New QT/QML trading card wargame!
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Looks interesting, but I for one have a massive aversion to creating accounts...so perhaps you could provide a way for potential alpha testers to "get their feet wet" without the hassle? ;)
Good luck!
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Ah, maybe that's part of the problem then. I hadn't considered that.
Do you think people would be less scared off if I mentioned up-front that they don't need to provide an email address, just a username and password?
It's hard to completely avoid accounts for this sort of game in the long run - the server needs to know who you are so you it can save your card collection and the decks you construct from session to session. I suppose I could add a local storage alternative though for a guest account for alpha-testing purposes.
Will work on something and post up here when it's done.
Thanks for suggestion...
Mark
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[quote author="marksutton" date="1411671495"]Do you think people would be less scared off if I mentioned up-front that they don't need to provide an email address, just a username and password?[/quote]
That does make a big difference (again, speaking from my personal perspective).
Will send the link around at work, hopefully you'll get some testers :)
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Thank you! Look forward to some feedback :-)
M.
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Hi Mark,
So, as promised, I chatted to a couple of my colleagues and the primary feedback based purely on your "screenshot":http://www.spiers-software.org/KC/Screen2.jpg (nobody actually tried playing it) is that it does not look good enough.
Everyone agrees that the card art seems to be pretty good, but the text boxes and the "flat" colour fills detract from the whole. The vector art on the board also drew a lot of criticism.
In short, it seems that it does not look as if it is worth playing even if it might be.
(I should also mention that most of the feedback came from professional 3D artists)
I realise this sounds really harsh, but end users often don't hold their punches :)
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Thanks - that IS useful actually.
The map-tile art is certainly poor, and is already in the process of being redrawn - I now have a rather good volunteer artist onboard. There will be no more flat colour anywhere. There isn't actually any vector art at all on the board (other than the tile-graphics themselves), so I hope that's what you mean - unless you mean the coloured borders round the tiles? These are an essential part of the game (they show who owns what), but if that's what's causing ugliness I can try to come up with a different way to do it...!
The only text boxes (outside the tutorial) are on the cards - they are pretty unavoidable in practice and all other similar-ish card games use them - maybe they need jazzing up a bit though. Is it the simple rounded-corner boxes that people don't like? Or the font?
I had hoped that I would be able to get people to play the game and get feedback on whether or not it was good enough as a game before I got round to improving the graphics - but that was probably naive. I guess it needs to look good for people to even think about trying it as a game :-). That in itself is useful feedback.
Will post up here again when the next (prettier!) iteration is ready...
Thanks again.
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[quote author="marksutton" date="1413189290"]The map-tile art is certainly poor, and is already in the process of being redrawn - I now have a rather good volunteer artist onboard. There will be no more flat colour anywhere. There isn't actually any vector art at all on the board (other than the tile-graphics themselves), so I hope that's what you mean [/quote]
That is exactly what I meant :)
[quote author="marksutton" date="1413189290"]The only text boxes (outside the tutorial) are on the cards - they are pretty unavoidable in practice and all other similar-ish card games use them - maybe they need jazzing up a bit though. Is it the simple rounded-corner boxes that people don't like? Or the font? [/quote]
These are indeed the text boxes in question. Best I have for you here in terms of feedback is that they look "stuck on" and that you should "look at how they did it for Hearthstone"
[quote author="marksutton" date="1413189290"]I had hoped that I would be able to get people to play the game and get feedback[/quote]
Getting feedback from anyone, for anything, is like wringing blood from a stone! :D
Good luck bud, looking forward to your next iteration!
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King’s Conflict – big changes and version 0.200!
After weeks of sleepless nights and hard work, King’s Conflict has now been heavily updated and upgraded. The game now has new and improved artwork, a walkthrough tutorial, and many improvements to the interface.
A big announcement is that the King’s Conflict team has been joined by the talented young artist Nikita Kaur - http://nickkaur.deviantart.com/ - who has produced new card artwork and, most importantly, a hugely improved set of map tiles. Nikita is busy churning out more high-quality artwork, which will make its way into future updates
King’s Conflict is still the same great game, but now it looks much better and is far easier to learn. It’s also still free, ready to download and play, and looking for alpha testers. Download and join the fun!
Two images to whet your appetite - the new-look game-screen and some of the new card-art
!http://www.spiers-software.org/KC/MainScreenshot.jpg(Main Screen)!
!http://www.spiers-software.org/KC/NewCards.jpg(Some of the new cards)!
Full list of updates in this version:
Miscellaneous:-
Tutorial now available from main menu - this carefully walks players through a game against the AI, explaining all key game concepts.
