6 ms·

We built a multiplayer game last week (like Battleship) and would love feedback

27 points by furqanrydhan 13y ago

Toshio 13y ago
Love the initiative, don't have a FB account though. Is it reasonable to ask to be able to log in with my GitHub account? Since I don't have access to the game, could someone explain the part of the game design that goes beyond the concepts of the classic Battleship game?
- furqanrydhan 13y ago
  Ideally it should be any of the major web sign on methods (fb, google, twitter, linked-in) Github would be cool though. Maybe if we get some time we'll hack that together.
  - paulwithap 13y ago
    Why should I need to sign in at all? Why not give the option to play as a guest?
    - furqanrydhan 13y ago
      I guess we were so caught up with the 'social' aspect of facebook we didn't realize guest play would be good. We didn't even add the play against a random opponent until today =\..
      - lavametender 13y ago
        Forget about Facebook, it takes weeks before someone responds to game request and response is usually "Deny request and block app" in best cases and "Unfriend" in others.
      - paulwithap 13y ago
        I'm sure you're excited to get it out, and you've put a lot of work into this game, but I would consider pulling it for now, and polishing things up a bit more first. First impressions are big. I would also look at Bombermine for inspiration. Just one guy on the internet's opinion.
andreyf 13y ago
Why do you need my real name, facebook profile picture, gender, networks, facebook user id, list of facebook friends, and birthday for me to play this game?
- furqanrydhan 13y ago
  I guess the logic is to make it easy to connect with a list of friends and be able to play against 'real' people. I do think it makes sense to allow simple registration or anonymous type play, we'll probably add that as we get time. does the birthday make it more awkward? We thought about removing that permission..
  - jvrossb 13y ago
    birthday seems unnecessary, but otherwise remember that the HN crowd will complain about FB login far more than the general population would.
    - taytus 13y ago
      Maybe you want to give credits/points/stars as a birthday present(or something like that). But that should be something the user chooses to opt-in.
  - cpeterso 13y ago
    Why not create implicit temporary accounts (tied to some token in a cookie) that will automatically be make permanent when the user registers with email or Facebook? People can play the game and not lose their game history when they register.
  - andreyf 13y ago
    Just give me a unique url I can send my friends. You can provide a link for me to send post it to Facebook without my having to log in. As someone else pointed out, the HN crowd cares more about our privacy than the public at large. Respecting people's privacy isn't about how many people care about it.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
xyfer 13y ago
why? because i can. http://oi34.tinypic.com/2w20whk.jpg http://oi34.tinypic.com/2w20whk.jpg
- furqanrydhan 13y ago
  Weird, I know we didn't put any restrictions on the web front end to do that but the backend should reject the setup. I'll have to look through and figure out why it's not rejecting it.. thanks for pointing it out though!
  - rehashed 13y ago
    I have the same issue.
paulwithap 13y ago
Log in with Facebook? No thanks. Also, the graphic design is pretty bad.
- tachion 13y ago
  In addition to the above, A help or introduction to new or changed game mechanics would be useful.
  - furqanrydhan 13y ago
    Def agree here, we need help/how to play sections
    - jvrossb 13y ago
      It's always better to do an interactive tutorial the first time someone plays. You can count on very very few people ever voluntarily clicking a help section and reading what lies within and on similarly few people actually reading any amount of text you show the first time they play presented more than a couple sentences at a time.
jvrossb 13y ago
You should let players save starting configurations so games can get going faster once a matchup is made. I'm now waiting for my buddy to set up. Alternatively don't start looking for players to match me with until I have finished set up. Either way I really really want to start playing and I really really don't want to wait for the other player to get ready. EDIT: Aaaand when I refresh the page it seems like everything is gone. EDIT 2: There should be a way to return to my list of games from the game screen. EDIT 3: I notice there is a way - you click the top bar - but it should explicit, you have the space to include a back button on the side anyway. I also am unclear on how to remove the position of a ship I've already placed, and the error messages need to be polished a little. "You have placed too many lage_ship ships" isn't super user friendly.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- furqanrydhan 13y ago
  Ok I think that was a known one, it's still saved in the backend just not reflecting. Saving config would be good, i'll throw that on the list of things for this weekend :). Thanks for the feedback
  - jvrossb 13y ago
    They'll be more once I actually get a game going! Where are you folks located? Interesting time to post :)
    - furqanrydhan 13y ago
      SF Bay area, extremely odd time :)
      - jvrossb 13y ago
        Waddya know. Me too.
  - jvrossb 13y ago
uspid 13y ago
Fuck you and your Facebook authentication.
shocks 13y ago
What about those of us without Facebook? :(
- furqanrydhan 13y ago
  So far it seems as if facebook connect is a huge fail, even from the early analytics, it seems like a guest option or a way to register w/o facebook is key. I think we'll be adding that as quick as possible! :)
  - jvrossb 13y ago
    Depending on your demographic of players this may be a mistake. HN will complain a lot about Facebook login but take words with friends as an example - you can play the tutorial without logging in and then it's FB login to play for real. Period. Why? Because a major driver of growth for them is Facebook. They've optimized their flow so that the average player invites other players, they used OpenGraph to post a lot when players take in-game actions, basically Facebook allows them to grow their userbase by having each user spread the game to more users. The fact that so many games have Facebook only login is a sign that when done right, with a demographic of players that accept it (almost all, the SF Bay Area is way more anti facebook-login and sharing than most of the rest of the world), the players you lose by having only Facebook login are made up for by the viral spreading you get from Facebook users. The caveat of course being that you have to design, from the ground up, for the game to spread through Facebook. If you don't, it's not worth it. But if you don't, you need some other strategy to make the game spread, and there are very very few unfortunately.
    - furqanrydhan 13y ago
      Yeah I assumed the HN crowd would be more affected by the facebook connect restriction. I think there's definitely pro's and con's with facebook connect, email reg, and guest play. I do think there's some aspects of playing real people that's more appealing. Finding the right demographic would be great, I think at this point we're still trying to figure out what to do with the game play to make it fun, clean up bugs, tutorials etc. We're also working on the android version, mobile we think will be a huge driver for this game (in our mind). Really do appreciate the feedback, and we'd love to hear more from you
columbo 13y ago
Here's what I -really- would like to see: No login, just give me a url (http://sinkabuddy.com/f8jNsh1o http://sinkabuddy.com/f8jNsh1o) that I can IM to a coworker to start playing with. I don't want to have to require both of us to sign in with Facebook just to play a video game during scrum.
- furqanrydhan 13y ago
  I think the general theme that we understood from the early feedback is facebook connect isn't really the preferred option. Our stats show the same. We saw 7% of visitors in the last couple days actually click facebook connect. Although the experience in the end is better since it's easier to connect with friends I think it's up to us to show a real use case as to why a user should connect. The link/guest type signup is something we'll probably do quickly, invite via email or url.
locusm 13y ago
You shouldn't have to install Facebook to play any game. So you lost me 5 seconds in.
- iso8859-1 13y ago
  How do you install Facebook? :)
rralian 13y ago
Would be nice to have a messaging system or at least a way to prompt the other person. Never know when they've stepped away.
meritt 13y ago
As soon as it required a FB login, I closed the browser. Stop forcing social logins, especially ones tied to networks where there's a high degree of likelihood you'll post random shit "as me" that I most likely don't want to be posted. This diagram might explain our reaction a bit better: http://i.imgur.com/oXtWdH2.png http://i.imgur.com/oXtWdH2.png
cpeterso 13y ago
I've head a similar game idea brewing for a long time: massively-multiplayer Battleship! Think Words with Friends meets Eve Online. :)

