Bug and Tutorial Review/Errors

[wyndstormh]

Bug:
This happened on Windows 10 during a game with the following settings:
Me: Polania with the Patriotic board
Bot 1: Rusviet with random board
Bot 2: Crimea with random board
Undo: Set to "Unlimited"
During around Turn 81, I was trying to undo a "Move" action. After I finished my turn, instead of the AI taking its turns, I was prompted to take another turn. After taking a different turn, I got stuck in a loop where only I would take turns and the AI wouldn't move. Even after achieving 7 stars, the game did not end, and I had to force quit the game. I don't have a crash log of the game as the game never officially crashed, just got stuck in a loop.

Tutorial Review and Errors:

Some background on me - I'm an instructional designer supporting the development of online and blended courses at a university. My job duties include developing and conducting training courses, designing course activities and assessments, and developing supplement content to support learning in online and blended environments. My suggestions are based on best practices in adult learning.

The tutorial could use a new section with a broad overview of the goals of the game, showing animations of each action as it's listed. The opening paragraph from the physical game is a good place to start: "In Scythe, each player represents a character attempting to make their faction the richest and most powerful in Eastern Europa. Players explore and conquer territory, enlist new recruits, produce resources and workers, build structures, and deploy monstrous mechs. A game of Scythe typically begins with players building up their infrastructure, exploring the world, then engaging each other in combat."

The rest of the text I recommend is a summary from the physical game, "Players receive stars as they fulfill public and private achievements. The game ends when a player receives 6 stars. Players receive additional coins based on how influential their country is when the game ends. The player with the biggest fortune at the end of the game wins."

Next it would be good to explain the interface, such as scrolling and dragging the board, a description of the interface, and how the stats board can be viewed by expanding it down and to the right.

I recommend a checkmark or other indicator when each of the tutorial missions are complete.

Stars Tutorial: It would be helpful to point out that stars you receive are indicated on the stat board, since there are more than six ways to achieve stars. I missed this the first few times playing the game and was annoyed I couldn't tell which stars I'd achieved.

Factory Tutorial: It would be helpful to explain that the factory card includes an additional set of top and bottom actions that become a permanent part of your player board prior to showing the player the mechanical action of how to choose the factory card. Otherwise, the player doesn't have the background knowledge to understand why they are making the choice. In instructions, it's helpful to provide the information necessary for decision making before introducing the tools by which one indicates the decision.

Trade & Produce Tutorial: The question is asked at the end, "Why didn't I produce two metal to build a mech?" This question is awkward, as the tutorial doesn't allow the player to choose the metal icons to trade for metal. The player is forced to choose food. Since building mechs is explained in an earlier tutorial, it would make sense to encourage the player to trade for metal, and point out that this unlocks the player's ability to take the bottom action. Encourage economy of action by showing successful examples rather than forcing the player to make a bad choice.

Mechs Tutorial: During the line, "Let's see what the new machine can do," the arrow is pointing to the middle of the hex. There's no indicator that the player should select the right mech. When I select the left mech, the game doesn't allow me to move it to a hex. It might be worth either moving the arrow so it points directly over the new mech, or including in the "Let's see..." text that the mech to be moved is the one on the right.

It would also be helpful during the mech tutorial to point out that when a unit is selected, the outlines indicate where a unit can move.

Recruits Tutorial: I experimented with closing the stats board and was unable to open it back up again. The only way I could get it to open again was to finish the mission and restart it.

This might also be a good time to explain that a player can review opponents' boards and their upgrades by hovering over the icons in the lower right corner.

Scoring Tutorial: When asked to review the scoring guide, the Calculations sheet says Nordic has 10 coins in hand, but the stats board at the top of the screen indicates Nordic has 11 coins in hand. Further, it would be really helpful here to be able to expand the player stats board at the top of the screen so we can see all of Polania and Nordic's stats. When I click the "down" arrow, the board doesn't expand.

Miscellaneous Observations:

On the stats board, the tooltip for hovering over each icon says, "Click on the icons to see their explanations." Clicking on the icon doesn't provide an explanation for what the icon is, but rather, sorts the players by who has the most of that resources. The tooltip could make a clearer statement on this, something like, "Click on an icon to sort the stat board by that resource."

Since the combat card icon from the physical game's triumph track was replaced with a bomb icon in the digital game, it's less apparent what the combat card icon in the stats board stands for. Consider changing the combat card icon to the ammo/bomb icon.

When reviewing other players' boards by hovering over their icon in the lower right corner, the contrast isn't strong enough for items that haven't been upgraded yet.