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New and improved art for 'Oakenhearts', 'Spy', 'Armoursmith', 'Mermen', 'Fire Mage', 'Lightning Wielder' and 'Mage King' cards (see credits for artists)
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New set of enormously improved artwork for the map tiles, courtesy of Nikita Kaur
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Log window listing all game events now available, so if you missed something you can scroll back through it to see what happened.
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Two-minute time-limit on turns no longer applies when playing against the computer
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Music volume now automatically drops to 25% during help system audio narration
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Installer now offers a 'start program' option
GUI:
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Units can now be moved by dragging. The old click-and-click movement system still works as well.
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Options and help icons on main menu screen now on top right, player name on top left. Help icon is bigger.
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X and check (tick) icons reversed in all pop-up dialog boxes
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Settings page is now closed using an X icon in the top-right, rather than by clicking on the background. It can still be closed by pressing escape
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Close icon in help system now at top right, not in button row at bottom
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Problem with flickering button text in help system fixed
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Several in-game icons not directly related to gameplay moved to a second column on the right hand side - these are zoom in, zoom out, settings, and the chat icon in multiplayer. Only gold, food and fire icons remain on the left column.
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Fire icon moved to the centre of the left column
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New 'resign' and 'help' icons added to column on right. Resign does same as pressing escape. Help does the same as the help icon in the menus, bringing up the help system
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Mouseover tooltips added for most game-screen controls. These tooltips can be turned off in the settings page.
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Highlighted squares on map (for movement and card placement) are now more strongly indicated with pulsing colour
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The tile into which you are about to move or play a card is indicated with a flashing black-and-white border
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Card translucency when dragging over the map slightly increased to improve clarity of placement point
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Map now scrolls a little slower when 'flicked', and correctly scrolls to the edge. It no longer overshoots and bounces back
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The mouse wheel now zooms the map in and out. Currently it doesn't keep the view central - this is a known bug and will be fixed in future versions
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Info on units now appears when the mouse is hovered over the unit for 1.5 seconds. This previously required a right-click - right click still works as well
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Info on units is accompanied by on-map indication of which tiles the unit can attack
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Info card for units now appears in the play area on the left rather than on the map (to avoid obscuring attack indications). The play area is dimmed to emphasize the card.
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Info on an individual region is now available - hover the mouse over a tile for 1.5 seconds or right-click. This shows the region on the map in a yellow highlight, and provides text giving it's size, value (in gold and food), and ownership. If it is contested it tells you how much health each player has in the region, and it reminds you of the rules
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Food and Gold icons now work with a mouse-hover to show income and food source summaries. The enemy icons work for this as well as yours. Right click also works.
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Hover-info for units, regions, gold and food can be turned on and off in the settings screen. Right click (or long-press) always works for these.
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Card text-box graphics improved
Balance:
- King's Touch raises health by two rather than one
PLANNED for upcoming release(s)
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Messages to tell players currently in menus or playing the AI when there are players waiting for an online game
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Improved patching system - currently new versions require manual download of a new installer from the website. A more convenient patching system is planned.
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Fix bugs with clicking right mouse button while dragging with left (just don't do this for now- I know it doesn't work properly)
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Audio narration for the walkthrough tutorial
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Hi Mark,
congrats to the work you have done so far, looks like you've put alot of effort into it!I would prefer some shorter tutorials to get into the game - it requires a lot of reading ( & thus effort) initially to get it.. And some of the UI seems not polished as goblincoding also noted.
I'd try to get as many people playing it as you can to get more feedback - maybe on some game forums for that type of game.
Best,
Chris -
Oh, and your facebook page is not a page but seems to be a profile (so I need to friend with it in order to like it).
I think you need to make communication for alpha testers with you as easy as poossible, e.g. you could open an email dialog from anywhere right within the game when testers have somehitng to contribute from a prominent button they can press anywhere in the game - but for that, you need testers first (thus my tip with the community forums above ;).
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Thanks - the Tutorial issue is a bit of a thorny one - it IS a bit long (20-30 mins), but it's pretty well all needed. I will think about ways to break it up though, it's a good idea (though maybe hard to do in practice).
UI- hopefully the in-game UI is OK (if in need of a bit of art to reduce reliance on boxes). The out-of-game bits are very rough and ready I know, I'm working on those at the moment.
Getting alpha testers is a big issue here - posting on various forums didn't get that far, but I've now got a facebooking game blogger type person involved who'll be taking on this side.
And am also, as I type, working on an in-game feedback mechanism for testers...
Thanks again for the input - appreciated!
M.