4 ms·

Can you think of a way to improve my game's[1] interface, taking into account that it has to work on both mobile devices and PCs? Also, if you find any bugs I'

by ido 15y ago

Can you think of a way to improve my game's[1] interface, taking into account that it has to work on both mobile devices and PCs? Also, if you find any bugs I'd love to hear about it! [1] http://cardinalquest.com/free_edition/ http://cardinalquest.com/free_edition/

zheng 15y ago
Quickly, on OpenSuSE 11.4 (x86_64) running Chrome 14, the game interface doesn't hide my system's mouse pointer, but also displays its own. Slightly visually distracting. While playing, I would move the spell bar to the left, as that seems to be both more natural and more common. For whatever reason, having it on the right distracted me a lot more from the gameplay, I felt as though I always had to keep looking over at it and back (seeing as I hadn't memorized the hotkeys). The info about my current health (which is currently in the top left corner) is displayed under my avatar, which makes it non-essential info, so it can be moved to the right. Take all of this feedback with a grain of salt, I'm not a UI person :)
- ido 15y ago
  Thanks! The mouse cursor is definitely a bug (doesn't happen on windows, mac os x or ubuntu). About the left vs. right - I didn't think of that. I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that my mother tongue is Hebrew (written from right to left)? It sounds far fetched but I've noticed other such "directional" issues since moving to Europe a few years ago.
mikegreenberg 15y ago
+ The intro instantly made me want to play. (I love RPGs.) I'm certain you've seen enough Square titles to see how they make epic introductions to their games. I'm not sure what you built this with, but an epic intro is CERTAIN to get people to try your game out. As far as game interfaces are concerned, I need to understand the mechanics behind your game and spend more time with it than I'm willing to now. I'll spend time one evening going through it and will give a more thoughtful response over the weekend. :)
- ido 15y ago
  Thanks! Looking forward to it :)
- mikegreenberg 15y ago
  Alright, I made it most of the way through the 4th floor, and then the monsters became a bit overwhelming... I'll try again later but I feel I have good handle on the game. - Harest part for me was the learning the hotkeys. Most game designers will layout the slots to mimic the location of the hotkeys on the keyboard. I note that the right-side spells start from hotkey 1 and the bottom quick-items continue where the right side left off. You might find it more intuitive if you laid them all across the bottom and put less space in between the icons. To make it easy to visually determine which hotkey each button is, you could group them in sets for 5. For example: [1][2][3][4][5]__[6][7][8][9][10] - Consider reducing the size of the buttons for the INV, MAP, and CHAR. These are usually mapped to [I]NV, [M]AP, and [C]HAR as you have them so seasoned players will not have trouble opening them. Hotkeys will be displayed on mouse over anyway for newbies and you'll regain more of your play area. - With the MAP, INV, and CHAR buttons reduced, you can remove the left bar and leave the portrait of your character as a floating box in the top right, if you like. - The level of your character can be simply a number in the top corner of the portrait. Players understand this is the level of the character. And you can make this more obvious on level up, this number could GLOW briefly. - Health is probably the most important stat. I'd probably emphasize it by making it thicker, or longer (or both?). - Sometimes, I see items disappear (I'm assuming because there are two of them and you just drop them). Maybe you give the player a few points of XP or a gold piece for the trouble. It sucks to find some treasure and it's of no use to you at all. At least you can get a consolation prize. :) What do you think?
  - ido 15y ago
    Good points all around! About your last point, that's already the case - you get gold when an item is destroyed, but maybe it could be conveyed better.
nasmorn 15y ago
The messages when you get items flash by much too quick.
- snikolic 15y ago
  Agreed.
snikolic 15y ago
I really enjoyed running around and thwacking things for 20 minutes. Your game looks great! It wasn't immediately clear to me when I was leveling up - I wish there was a little more positive feedback. I also found it slightly annoying that I had to open up the inventory screen to read what the potions/spells/actions in my HUD do. I wish there were tooltips for those items. Keep up the good work!
levesque 15y ago
Here's what annoyed me while playing for a minute or two: - Ask for a confirmation before letting a spellcaster cast a fireball on himself (mistakes). - When casting an offensive spell, place the target cursor automatically on enemies, allowing for a faster pace. (For keyboard users like me!)
- ido 15y ago
  Duly noted, thanks!
  - levesque 15y ago
    Nice game overall, looks promising! You probably play (have played) other rogue-likes - have you tried dungeon crawl recently? It's getting pretty awesome, look it up : http://crawl.develz.org/wordpress/ http://crawl.develz.org/wordpress/ You can play by ssh anytime at joshua@crawl.akrasiac.org (pw: joshua).
    - ido 15y ago
      I have! BTW you can also play a web-based js version these days, easier than ssh :)
phzbOx 15y ago
Seems neat! Is there a mailing list to get contacted once you finish the game? I like how lazy it is to move and attack :p At the beginning, I was searching the attack key everywhere only to find out that there's none. Maybe there're could be a way to explain that. I.e. A simple tutorial where you move, get your sword, and attack a frog or whatever ;) I like the retro look with the modern nifty details. Good job overall!
- ido 15y ago
  Thanks! I released 1.0 already, there is a link on that page for getting the desktop version :) I was thinking of adding a tutorial mode, need to figure out a way to do it without triggering the tl;dr filter. I'm planning on soon getting the Deluxe-edition out (which will be free for people who bought the current full version), at which point the current version will become the free demo.