27 points by furqanrydhan 13y ago

Love the initiative, don't have a FB account though. Is it reasonable to ask to be able to log in with my GitHub account? Since I don't have access to the game, could someone explain the part of the game design that goes beyond the concepts of the classic Battleship game?

furqanrydhan 13y ago
Ideally it should be any of the major web sign on methods (fb, google, twitter, linked-in) Github would be cool though. Maybe if we get some time we'll hack that together.
- paulwithap 13y ago
  Why should I need to sign in at all? Why not give the option to play as a guest?
  - furqanrydhan 13y ago
    I guess we were so caught up with the 'social' aspect of facebook we didn't realize guest play would be good. We didn't even add the play against a random opponent until today =\..
    - lavametender 13y ago
      Forget about Facebook, it takes weeks before someone responds to game request and response is usually "Deny request and block app" in best cases and "Unfriend" in others.
    - paulwithap 13y ago
      I'm sure you're excited to get it out, and you've put a lot of work into this game, but I would consider pulling it for now, and polishing things up a bit more first. First impressions are big. I would also look at Bombermine for inspiration. Just one guy on the internet's opinion.

andreyf 13y ago

Why do you need my real name, facebook profile picture, gender, networks, facebook user id, list of facebook friends, and birthday for me to play this game?

furqanrydhan 13y ago
I guess the logic is to make it easy to connect with a list of friends and be able to play against 'real' people. I do think it makes sense to allow simple registration or anonymous type play, we'll probably add that as we get time. does the birthday make it more awkward? We thought about removing that permission..
- jvrossb 13y ago
  birthday seems unnecessary, but otherwise remember that the HN crowd will complain about FB login far more than the general population would.
  - taytus 13y ago
    Maybe you want to give credits/points/stars as a birthday present(or something like that). But that should be something the user chooses to opt-in.
- cpeterso 13y ago
  Why not create implicit temporary accounts (tied to some token in a cookie) that will automatically be make permanent when the user registers with email or Facebook? People can play the game and not lose their game history when they register.
- andreyf 13y ago
  Just give me a unique url I can send my friends. You can provide a link for me to send post it to Facebook without my having to log in. As someone else pointed out, the HN crowd cares more about our privacy than the public at large. Respecting people's privacy isn't about how many people care about it.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

xyfer 13y ago

why? because i can. http://oi34.tinypic.com/2w20whk.jpg http://oi34.tinypic.com/2w20whk.jpg

furqanrydhan 13y ago
Weird, I know we didn't put any restrictions on the web front end to do that but the backend should reject the setup. I'll have to look through and figure out why it's not rejecting it.. thanks for pointing it out though!
- rehashed 13y ago
  I have the same issue.

