Congrats on both launching and on the unique game design.
This desperately needs a attack result preview, or if that's too hard at least a "you're starting an attack you'll lose" warning of some kind. The combat resolution rules are unintuitive, and I keep sometimes incorrectly predicting the results, and sometimes even not understanding why I lost despite the information in the battle pane. Losing an attack is so crippling that you might as well resign.
It doesn't help that the only place to find the rules is scattered about in a tedious tutorial. The tutorial itself can't be fixed; it's the nature of tutorials to suck. But it'd be great to have a help page with the rules accessible somewhere. The rules aren't long, so it doesn't seem incompatible with the aesthetics of the game.
Thanks! I can't say I disagree — we hoped to structure the tutorial as a sequence of rules, but the explanations tend to grow. A concise reference would indeed be good.
This desperately needs a attack result preview
Not too hard, just waiting for all the feedback to roll in before deciding either way. If we stay sitting on the fence, it might make its way in as a "tutor" mode :)
Personally, I disagree on adding this, outside a "tutor" mode. Figuring out if I'm blundering (and requiring my opponent to do the same) is a big part of the fun. Without that potential for mistake, I think it would be like chess masters playing themselves to a draw in every game.
I don't think that's a good analogy. In chess, there's no question of how a move will resolve. You might not be able to predict the future consequences of the move, but every single player will always know without error what the board state will be after the move.
That's not the case here; any time you attack, there are two possible end states for the board. It's often not immediately obvious which of the two you'll end up in, but the outcome is deterministic and the process to determine the outcome is mechanical. The optimal way to play the game is to just manually do all these mechanical dictionary lookups and rule checks. That's tedious, not fun.
Having a battle preview (and word highlighting as suggested elsewhere) wouldn't actually remove any of the actual skill involved in memorizing a word list, reading upside down, or being able to visualize the outcomes. Having that knowledge is a prerequisite for building a good board. All that these better visualizations achieve is allow people to build that knowledge and those skills organically while playing the game.
And "playing the game" is a key part there. In the current state the game is so unergonomic that I predict 99.9% of the players bounce before winning a single game on the easiest difficulty, and never return. Chess can afford to be harsh and unforgiving because it's got hundreds of years of momentum behind it, and a history of being played on a board without any digital quality of life features. New games don't have that benefit.
It's probably more instructive to look at other word games. What happens in Scrabble if you use an invalid word? You forfeit a turn. Worldle? Nothing. In this game you'll lose a dozen rounds worth of board development.
Some more feedback after trying to play the game again in a mode where I'd at least be certain of the outcome of my own moves:
- Opening the dictionary lookup requires two clicks, and then a third to focus the text entry. It needs a hotkey, and must focus the text entry no matter how it was opened.
- I'd expect to be able to dismiss the dictionary lookup page with Esc, but it requires yet one click.
- The dictionary lookup covers up parts of the board, and makes the visible parts hard to read. This makes looking up multiple words in one go pretty inconvenient.
Agree on all front re: the dictionary ergonomics. We'll look at smoothing that out (mobile is currently the blocker there, but everything is solvable :)
Re: visualizations, you make great points. Definitely something for us to mull over, and I do think some amount of this will make it into the game (at least behind an option, which defaults to on).
That's not the case here; any time you attack, there are two possible end states for the board.
I'm not sure what you mean by this. What are the two possible end states? You mean, depending on whether the tile you placed results in a valid or invalid word? I guess I think a limited more form of the suggestion, just indicating whether the new words are valid, would be ok.
The optimal way to play the game is to just manually do all these mechanical dictionary lookups and rule checks.
I don't think so? The optimal way to play has to do with planning ahead based on the current board and your hand and the probability that you'll draw different letters. Understanding how attacks are going to resolve isn't one of the hard parts; I'm sorry for the chess analogies, but (assuming you know whether your resulting words are valid) it is just akin to counting how many attackers and defenders a square will have after you put a piece there, to determine if you're blundering it for free or losing a trade.
