered. A tree you're pointing at across the clearing isn't picked, so the target is never something the swing can't reach.

Pick what's ahead when the pointer misses

When the pointer is between trees, or you're playing with a keyboard or controller and there is no pointer, the game looks in the direction you're aiming: towards the pointer, along the right stick, or the way you're walking. Of everything within 60 degrees of that direction and within reach, it picks the one closest to the line, with a small preference for nearer ones.

Try it with the game's own reach and tool angles. Move over the picture to aim, change tools, and compare with an exact aim that only counts what's directly under the pointer:

Move over the picture to aim, then try other tools and the exact aim

Axe Pickaxe Steel axe

Forgiving Exact only

Don't let the target flicker

A target that jumps between two trees every frame looks broken, even when either choice would be fine, so the current pick is a little sticky. Without a pointer, a different tree has to score clearly better than the current one before the target changes. With a pointer, a new tree has to be more than 10 pixels closer to the pointer than the current one. Small wobbles of your hand keep the target, while a deliberate move switches it straight away.

Commit the swing

Once a swing starts, its target and direction are fixed until it lands. Moving the pointer mid-swing doesn't drag the blade somewhere else, so the swing lands where it started. The aim changes with the next swing.

Keep the gather key held

Holding the gather key keeps swinging, and each new swing picks its target again. So you can walk through a grove with the key held and the swings flow from one tree to the next:

What happens when the trees fall and break is in how to make a rock break feel satisfying, and the loot that flies out in loot drops that feel good to pick up.

A checklist for forgiving aim

• Make the pointer count from a little way off.
• Check it against the whole picture of the tree.
• Only offer targets the player can actually reach.
• Without a pointer, pick the nearest thing in the aim direction.
• Make the target a little sticky so it doesn't flicker.
• Let a swing hit everything in its arc.
• Fix a swing's target and direction once it starts.
• Re-pick between held swings so gathering flows.