Beta thoughts

[aisling.third]

(Mostly copied from my post on the Ascension game forum, but I've edited/added a few things that came to me later)

Shame the Android client is delayed, that would be much much easier for me to test and play with. I don't have a Windows machine, or access to one.

Nonetheless...after some work, I managed to get a Parallels virtual machine running Windows 7 on my Macbook, get Steam installed and get it running. I've just played one game against the AI. It won. :-)

I quite like the new interface and layout. I can see some clunkinesses in it, but it looks good. Some points:

1. How do you review the cards in your deck? I can bring up my discard pile, but not a list of all the cards I own. Clicking the deck count area in the bottom left doesn't seem to do it.

2. Sometimes the hover-and-zoom thing seemed to be off - the pointer was over one card, but the card next to it was zoomed in.

3. The highlighting of cards available for purchase/defeat was too similar to the usual card border. A different colour (like the red/green borders in the iOS app) would make it easier to identify what cards you can act on. Following someone else's comments (Dr Faulken?), I can see why red and green specifically aren't the right choices, but certainly some colours that contrast more. Ditto for the numbers on the Rune/Power/Honour counts - they blend in too much to their backgrounds.

4. Cards with optional abilities, e.g., "you may banish a card in the centre row": "Cancel" isn't the right word for the option not to exercise that ability - it makes it sounds as if you're cancelling the playing of that card. The Playdek solution of a "None" button is much clearer.

5. I agree with Dr Faulken that the Rune/Power/Honour counts are in the wrong place, and should be at the top of the screen.

6. The resolution is pretty bad, and it's quite hard to read the cards on my laptop screen.

7. The constructs are in the wrong place, and keep coming up when they aren't wanted. Some kind of slide-out drawer like the iOS app might be more manageable.

8. The player avatars could be a lot smaller to make more room for e.g., a construct drawer.

9. There seems to be a lot of empty space around things, making the cards look small. Maybe try losing some of this space to see what it looks like?

10. A question: are you planning a "condensed" version of the interface for Android phones? Tablets, I can see this interface doing well, but not phones. And it's important that phones are indeed supported.

[lokitrixter]

I would like some sort of highlighting of the current player especially when playing against 3 AI opponents.

Also a full screen mode that isn't windowed would be nice.

Looking at the discard pile of opponents only shows the last opponent discard pile not the one you are clicking on.

The opponent sections seem to be a bit too close together. Would suggest spreading them out a bit

I don't mind where the Runes/Power/Honor bar is really. I think putting it at the top will make it too crowded with 3 Opponentsm which as I stated seem a tad to scrunched together.

[Wolf Larsen]

I read through the post and watched the DrFaulken video ( http://journal.drfaulken.com/ascension-online-beta-is-devastatingly-ugly/). I have to agree with a lot of what he says.

One of my biggest gripes with the design is, too much chrome. Here's an article where Jacob Nielsen talks about Chrome Obesity (http://www.nngroup.com/articles/browser-and-gui-chrome/). Basically, too much real estate has been given to visual flare in the UI, and not enough to the data and game information. For instance, '2' is the amount of rune you have to spend in the game. The grey triangle is the chrome to indicate it's type and use. The useful chrome, is then surrounded by a dark grey box, a light grey border, given a label, that then sits on some protruding grey bar. None of which aids in the visibility or definition of the information (except maybe the label, which likely isn't necessary).

Information layout is another issue. Eye tracking tells us a lot about how people use computers and the web (https://www.google.com/search?q=eye+tracking&tbm=isch). Basically, people view things like a book. The top left to right, is your most viewed location. Then down to the bottom left corner. The bottom right corner where so much of the game information has been placed, is the least viewed area. Even though I know I should be looking there, I keep ignoring it. Simple human behavior. You can't fight it, and you can't change it.

Last, I feel like there are competing graphical elements. The portal and void graphics don't match the card art, which doesn't match the top left menu button, which doesn't match the "play all"/"end turn" buttons, which have a deeper 3D effect which doesn't match the depth given to the rest of the chrome. It all clashes, rather than flows. 90% if it could be removed, and the rest needs direction.

That's my two cents.

[saavik]

I've played through the beta a few times now - few comments/suggestions

1) It's really hard to tell which cards are which type (void, enlightened, mechana, lifebound) unless I've got a big screen and the game's maximized. I miss the physical-card color cues. May I suggest adjusting the colors to make it more obvious at a glance? This would also help with a quick glance at opponents construct lines.

2) The flashing of cards that can be affected (like when you banish from a discard pile) is annoyingly hard to read. If you've got a lot of cards to choose from, trying to read them when they keep fading out is frustrating. Why not grey out cards that aren't chooseable (like when picking a hero from the lineup) and then use some sort of highlight color around those that are. You could even flash the highlight color without impacting the cards if you needed to draw the eye.

3) I play with sounds off to avoid disturbing others in the house. However, everytime a new game starts, it makes noise even though my sounds are off. Same thing if I launch the game. Make the sound controls consistent.

4) Double-click to view, click to aquire seems reversed. When you double-click a little too slowly to view a card in the lineup you accidentally aquire it. If these were reversed, then at worse you accidentally view something before acquiring it. Reduces frustration and makes things flow a little better, in my opinion.

5) The screen did seem a little 'busy' visually at first for me, but I adjusted quickly. I think it would be confusing if someone were introduced to this prior to the physical game, though. I have no suggestions for improving the layout/look of it, through it could certainly be a little streamlined. I'm just not sure how.