It's probably more instructive to look at other word games.
I'm not so sure, because those games don't have as much interactivity between the sides (or any sides at all). I think the better analogy might be games that have a "battle resolution" step. This game's resolution step is a bit more complex than games like Risk, but far less complex than games like MtG. But in all of those games, part of reaching the right answer to the question of "is it a good idea to attack?" involves having a good understanding of what will happen if you do, and asking a computer for that answer is lame, IMO.
New games don't have that benefit.
This seems like an argument for new games to cater to a least common denominator. That's right if the goal is to get bought by the NYT, but I think it's a bummer for labors of love.
You either win, and every opposing sequence of tiles that touches the tile you just played is removed, or lose and each of your sequences of tiles including the tile you just played is removed.
But it's not just because you played an invalid word thinking it valid, which is what you're suggesting could be fixed. It could also be because something the opponent played that looks like gibberish is actually valid, because you're misunderstanding which words are contributing to a battle, or because you've misunderstood some part of the battle rules entirely.
Every single new player is going to be making all of those mistakes, and not just once. Each time that happens, the game in its current form is basically slapping them in the face because of how big the impact of mispredicting the outcome is. Now, most people don't like being hit in the face and will try to avoid it. By insisting that overcoming a bad UI is just another skill, you're pretty much ensuring that most players are driven away before they can be bothered to overcome the UI.
The optimal way to play has to do with planning ahead based on the current board and your hand and the probability that you'll draw different letters
Yes, that's what the game would be about ideally. But that's not what the game is right now. In the current state, what matters the most is not making blunders. You know, the part that you earlier claimed just in the previous message was particularly fun and would be destroyed if the UI was fixed. And there is no actual skill involved in avoiding these blunders. It's just mechanical checking of words and the application of the somewhat unintuitive battle rules.
Why are you so insistent on making the game be about rote dictionary checks rather than about the strategy of building a good board?
The optimal way to play has to do with planning ahead based on the current board and your hand and the probability that you'll draw different letters.
Even of a labor of love, I'd imagine the goal is to build an active player base. I believe that the game in its current state will not be able to do that, and it's entirely due to bad ergonomics and onboarding. Those should not be a line in the sand! The problems seem entirely fixable without compromising the core design of the game in any way.
I mean, I could be wrong. But the good news is that the only person whose opinion actually matters (the OP) should be in a position to evaluate this feedback now. It's a day since the Show HN post, and based on the score I'm guessing that about 10k-20k unique players hit the site as a result. Since the game has a server component, the author should have stats on their progression.
How many players finished a game? How many came back the next day for another daily "puzzle"? I'm betting it's a really low percentage for both. If that's the case, then the feedback in this Show HN (not just mine) is pretty clear on what to fix. While if the players aren't actually bouncing off the game, the feedback can probably be ignored :)
It could also be because something the opponent played that looks like gibberish is actually valid, because you're misunderstanding which words are contributing to a battle, or because you've misunderstood some part of the battle rules entirely.
I'm coming around to the view that highlighting all valid words would be useful, even outside a "tutor mode", but I'm not sympathetic to the rest of this. Reasoning about how somewhat-complex rules interact is an important part of games with such rules. It lets people with a better grasp of the rules take advantage of opponents making mistakes due to their weaker understanding, or setting traps for them to fall into. Popping up a warning message that gives away the trap and lets you undo your move so as to not fall into it decreases the richness of a game.
I'm sorry again, but it just really strikes me as being the same basic thing as a chess client saying "if you move your queen here you're going to be susceptible to a knight fork, confirm move?". And that would be lame.
Every single new player is going to be making all of those mistakes, and not just once.
Yes, but this is just a "tutor mode" thing. I agree that a hand-holding experience while people learn the rules would be extremely useful. But I don't want it to hold my hand like this when I'm playing the real game.
