[Feedback Friday #55] - June 8, 2017

FF #55 is CLOSED. Next one opens Friday, July 7th.

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Want design feedback for your new game? Then you've found the right thread! Post here to get precious player feedback. Discuss until we lock the 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
• How To Scope Small (Unity tutorial)

Gigi

[PS - Feedback Friday #54 is here]

 

Hello Game Design Gurus

Looking for any input on an early alpha demo.
It’s basically MVP of the core mechanics, although we spruced up the visual as little as possible to show it at Pixelfest.


WebGL or EXE available here on Gamejolt.
Note: The dimensions on gamejolt for webgl are 1366x768 so if your viewing on a laptop consider downloading the exe or viewing on newgrounds at a reduced 800x450 resolution. (thanks for the heads up @Billy4184 )

Very interested in hearing from people who play against a friend/colleague, although discussion from anybody who checks out the game is welcome.

We took the game to a small local conference with expectations of feedback along the lines of;

• The game is shallow - needs more complexity. I had already begun designing for this feedback before attending the event.

• The game isn’t fun to play.

• The game needs more content.

To my surprise – people were genuinely interested, were surprised by and liked the new mechanics compared to the basic tic-tac-toe game. Would any of you consider this surprise reaction the "hook"?


The plan moving forward is mobile focused, quick short play sessions, similar in overall game structure to Puzzle Quest – but instead of a match3 core element - we have this interesting, new core mechanic.

At this time all visual content is placeholder. Character movement and timing is rough - eventually the timing will be smooth with extra action/reaction animations, proper spacing/timing with visual fx, and environmental 'fluff'.

Development is ongoing on single player story driven campaign(s). AI is under development for single player and local/networked multiplayer are options we are strongly considering.

We’ve been creating weekly mobile builds but felt a web build would allow for a quicker feedback loop.
The instructions have been added only for web presentation. We considered a hand holding, step by step tutorial for this build but felt it was simply overkill.
Moving forward we plan to ‘show’ players how to play the game without a dedicated tutorial or a wall of text to explain the differences in regular tic-tac-toe and this game.

Special Analytical Note: Of the people who played the demo at the event, when opposite genders played against each other the females won 15 out of 16 times.
Don’t know what that’s all about?? but a very interesting/unexpected statistic.



Thanks for checking it out.

 

@theANMATOR2b I like the basic gameplay concept. It is a good core loop so far and think it has a lot of potential, especially with a decent AI. You're on your way to a good elevator pitch with something like, "Tic-Tac-Toe, but with combat and board destruction."

I played against myself for a bit with the GameJolt webplayer. Because I wasn't taking turns with someone else, but was watching the board and trying to understand the game, I found myself losing track of which "player's turn" it was. A small text bubble might be good for now, though later I could see something more polished like a headshot of the monster for that side to indicate whose turn it was.

 

You already know my feedback, but just to reiterate, I think it's a very neat concept - simple and solid gameplay core with plenty of opportunity for cool art, effects and animations. A couple of the mechanics that have been added feel like they would also open up the gameplay a lot such as the attacking mechanics - and apart from my concerns about the balance, which you already addressed, I think they make the experience a lot more exciting. Looking forward to updates!

 

@theANMATOR2b - Solid, fun, easy-to-understand core game loop. Great job!

I agree with @Socrates that a "whose turn" indicator would help. With art in place, it could also increase the player's excitement to play their turn.

I'd be hesitant to mess with the core game mechanic (e.g., hesitant to give different monsters different gameplay actions, which might just muddy things up), but is there some way to raise the stakes as two people keep playing matches against each other?

What are your plans to reward the winner of each match? I'm thinking more of an audiovisual award, kind of like how it feels rewarding to pull off a fancy finishing move in fighting games.

Is there a theme or setting to the game? The minotaur suggests Greek mythology, and the clouds underneath the game board make me feel like the players are gods on Olympus.

 

Thanks all for taking time to check out the build and provide input.

Yeah this is an unexpected side effect many have experienced playing alone. We did have text feedback to begin with, but iterated it out of the game in early builds. Since we knew people would be playing multiplayer at the event the turn indicator was not needed. Playing (multiplayer) solo, even multiplayer local and single player mode - this is a must have feature, and will be incorporated into the next release iteration as visual feedback, similar to your suggestion.

Since mobile is the prioritized platform we incorporated a double tap (double click) to place a pawn and confirm the placement. This is mostly to allow a player to change their mind after first placing a pawn on the board. It was also to keep players from getting discouraged from placing a pawn on a incorrect block by accident.
If you get a chance to play again, a single click can be used to identify who's turn it is. The single tap is a temporary pawn placement and will not permanently place the pawn until clicked a second time.

This is a thought provoking question Tony!
As we all know initial plans sometimes balloon and often change drastically while designing.
That question is something I've passively thought about but have not focused on so far. My first instinct to that question as a competitive athlete is "I got next". So the stakes are the player that wins keeps the status winner, and will play the next person in line. LOL This is essentially basic, a win/loss 'streak' and the "champion" status within a group of players.
I need to think about that some more!
But about that and other 'features' - I've been conscious of scope creep but struggle with not providing the player with an overall complete experience, ya know?
So this could be a straight up single player experience with no multiplayer at all,,, for first release anyway. Maybe update with multiplayer? But then risk some not picking the game up because it lacks multiplayer to begin with. OR Single player experience with bare bones local multiplayer, networked as an update?
Our initial thought was the game is compelling because it adds some uncertainty to the base tic-tac-toe game.
To carry on the elevator pitch thought (although @Socrates nailed our #1 pitch) initially the pitch was "Make tic-tac-toe competitive again with magic battles so even children can beat adults" So there are stakes right off the bat. Most adults would say "No kid can beat me at tic-tac-toe".
And with "I got next" I pictured kids sitting together as they do looking over each others shoulders and watching the game being played on the tablet. But instead of the other kids passively watching, they would be queued up to play against each other in local multiplayer. And the thought of a kid and a parent playing this at a restaurant while waiting for the food to arrive instead of playing boring tic-tac-toe on the butcher paper table cloth.
Those are the real life stakes I've considered, but beyond win/loss stats or leader board which are prone to manipulation, I have not given in-game stakes much thought.