6) Could we get some sort of Icon to indicate first player? Half way through the game I forget and it impacts final plays sometimes.

7) The turn order seems confusing. I've only played one game with 4 players, but the order seemed reversed - player 4, then 3, then 2, then 1. This caused turns to go right to left across the top of the screen, which is counter-intuitive. It might be randomized, I'm not sure, since I've only played one that way, but it confused me for a bit. May I suggest switching it to a more standard left to right? And if you want to randomize turn order, just rearrange them so it shows turn order across the top.

8) Make it more obvious that I can enter my name to replace Player 1? Took me a few games to realize I could do so.

Thanks! I'm playing this a ton.

[lokitrixter]

Originally posted by saavik:

1) It's really hard to tell which cards are which type (void, enlightened, mechana, lifebound) unless I've got a big screen and the game's maximized. I miss the physical-card color cues. May I suggest adjusting the colors to make it more obvious at a glance? This would also help with a quick glance at opponents construct lines.

They are color coded. Void is Purple, Mech is a Brownish Orange, Life Bound is Green, Enlightened is Blue, Mosters are Red

Originally posted by saavik:

4) Double-click to view, click to aquire seems reversed. When you double-click a little too slowly to view a card in the lineup you accidentally aquire it. If these were reversed, then at worse you accidentally view something before acquiring it. Reduces frustration and makes things flow a little better, in my opinion.

100% agree. You can also use mouse wheel to zoom as well.

Originally posted by saavik:

7) The turn order seems confusing. I've only played one game with 4 players, but the order seemed reversed - player 4, then 3, then 2, then 1. This caused turns to go right to left across the top of the screen, which is counter-intuitive. It might be randomized, I'm not sure, since I've only played one that way, but it confused me for a bit. May I suggest switching it to a more standard left to right? And if you want to randomize turn order, just rearrange them so it shows turn order across the top.

The turn order is changed randomly on the top. But you are correct that it goes counter clockwise vs clockwise. While a minor thing I could see the confusion. If there was a highlight around the current that would be nice as well.

[geoff907]

As far as some indicators like player identification and making it easier to see the mouse pointer- I definitely think those could be easily fixed. It took a little bit to get used to the interface- but it really does work smoothly. I have a hard time naturally remembering to kill the cultist with where it sits on the screen- but I think that will just take time. Otherwise so far I have only seen one glitch where it spread out my hand way off the screen- but then realigned shortly thereafter. So far it looks and sound great and has been a blast to play. I have heard of other people having issues but none on my end- I am running it on windows xp. Good job guys- can't wait to play the rest of the expansions!

[saavik]

I found the color coding - at the bottom of the card. I can see it when I zoom in or on a larger screen - on my laptop, the colored area is small enough I miss it.

[Dysgraphic Programmer]

As a long time Isotropic dominion player, I have to agree about there being too much chrome. I prefer a much higher information density. The pretty is nice, but the second it compromises gameplay, it has to go. As long as 2 cards are overlapped, we are still at that point

Some issues:

The card order in my hand is random. I suspect it is draw order, but that is a useless order. At least Mystics, Apprentices, Heavys, Militias and other pure rune/power should all be together, and multiples of the same card should be together. This goes for the constructs as well.

The highlight on the activatable constructs is the full width of the card, even when the cards are overlapped. That makes it hard to tell which are highlighted, especially when 2 are near each other

If I run my mouse over the hand from right to left, the hand is left overlapped backwards, with the names hidden.

[Bocete]

Played it for 10+ hours so far, it's been a lot of fun.

- I find everything to be a little too busy and distracting, the UI should definitely do some work. Make it more subtle.
- Speed of animations has to be variable, and an option to disable/greatly speed up only AI animations
- I play with music off and many times music will just randomly start when I start the game. Opening the options menu stops music immediately
- I've had performance issues over very long games, with the game freezing for a second or a few when my discard pile needs to be shuffled into my deck or when I play something that allows to interact with the cards in the Void. These issues are inconsistent and it's hard to replicate, but they happen. Intel I7 with 16 gigs of RAM, Windows 7 and only the browser running in the background
- Some confirmation when I'm about to end my turn without having used my constructs would be nice. This should apply only to once-per-turn constructs that need to be triggered manually, such as Hedron Cannon or Combustion Idol but not to Reclamax for example
- When I play a card that should open my discard pile when having the discard already open, the discard pile closes and I need to open it manually

[Roland Headless]

I have to agree with the DrFaulken review. I have this as a favorite app on my iPhone and iPad, with hundreds of plays (mostly offline), but I can't get into the Windows version. The iOS version has almost everything right. The beta has too much chrome, the artwork makes it hard to identify the cards I already know, the whole selecting a card "single vs double click" issues, etc. Please go back to the iOS app and consider what they did right. Right now, I would rather play on my iPhone than on my 2560x1440 windows desktop.

[Dr. Acula (Link)]

In addition to the above, a supression of the "Are you sure you want to end your turn?" warnings for Cost 1 cards would also be nice. If I get into late game, there's vitually no need for them and this warning ends up just being an annoyance. It gets especially bad since the Serpent Call will also trigger off Cost 1 cards in the void not being picked up, when in all likelyhood I'm the one that put them there in the first place. :P

Really hoping this gets worked on some more. I bought almost all the physical decks, but I don't really play them anymore since trying to play with all the decks makes shuffling next to impossible. Hence, the kickstarter. :\