"You need to learn the rules well to be good at the game" is not "a bad UI".
In the current state, what matters the most is not making blunders.
I'm sorry, but no. I played for about an hour and learned the rules for resolving battles. They are a bit complex but they aren't as hard to learn as you're claiming!
It's still a very hard game, but not because of blunders. It's hard because I didn't use my hand well at the start, or I went the wrong direction and got taken advantage of on another flank.
I really just don't relate to this battle resolution thing being such a big issue, after even a small amount of play.
And I honestly have no clue what you're talking about with "making the game be about rote dictionary checks". Again, I don't find this to be the case at all, and find myself using the dictionary infrequently. I have come around to there being some UI improvement here that could be useful, but it's on the margin, not a foundational issue I'm having playing the game.
Even of a labor of love, I'd imagine the goal is to build an active player base.
Yes, but there is not a single definition of what that means. Some successful games (and things in general) are broad and shallow and others are narrow and deep. This is not going to be as popular as Wordle. It's way harder and will appeal to way fewer people. But the people it does appeal to may enjoy it more. Lots of people play Wordle a lot, while fewer people are dedicated to doing the Sunday Crossword each week. Both are fine.
But the good news is that the only person whose opinion actually matters (the OP) should be in a position to evaluate this feedback now.
On this we agree entirely! And for sure there are lots of improvements that can be made, I'm just unconvinced that it needs so much more handholding as you're suggesting, and would find it less of a fun challenge if it did.
It lets people with a better grasp of the rules take advantage of opponents making mistakes, or setting traps for them to fall into
They are a bit complex but they aren't as hard to learn as you're claiming!
You're trying to have it both ways here! :)
One moment the rules are so simple to learn and apply such that people will master them within minutes, the next moment the game is about players exploiting their opponents weaker grasp of the rules. Which one is it?
I assume you're not trying to optimize for the UX of an experienced player bullying a newbie.
I'm sorry again, but it just really strikes me as being the same basic thing as a chess client saying "if you move your queen here you're going to be susceptible to a knight fork, confirm move?". And that would be lame.
Again: this game is not chess with hundreds of years of history of being played in a very particular way. It's a digital-only game with no cultural cachet. It doesn't get evaluated by the same criteria as chess. It's unfair, but it is also the reality. A digital game has different affordances and capabilities than a physical one.
Your specific example is bad, because it's talking about potential, not certainty. If you make a move, that's the state the board ends up in. (Unless the move was invalid, and then no chess program will let you do it at all). Now, that move might have left you exposed in one way or another. But there's no guarantee that the opponent notices it, or chooses to exploit it.
By contrast, in this game the battle resolution is completely deterministic. Their blunder is automatically exploited. All you're doing by showing a preview of the results is to either signal to the player that they have completely misunderstood the rules or the dictionary.
That's a huge difference. I pointed that difference out already a few posts back, and you are just offering up exactly the same example again. Do you not see the distinction? Do you disagree with it?
Digital games in general have different capabilities than physical ones and require different affordances. I have implemented a digital version of a popular board game, with tens of thousands of players, and put a lot of effort into highlighting information that the player really needed without ever playing the game for them. E.g. the game has multiple component limits ("can't hold more than X of this resource type", "can't build more than Y of this building type"), and I'd always highlight the components where the limit was about to be hit in the UI.
Did it remove a skill in the game of always double-checking each component type before committing a move? Sure. Did it lead to players actually being able to concentrate on actual strategy rather than doing trivial checks? Almost certainly. Did anyone ever complain about those UI affordances? No, literally never. Actually the opposite, adding new QoL features was the thing that players were most likely to send thank you emails about.
I really just don't relate to this battle resolution thing being such a big issue, after even a small amount of play.
Sure. I genuinely believe that, and it's great for you. Could you also grant others the same courtesy, and believe what they post about their experience with the game is true?
