Use of 'Undo's

[terenctb]

Quick question that pop'ed in my mind.

I was wondering if casual players understand the mechanics of an 'undo'. I am considering limiting the number of moves a players has BUT allowing the player of undoing.

My question is
1) Would this seem 'normal' to the player. I think anybody who uses computers etc understand undo's. Alot of games we play has kids, we get to shout out undo if we totally fob things.
2) If the player gets undo would he automatically expect multiple UNDO's (I always hate doing multiple undos when I doing application programming)

Of course I shouldn't give the player to undo a match (or should I?..of course not silly me)....I was thinking of limiting undo's to 1 action..a big UNDO button lights up.the tutorial would highlight 'hey you can undo that move'.

[JoshuaSmyth]

Depending on the game I think undo's are a good idea. For simulation/building manager type games they're really handy, because sometimes the players action is actually 'accidental' and it is always nice to undo that action that you never actually intend to do in the first place. With these kinds of games multiple undos are even better, but you don't need infinite amounts, 3-5 is probably a good number.

But your question is for causal games. I guess anything that requires a
'turn' wouldn't hurt to have an undo feature. (You could even disable it on 'hard' modes)

[Ronkes]

In my experience, casual players do understand the concept of undo, but you have to point out the feature to them. It's not something they actively search for, but once they know it's there, they'll use it.

On a sidenote: undo can seriously affect the difficulty of your game. When I added undo to Trichromix (http://www.trichromix.com/), it got so much easier that it seemed like a different game. In the case of Trichromix, that was a good thing.

Also, in Trichromix you can use the right mouse button to undo a move. Since casual players aren't always comfortable with the right mouse button, there is an undo button on the screen also, but for those who do use the right mouse button to undo a move, it's a very natural mechanism.

[electronicStar]

All solitaire players know what is Undo and they will appreciate the fact that you implemented that.