Stakes and incentives are both a little different. The design for incentives in single player is to unlock additional characters - which have there own story arcs to be played through, magical fx, extras, etc. Those unlocked characters, previously unavailable in multiplayer, can also now be used in multiplayer mode.

To be honest I'm not sure about stakes at this moment. I don't know if in-game stakes is something I should spend time on. What do you think? I know leader boards can be manipulated by those who want to, and other players get upset at that manipulation. I'd only consider leader board win/loss streaks if people played against people they do not know (are not friends with) on game center or other things. Getting a bit out of my knowledge base here too.

An even deeper question is - Should a game like this have different stakes for each mode? Should there be stakes for local multiplayer beyond real life stakes? Should there be stakes at all for networked multiplayer, or just stats - win/loss? We could track so much data - the stakes could be multiple leader boards, this character vs that character. etc
Suggestions are encouraged.

We are thinking the same Tony. I'm drawing inspirations strongly from fighting games for this. One of the things I think can be improved on or changed is the end battle / end round moments of match3 games.
Fatality! Well maybe not that far.

Ha! Fantasy is the theme, but we are creating our own fantasy mythos. The clouds are only placeholder. Really any theme could be applied to this core so - that's kinda cool to me, but we are going for a fantasy this time.
Pie in the sky - I want to create an iconic character that is identifiable and representative. Nintendo does it and all of us should to!
The minotaur is a placeholder model from the asset store. I choose him only because he contrasted well with the placeholder wolf and he had some animations that would fit the game at that particular time, and I was interested in seeing how difficult it would be to modify content developed by others to fit our style/theme.

 

@theANMATOR2b - I definitely think your first version should include local multiplayer. (Save networked multiplayer for a future update.) This is the kind of game I'd bring on a tablet and play casually with other people. How about a resettable high score chart? And perhaps the longer the player's win streak, the more impressive the finishing move when they win again. No need to change anything in the actual gameplay this way. The stake for the winner is to keep getting more impressive finishing moves. And the stake for the challenger is to take down the cocky champion.

Given your scenario of a parent and child playing, a "whose turn" indicator would be really helpful since parents face so many distractions (baby climbing out of high chair, telemarketer on phone, etc.). Same thing if someone brings the game on a tablet to some gathering. It'll also help observers to know whose turn it is.

A distinct theme will elevate the game. You have an opportunity to create two iconic, opposing characters (e.g., Peter Pan vs. Captain Hook), or even a stable of interesting characters (e.g., Pokemon).

 

@theANMATOR2b : I've been thinking about the gameplay. With two halfway decent players, I think there are cases where they could keep each other from winning for ever. Perhaps an option for a maximum turn count?

As I was playing the game against myself, I was thinking that if I were playing this to try and beat an AI-driven story in single player mode, I'd like a mode I could choose that would still let me alternate between the two sides for as long as I wanted so that I could practice moves and get comfortable with the game. Some of the way things worked with destroyed tiles and units weren't obvious to me until I played around with it for a while in the game. Having a "scratch pad" instead of facing an AI would let me set up situations and see how they resolved so I could learn.

 

That is a cool idea Tony! Do you happen to have any game examples that do this (different finishing moves)? I think it would be a pretty simple state-machine setup.

I have not run into this yet, and several people have been really focused on 'winning' even after 20+ minutes of playing and understanding the rules of the game intimately. Although I concede the game 'could' go on forever as long as one of the decent players does not slip up. But I haven't seen it happen yet. I even found myself surprised at loosing more than once on the opponents attack that I thought would lead to me winning on the next turn.
On our next release build we are going to need some intent play testers for multiplayer to play 20+ rounds to see if there are any scenarios where an unending game happens. We have a couple ideas if this situation happens. Maximum turn count, move timer, a little extra randomness (only for multiplayer) are all options we've considered.

A scratch pad is an interesting concept. This could be presented as a "training room" area like in most modern fighting games.
Our plan for single player is to drip feed the 'rules' to the player as they progress through 2-3 matches, and then progressively increase difficulty in the AI through the 'campaign'. So the first couple matches the player will win. Upon player loss - we will treat it as a battle loss that doesn't allow the player to progress, giving them opportunity to 'attack' again or possibly take an alternate route.
Referencing most quality games, this is the approach to teaching the player. Puzzle Quest had simple opponents with low hit points, Punch Out gives us Glass Joe, Even Final Fantasy 15 has us successfully performing moves up to 3 times before allowing the player to be considered proficient to progress.
After the first 2-3 "learning" matches - the first couple matches will be very simple, and possibly even the first complete campaign. This will be dependent upon play testing.

I think the uncomfortable feeling experienced will be reduced/eliminated by showing the player the rules in game. By that I mean - the destroy/board shift happens only if the attacking pawn is coming from a vacant row or the row behind him is vacant. And the switch mechanic (direction change) happens after every destroy/board shift.
So first we introduce the attack-ability (only diagonal) then introduce the destroy/shift mechanic and explain why, and then we introduce the switch mechanic.

 

And another FF draws to a close. Thanks for the game submission this time. Next FF opens July 7th.

Gigi