The thing I really can't relate to here is you arguing against simple QoL changes. They're not taking anything away from you. You'll still easily be able to defeat worse players, because they'll have built a worse board. But at least those worse players will be around to be defeated, because the game didn't just immediately push them away.
And I honestly have no clue what you're talking about with "making the game be about rote dictionary checks".
Well, you did originally claim that the fun in the game was in avoiding blunders...
The only way I see of avoiding blunders is to check every potential word against the dictionary, just like the way for beginner chess players to avoid trivial blunders is to basically follow a checklist. But since you find this idea so absurd, I'm guessing you have a better way of doing this?
and would find it less of a fun challenge if it did.
What challenge is being removed from you? You've already mastered the rules and internalized the dictionary so well you rarely need to check it, so you should never make a mistake where this excessive handholding would impact you.
I don't think so? It's both things. It's not that hard to learn the rules well, and applying the rules well is also an advantage. I don't see a contradiction here. This is the case for many many games.
I assume you're not trying to optimize for the UX of an experienced player bullying a newbie.
Newbies should use a tutor mode! I just don't want the primary mode of the game to be watered down.
Do you not see the distinction? Do you disagree with it?
I do see the distinction you're drawing! And frankly, you've (belatedly, sorry about that) convinced me that chess is a poor analogy, for this reason.
Could you also grant others the same courtesy, and believe what they post about their experience with the game is true?
Yes? But where does that get us? I'm happy to grant you and others the courtesy of believing you when you say that you find the battle resolution rules super hard to figure out, but I also don't want the game's creator to think that everyone feels that way, and modify their game to be more boring and rote because of everyone commenting expressing that same feeling. Which is why I started out my first reply in this thread by saying that personally I think (some of) the changes you're proposing would be a bummer.
The thing I really can't relate to here is you arguing against simple QoL changes.
To me, what you think are "simple QoL changes" sound to me like "the official client of the game should include a cheat-bot", which is fine and all, I just think it would be lame and less fun that way. I just don't really want the game's client to tell you "that move totally sucks, are you sure you want to make it?".
Well, you did originally claim that the fun in the game was in avoiding blunders...
I didn't say that.
What challenge is being removed from you?
In all games, part of the fun is in figuring out what is going to happen when you do something. Having the computer tell me that ahead of time, so that I can then not do that thing if it sucks, is the challenge being removed from me.
the game is so unergonomic that I predict 99.9% of the players bounce before winning a single game on the easiest difficulty
Yup, I like a good puzzle game but the interface is limiting and (despite reading the tutorial numerous times) the battle results aren't intuitive. I'd describe my reaction as "immediate disinterest".
One way to fix the tutorial is to make it more interactive than just asking players to place a specific tile in a specific place. Once you explain the most fundamental rules, introduce subsequent ones in the form of mini games where players decide what tiles to put and where, and can lose. Have a look at the Queen's Gambit game about chess. It is free if you have a Netflix subscription.
One feature that I would request is to let me organize my tiles. Just my 2 cents.
I "played" the tutorial (after trying a game without knowing anything, during which I appreciated the error messages as guidance, and was confused when I'd attack and lose, and my inner game designer was tickled by the ability to play nonsense words- lowers the barrier to play) and it didn't feel overlong or too sucky, though the "that's all the rules!" message at the end was welcome.
Still, a page of rules would be welcome, yes.
Comments
Congrats on both launching and on the unique game design.
This desperately needs a attack result preview, or if that's too hard at least a "you're starting an attack you'll lose" warning of some kind. The combat resolution rules are unintuitive, and I keep sometimes incorrectly predicting the results, and sometimes even not understanding why I lost despite the information in the battle pane. Losing an attack is so crippling that you might as well resign.
It doesn't help that the only place to find the rules is scattered about in a tedious tutorial. The tutorial itself can't be fixed; it's the nature of tutorials to suck. But it'd be great to have a help page with the rules accessible somewhere. The rules aren't long, so it doesn't seem incompatible with the aesthetics of the game.
