Feedback Friday #35 is CLOSED - Next opens Friday, Dec 4!
Want design feedback for your new game? Then you’ve found the right thread! Post here to get precious player feedback. Discuss until 11/20, when we’ll lock this thread to start the two week break.
How To Ask For Feedback?
Show - Pics, videos, or best of all, a playable game!
Be Concise - Who’s got time for Wall 'O Text? Less is more
How To Give Feedback?
Be Positive - Finding redeeming qualities in the worst of games, is in itself a game
Focus On The Design - Not the designer
Be Specific - “Your game sucks!” is for nubs
What To Show?
Minimally Viable Product (MVP) - Core game play >>> everything else
Once more unto the breach! …Mostly. I’ve been working on my latest project, Saleria: Zombies vs. Knights. It’s come along a bit, but still has a very long ways to go yet…
I know this game needs work, I just want to know what you find confusing/bad/improvable.
Things that I know need to be implemented:
In-match AI - The AI still won’t fight back.
Commander - The progression system has not been implemented. Don’t press Commander!
Settings - You also can’t yet tweak the settings for the game, but this is a ‘polish’ point anyhow.
More Units - It’s ‘easy’ for me to add units to the game at this point, but I’m sticking with the old units at this point to test how I’m communicating to the player.
More Sound - I’m avoiding writing any music or buying sound FX until I get to the ‘polish’ phase.
“It’s Still Not Quite A Game” - I have had some distractions over the past two weeks that stopped me from making more progress on the game. It’s no excuse, though - I should be further along than I am…for what it’s worth.
Webplayer Build Note: You must use Internet Explorer to evaluate this build; it will not run in any other browser due to the Webplayer being an NPAPI plugin.
I wasn’t sure what I was doing here because both bases looked the same but I eventually worked out I had to click the white square then click the other base that the red cubes didn’t exit from. I had a number of goes (it just seems to be the same mission over & over even when I win or choose the other campaign) & I worked out that I only had to click the white square to spawn red cubes that just went & attacked without being directed. Skirmish just gave me a black Unity screen. The pointer also seems quite large for the size of the play area. Apart from the initial confusion of what to do the rest was easy to work out but from previous games like this there is usually an explanation of the UI on screen & what each represents so the player knows what to watch out for.
Skirmish UI - Eep! I forgot about that. I just updated the webplayer to fix that. I also created a basic UI for the Commander screen as well - when playing my build you should no longer be orphaned if you go to a specific UI.
Right now, both missions of the two campaigns are pointing to the same map actually. The difference is, when you play the Knight campaign, you play as the Knights; when you play from the Zombies, you play as the Zombies (this means that your cubes will be blue if you’re the Knights, and red if you’re the Zombies - this is the placeholder stuff I was talking about. Sounds to me like you went straight for the Zombie campaign. Nice!)
As for faction bases, I’m looking into it. I’m going to create some Zombie-specific prototype assets this week (the Necropolis and Crypts, specifically.)
Did anything appear on the map that you noticed you might want to direct a unit to?
Lastly - and, this is the big one - what can I do to make the UI more intuitive? The fact that you’re asking for an explanation of the UI, means I have failed to design it in an easily-understandable way. I think creating an icon for the Zombie’s Ghoul, like I did for the Knight’s Footman, is a first step, but I’m sure there are others.
I did try both types of campaign but they both led to being a zombie but I will try to get to it to have another look after your changes today. As for the UI, I think I worked part of it out after a few goes - one is the damage done to the enemy base which seems to increase instead of decrease which is what I’d be expecting (people are used to things losing health rather than accruing damage). I did try clicking on the other areas of the screen to get my troops to go there, like the thing that has a coin or something in it. I tried clicking to the side of the building to stop the troops bumping into each other (they all went to the same spot & got in each other’s way) but it didn’t do anything.
I was wondering if you had seen the coin. You should be able to order a unit to move to the coin. If you couldn’t, then I need to make sure that you can always order a unit to move to the coin. Since I had wondered if you had seen it, I think I need to make the coin more obnoxious - some particle effects, and/or lights will help.