paulwithap 13y ago

tachion 13y ago
In addition to the above, A help or introduction to new or changed game mechanics would be useful.
- furqanrydhan 13y ago
  Def agree here, we need help/how to play sections
  - jvrossb 13y ago
    It's always better to do an interactive tutorial the first time someone plays. You can count on very very few people ever voluntarily clicking a help section and reading what lies within and on similarly few people actually reading any amount of text you show the first time they play presented more than a couple sentences at a time.

jvrossb 13y ago

You should let players save starting configurations so games can get going faster once a matchup is made. I'm now waiting for my buddy to set up. Alternatively don't start looking for players to match me with until I have finished set up. Either way I really really want to start playing and I really really don't want to wait for the other player to get ready. EDIT: Aaaand when I refresh the page it seems like everything is gone. EDIT 2: There should be a way to return to my list of games from the game screen. EDIT 3: I notice there is a way - you click the top bar - but it should explicit, you have the space to include a back button on the side anyway. I also am unclear on how to remove the position of a ship I've already placed, and the error messages need to be polished a little. "You have placed too many lage_ship ships" isn't super user friendly.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
furqanrydhan 13y ago
Ok I think that was a known one, it's still saved in the backend just not reflecting. Saving config would be good, i'll throw that on the list of things for this weekend :). Thanks for the feedback
- jvrossb 13y ago
  They'll be more once I actually get a game going! Where are you folks located? Interesting time to post :)
  - furqanrydhan 13y ago
    SF Bay area, extremely odd time :)
    - jvrossb 13y ago
      Waddya know. Me too.
- jvrossb 13y ago

uspid 13y ago

Fuck you and your Facebook authentication.

shocks 13y ago

What about those of us without Facebook? :(

furqanrydhan 13y ago
So far it seems as if facebook connect is a huge fail, even from the early analytics, it seems like a guest option or a way to register w/o facebook is key. I think we'll be adding that as quick as possible! :)
- jvrossb 13y ago
  Depending on your demographic of players this may be a mistake. HN will complain a lot about Facebook login but take words with friends as an example - you can play the tutorial without logging in and then it's FB login to play for real. Period. Why? Because a major driver of growth for them is Facebook. They've optimized their flow so that the average player invites other players, they used OpenGraph to post a lot when players take in-game actions, basically Facebook allows them to grow their userbase by having each user spread the game to more users. The fact that so many games have Facebook only login is a sign that when done right, with a demographic of players that accept it (almost all, the SF Bay Area is way more anti facebook-login and sharing than most of the rest of the world), the players you lose by having only Facebook login are made up for by the viral spreading you get from Facebook users. The caveat of course being that you have to design, from the ground up, for the game to spread through Facebook. If you don't, it's not worth it. But if you don't, you need some other strategy to make the game spread, and there are very very few unfortunately.
  - furqanrydhan 13y ago
    Yeah I assumed the HN crowd would be more affected by the facebook connect restriction. I think there's definitely pro's and con's with facebook connect, email reg, and guest play. I do think there's some aspects of playing real people that's more appealing. Finding the right demographic would be great, I think at this point we're still trying to figure out what to do with the game play to make it fun, clean up bugs, tutorials etc. We're also working on the android version, mobile we think will be a huge driver for this game (in our mind). Really do appreciate the feedback, and we'd love to hear more from you

columbo 13y ago

Here's what I -really- would like to see: No login, just give me a url (http://sinkabuddy.com/f8jNsh1o http://sinkabuddy.com/f8jNsh1o) that I can IM to a coworker to start playing with. I don't want to have to require both of us to sign in with Facebook just to play a video game during scrum.

furqanrydhan 13y ago
I think the general theme that we understood from the early feedback is facebook connect isn't really the preferred option. Our stats show the same. We saw 7% of visitors in the last couple days actually click facebook connect. Although the experience in the end is better since it's easier to connect with friends I think it's up to us to show a real use case as to why a user should connect. The link/guest type signup is something we'll probably do quickly, invite via email or url.

locusm 13y ago

You shouldn't have to install Facebook to play any game. So you lost me 5 seconds in.

iso8859-1 13y ago
How do you install Facebook? :)

rralian 13y ago

Would be nice to have a messaging system or at least a way to prompt the other person. Never know when they've stepped away.

meritt 13y ago

As soon as it required a FB login, I closed the browser. Stop forcing social logins, especially ones tied to networks where there's a high degree of likelihood you'll post random shit "as me" that I most likely don't want to be posted. This diagram might explain our reaction a bit better: http://i.imgur.com/oXtWdH2.png http://i.imgur.com/oXtWdH2.png

cpeterso 13y ago

I've head a similar game idea brewing for a long time: massively-multiplayer Battleship! Think Words with Friends meets Eve Online. :)