Thanks! I can't say I disagree — we hoped to structure the tutorial as a sequence of rules, but the explanations tend to grow. A concise reference would indeed be good.
Not too hard, just waiting for all the feedback to roll in before deciding either way. If we stay sitting on the fence, it might make its way in as a "tutor" mode :)
Personally, I disagree on adding this, outside a "tutor" mode. Figuring out if I'm blundering (and requiring my opponent to do the same) is a big part of the fun. Without that potential for mistake, I think it would be like chess masters playing themselves to a draw in every game.
I don't think that's a good analogy. In chess, there's no question of how a move will resolve. You might not be able to predict the future consequences of the move, but every single player will always know without error what the board state will be after the move.
That's not the case here; any time you attack, there are two possible end states for the board. It's often not immediately obvious which of the two you'll end up in, but the outcome is deterministic and the process to determine the outcome is mechanical. The optimal way to play the game is to just manually do all these mechanical dictionary lookups and rule checks. That's tedious, not fun.
Having a battle preview (and word highlighting as suggested elsewhere) wouldn't actually remove any of the actual skill involved in memorizing a word list, reading upside down, or being able to visualize the outcomes. Having that knowledge is a prerequisite for building a good board. All that these better visualizations achieve is allow people to build that knowledge and those skills organically while playing the game.
And "playing the game" is a key part there. In the current state the game is so unergonomic that I predict 99.9% of the players bounce before winning a single game on the easiest difficulty, and never return. Chess can afford to be harsh and unforgiving because it's got hundreds of years of momentum behind it, and a history of being played on a board without any digital quality of life features. New games don't have that benefit.
It's probably more instructive to look at other word games. What happens in Scrabble if you use an invalid word? You forfeit a turn. Worldle? Nothing. In this game you'll lose a dozen rounds worth of board development.
Some more feedback after trying to play the game again in a mode where I'd at least be certain of the outcome of my own moves:
- Opening the dictionary lookup requires two clicks, and then a third to focus the text entry. It needs a hotkey, and must focus the text entry no matter how it was opened.
- I'd expect to be able to dismiss the dictionary lookup page with Esc, but it requires yet one click.
- The dictionary lookup covers up parts of the board, and makes the visible parts hard to read. This makes looking up multiple words in one go pretty inconvenient.
Thanks for the great notes!
Agree on all front re: the dictionary ergonomics. We'll look at smoothing that out (mobile is currently the blocker there, but everything is solvable :)
Re: visualizations, you make great points. Definitely something for us to mull over, and I do think some amount of this will make it into the game (at least behind an option, which defaults to on).
Thanks again!
I'm not sure what you mean by this. What are the two possible end states? You mean, depending on whether the tile you placed results in a valid or invalid word? I guess I think a limited more form of the suggestion, just indicating whether the new words are valid, would be ok.
I don't think so? The optimal way to play has to do with planning ahead based on the current board and your hand and the probability that you'll draw different letters. Understanding how attacks are going to resolve isn't one of the hard parts; I'm sorry for the chess analogies, but (assuming you know whether your resulting words are valid) it is just akin to counting how many attackers and defenders a square will have after you put a piece there, to determine if you're blundering it for free or losing a trade.
I'm not so sure, because those games don't have as much interactivity between the sides (or any sides at all). I think the better analogy might be games that have a "battle resolution" step. This game's resolution step is a bit more complex than games like Risk, but far less complex than games like MtG. But in all of those games, part of reaching the right answer to the question of "is it a good idea to attack?" involves having a good understanding of what will happen if you do, and asking a computer for that answer is lame, IMO.
This seems like an argument for new games to cater to a least common denominator. That's right if the goal is to get bought by the NYT, but I think it's a bummer for labors of love.
You either win, and every opposing sequence of tiles that touches the tile you just played is removed, or lose and each of your sequences of tiles including the tile you just played is removed.