As far as structures ‘gaining damage’ vs. ‘losing health’, that’s definently a UI problem - I designed the health mechanics as ‘lose health’, not ‘gain damage.’ My game isn’t communicating clearly with you. I suspect that I need to implement a floating health gauge for units, so you can see how much HP they have. I’m not exactly sure how to do that using the New GUI…but, I’m sure it’s possible.
As far as getting units to not bump into each other…I’m looking into that, too. The fact that units didn’t experience appreciable knockback is a problem - one of the things I went out of my way to tune in this build was the physics. The ‘chestbump’ combat in the last Feedback Friday was one of the big problems that @Aiursrage2k had noted. I always test from the Knight side, and it seems like the Knight physics are OK; I did some tests from the Zombie side in response to this and found that the physics aren’t quite responding the same way for them. I’m going to find out why that is, and before the two weeks are out, have it fixed.
It’s at its barest bones. I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t get sidetracked with art and I’d make a living breathing prototype of the core game.
I’d love for some feedback on the number of letters given. I average a four to five letter word pretty regularly with eight tiles.
I’d also love to hear your first impressions when you first open the player. Does the interface give you a clear idea of what to do without instruction?
Hello again, got such great feedback here last time I thought I would give it another try.
I have made quite a bit of progress on King Zombie and I think most of the game mechanics are in place and functioning now. All the weapons are working now as is the armor system.
Definitely an interface improvement over last time I saw it. I like the scene fade and the menu system(for picking campaign mode etc.) is clear and looks good. The game system was easier to understand also, though I was not able to command the units to move to the coin. Also, as someone else said no matter which campaign I picked I was playing with red units.
Thanks for the kind words! I put as much real work as I could into designing the supporting menus - I went through a few on-paper drafts of what modes to include, and what views they should have. They’re not done yet as you can no doubt see, and most of my UI assets are actually salvaged from Sara the Shieldmage. I’m glad it holds up even in this basic form, though!
As far as always playing as Zombies…that’s troublesome, above and beyond the ‘can’t pick up coins’ problem. Out of curiosity - did you play as Knights first, or was it that you started as Zombies, then attempted to play Knights?
I don’t really remember, however in order to respond to your question I went back and started again this time as the knights first and they loaded fine. I then tried loading the zombies and they loaded. So maybe the bug lies with trying the zombies first. Also this time I was able to get the curser to change when hovering over the coin, though I was not able to get a unit to go to it.
Yeah, I played as zombies first when I had the same problem. Also, I didn’t have to send the zombies to attack the base, they just went straight there when they spawned. That might be why we can’t direct them to the coin (because they already have a target set)?
No, you should be able to - I’ve tested the heck out of that mechanic; it’s been in for weeks at this point. How were you attempting to direct the units to the coin? I might need to change the interface to be more intuitive.
The way the target assignment in S:ZvK works, is that units target the enemy ‘key structure’ by default; the two main actions all units can do is either defend an area, or move to a target. Changing targets just issues a new order, and changes what the entity is moving towards. There is some logic in there to account for LoS blocks; that’s why the torch is in the test scene. The torch is a pathfinding waypoint. In fact, something I’m experimenting with in this project is having map object reflect the underlying game mechanics - the ‘knight town’ is where Knight units spawn, for instance. The farm is the spawn point for resources. While not originally planned for, my vision is that the game is very explicit in how it communicates with the player. This is not an immediately complicated game…until you’re ready for it to be.
One thing I am aware of, is that when the coin has the narrow of the coin facing the camera, even if the mouse is squarely over the coin, the icon goes away until the coin rotates enough; during this time, move-to orders don’t have any effect. I think the fix for that is simply scaling up the coin, which would help with the coin being noticeable. One of my big fears coming into this test was that no one would notice the coin.
That helps. This is telling me that A) the coin needs to be bigger as noted above, B) the coin needs to be more visible to the point where people “just know” it’s important (you thought the structure was important, and while this makes sense…it means my game isn’t communicating well…), and C) I need to give better feedback on when a move-to-order has been received. Sound will help with that…but a visual cue is needed as well.
In all fairness, AI will help, as resource pickups are something I’m designing to be a priority for the AI to fight for. They who get a unit sitting on a resource spawn, will have an advantage. The unit you garrison on a point determines how best to capture that resource.