Numeric input - alternatives to slider / text field for mobile game?

Question

For our game the player's occasionally required to enter numbers. Sometimes it's the number of units to buy and in that case typically a number between 1 and 10,000, other times it's goods to buy, in which case the span might be 0-100 instead.

I'm trying to avoid regular numeric keyboard input, both to make it more immersive, and also faster and easier to use.

Below is a sketch of my current method of input:

^{download bmml source – Wireframes created with Balsamiq Mockups}

There's the current amount ("243"), and buttons to increase/decrease that amount by 1 (arrows). There's also the slider which allows for quickly either setting a rough amount or easily selecting the max or min value. The rough value by the slider could then be tweaked using the arrows - or that was the idea anyway.

The problem is I don't like it very much. It's not very pleasant. However I'm unable to find a better one.

This sort of design:

^{download bmml source}

...isn't so good since the range might be large - the number of digits will vary too much.

Not using the slider is bad because who wants to tap 10,000 times to buy an army of 10,000?

Something like this could work, but feels cluttered and unwieldy - and not much of a usability win either:

^{download bmml source}

Am I overlooking any alternatives?

EDIT:

Here's how the current version looks in context when the unit type is tapped. Note that there are several types of units (up to 6), the idea was that the interface allows browsing the different unit types and tap on the it to edit amount.

Purchase is designed to be done in a single sweep, since in the game mechanics a purchase is a single atomic game action.

^{download bmml source}

Answer 1

I'm trying to avoid regular numeric keyboard input, both to make it more immersive, and also faster and easier to use.

For the claimed I suggest re-think interaction when it's possible. Let's think of army. There is a little sense in army of 1 man or 66 ones. Also it's too fuzzy distinction between army of 1000 men and the one with 1002. In terms of a game such options are bad because user hardly can assess his choise between 1000 and 1002.

Take a look at the image to get the idea. It's deffinitely more immersive, faster and easier to use. User easily can repeat the interaction to buy army of 15 000 (10 000 + 5000). Try to apply this way to other artifacts, in many cases it can bring better UX.

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UPDATE
The idea is to convert huge number scale (1–100 000) to a limited set of options. The options are meaningful to users and aligned to available money (resources). Then the numeric input task is transformed to selection task, which is not only more usable, but communicates with user on a task-specific language and helps user to make a choice.

Answer 2

Nothing will be faster for the user than a numeric input field when it comes to setting a precise value. Sliders are exceptionally difficult to set a precise value, and up/down buttons for increase/decrease take too long to use.

For the typical user, these are the most common use cases for numeric input:

• Choose the current value
• Choose the maximum value
• Choose the minimum value
• Increase or decrease by a specific value (could be 1, could be 100)
• Choose a specific value

My recommendation would be to use a control similar to the HTML5 number input field paired with min/max buttons.

http://cssdeck.com/labs/2esyxtq8 (non-functional demo)

<input type="number" min="200" max="5000" />
<input type="button" value="Min" />
<input type="button" value="Max" />

Incrementing or decrementing a number doesn't have to stay static amount. For instance, on my dryer I can set how long it should run rather than use one of the presets. When I click the increase/decrease buttons, they go up/down by 1 minute. If I hold down the button, the first 2 steps will change by 1 minute, but the next steps will change by 5 minutes (eg. 10 minutes -> 11, 12, 15, 20, 25, etc.). Since a game is potentially looking at very large numbers, you may want to have multiple points where the step changes (1 -> 10 -> 100 -> 1,000 -> 10,000, etc.)

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As a side note, I used to play Final Fantasy XI, which is well known for it's poor UI. If someone were to ask "why does the interface to X suck", the response would typically be "PlayStation 2 limitations" since the developers were not interested in maintaining 2 different clients (one for PC, one for PS2). As a result, everyone got the poorest experience possible.

Their method for number input was to use an input field that would not accept keyboard input. If you want to input the number 10, you would move the cursor to the left once and press up. For 10,000, the cursor would need to move to the left 4 times and then press up. This is ok for smaller numbers that are even values, but incredibly poor for very large numbers (1 million+) or irregular numbers (2957). It is not uncommon for a user to bid 100,000 on an item at the auction house that is only selling for 10,000, just because the poor user miscounted.