by ido 15y ago

zheng 15y ago

Quickly, on OpenSuSE 11.4 (x86_64) running Chrome 14, the game interface doesn't hide my system's mouse pointer, but also displays its own. Slightly visually distracting. While playing, I would move the spell bar to the left, as that seems to be both more natural and more common. For whatever reason, having it on the right distracted me a lot more from the gameplay, I felt as though I always had to keep looking over at it and back (seeing as I hadn't memorized the hotkeys). The info about my current health (which is currently in the top left corner) is displayed under my avatar, which makes it non-essential info, so it can be moved to the right. Take all of this feedback with a grain of salt, I'm not a UI person :)

ido 15y ago
Thanks! The mouse cursor is definitely a bug (doesn't happen on windows, mac os x or ubuntu). About the left vs. right - I didn't think of that. I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that my mother tongue is Hebrew (written from right to left)? It sounds far fetched but I've noticed other such "directional" issues since moving to Europe a few years ago.

mikegreenberg 15y ago

+ The intro instantly made me want to play. (I love RPGs.) I'm certain you've seen enough Square titles to see how they make epic introductions to their games. I'm not sure what you built this with, but an epic intro is CERTAIN to get people to try your game out. As far as game interfaces are concerned, I need to understand the mechanics behind your game and spend more time with it than I'm willing to now. I'll spend time one evening going through it and will give a more thoughtful response over the weekend. :)

ido 15y ago
Thanks! Looking forward to it :)
mikegreenberg 15y ago
Alright, I made it most of the way through the 4th floor, and then the monsters became a bit overwhelming... I'll try again later but I feel I have good handle on the game. - Harest part for me was the learning the hotkeys. Most game designers will layout the slots to mimic the location of the hotkeys on the keyboard. I note that the right-side spells start from hotkey 1 and the bottom quick-items continue where the right side left off. You might find it more intuitive if you laid them all across the bottom and put less space in between the icons. To make it easy to visually determine which hotkey each button is, you could group them in sets for 5. For example: [1][2][3][4][5]__[6][7][8][9][10] - Consider reducing the size of the buttons for the INV, MAP, and CHAR. These are usually mapped to [I]NV, [M]AP, and [C]HAR as you have them so seasoned players will not have trouble opening them. Hotkeys will be displayed on mouse over anyway for newbies and you'll regain more of your play area. - With the MAP, INV, and CHAR buttons reduced, you can remove the left bar and leave the portrait of your character as a floating box in the top right, if you like. - The level of your character can be simply a number in the top corner of the portrait. Players understand this is the level of the character. And you can make this more obvious on level up, this number could GLOW briefly. - Health is probably the most important stat. I'd probably emphasize it by making it thicker, or longer (or both?). - Sometimes, I see items disappear (I'm assuming because there are two of them and you just drop them). Maybe you give the player a few points of XP or a gold piece for the trouble. It sucks to find some treasure and it's of no use to you at all. At least you can get a consolation prize. :) What do you think?
- ido 15y ago
  Good points all around! About your last point, that's already the case - you get gold when an item is destroyed, but maybe it could be conveyed better.

nasmorn 15y ago

The messages when you get items flash by much too quick.

snikolic 15y ago
Agreed.

snikolic 15y ago

I really enjoyed running around and thwacking things for 20 minutes. Your game looks great! It wasn't immediately clear to me when I was leveling up - I wish there was a little more positive feedback. I also found it slightly annoying that I had to open up the inventory screen to read what the potions/spells/actions in my HUD do. I wish there were tooltips for those items. Keep up the good work!

levesque 15y ago

Here's what annoyed me while playing for a minute or two: - Ask for a confirmation before letting a spellcaster cast a fireball on himself (mistakes). - When casting an offensive spell, place the target cursor automatically on enemies, allowing for a faster pace. (For keyboard users like me!)

ido 15y ago
Duly noted, thanks!
- levesque 15y ago
  Nice game overall, looks promising! You probably play (have played) other rogue-likes - have you tried dungeon crawl recently? It's getting pretty awesome, look it up : http://crawl.develz.org/wordpress/ http://crawl.develz.org/wordpress/ You can play by ssh anytime at joshua@crawl.akrasiac.org (pw: joshua).
  - ido 15y ago
    I have! BTW you can also play a web-based js version these days, easier than ssh :)

phzbOx 15y ago

Seems neat! Is there a mailing list to get contacted once you finish the game? I like how lazy it is to move and attack :p At the beginning, I was searching the attack key everywhere only to find out that there's none. Maybe there're could be a way to explain that. I.e. A simple tutorial where you move, get your sword, and attack a frog or whatever ;) I like the retro look with the modern nifty details. Good job overall!

ido 15y ago
Thanks! I released 1.0 already, there is a link on that page for getting the desktop version :) I was thinking of adding a tutorial mode, need to figure out a way to do it without triggering the tl;dr filter. I'm planning on soon getting the Deluxe-edition out (which will be free for people who bought the current full version), at which point the current version will become the free demo.