But it's not just because you played an invalid word thinking it valid, which is what you're suggesting could be fixed. It could also be because something the opponent played that looks like gibberish is actually valid, because you're misunderstanding which words are contributing to a battle, or because you've misunderstood some part of the battle rules entirely.
Every single new player is going to be making all of those mistakes, and not just once. Each time that happens, the game in its current form is basically slapping them in the face because of how big the impact of mispredicting the outcome is. Now, most people don't like being hit in the face and will try to avoid it. By insisting that overcoming a bad UI is just another skill, you're pretty much ensuring that most players are driven away before they can be bothered to overcome the UI.
Yes, that's what the game would be about ideally. But that's not what the game is right now. In the current state, what matters the most is not making blunders. You know, the part that you earlier claimed just in the previous message was particularly fun and would be destroyed if the UI was fixed. And there is no actual skill involved in avoiding these blunders. It's just mechanical checking of words and the application of the somewhat unintuitive battle rules.
Why are you so insistent on making the game be about rote dictionary checks rather than about the strategy of building a good board?
Even of a labor of love, I'd imagine the goal is to build an active player base. I believe that the game in its current state will not be able to do that, and it's entirely due to bad ergonomics and onboarding. Those should not be a line in the sand! The problems seem entirely fixable without compromising the core design of the game in any way.
I mean, I could be wrong. But the good news is that the only person whose opinion actually matters (the OP) should be in a position to evaluate this feedback now. It's a day since the Show HN post, and based on the score I'm guessing that about 10k-20k unique players hit the site as a result. Since the game has a server component, the author should have stats on their progression.
How many players finished a game? How many came back the next day for another daily "puzzle"? I'm betting it's a really low percentage for both. If that's the case, then the feedback in this Show HN (not just mine) is pretty clear on what to fix. While if the players aren't actually bouncing off the game, the feedback can probably be ignored :)
I'm coming around to the view that highlighting all valid words would be useful, even outside a "tutor mode", but I'm not sympathetic to the rest of this. Reasoning about how somewhat-complex rules interact is an important part of games with such rules. It lets people with a better grasp of the rules take advantage of opponents making mistakes due to their weaker understanding, or setting traps for them to fall into. Popping up a warning message that gives away the trap and lets you undo your move so as to not fall into it decreases the richness of a game.
I'm sorry again, but it just really strikes me as being the same basic thing as a chess client saying "if you move your queen here you're going to be susceptible to a knight fork, confirm move?". And that would be lame.
Yes, but this is just a "tutor mode" thing. I agree that a hand-holding experience while people learn the rules would be extremely useful. But I don't want it to hold my hand like this when I'm playing the real game.
"You need to learn the rules well to be good at the game" is not "a bad UI".
I'm sorry, but no. I played for about an hour and learned the rules for resolving battles. They are a bit complex but they aren't as hard to learn as you're claiming!
It's still a very hard game, but not because of blunders. It's hard because I didn't use my hand well at the start, or I went the wrong direction and got taken advantage of on another flank.
I really just don't relate to this battle resolution thing being such a big issue, after even a small amount of play.
And I honestly have no clue what you're talking about with "making the game be about rote dictionary checks". Again, I don't find this to be the case at all, and find myself using the dictionary infrequently. I have come around to there being some UI improvement here that could be useful, but it's on the margin, not a foundational issue I'm having playing the game.
Yes, but there is not a single definition of what that means. Some successful games (and things in general) are broad and shallow and others are narrow and deep. This is not going to be as popular as Wordle. It's way harder and will appeal to way fewer people. But the people it does appeal to may enjoy it more. Lots of people play Wordle a lot, while fewer people are dedicated to doing the Sunday Crossword each week. Both are fine.
On this we agree entirely! And for sure there are lots of improvements that can be made, I'm just unconvinced that it needs so much more handholding as you're suggesting, and would find it less of a fun challenge if it did.
You're trying to have it both ways here! :)
One moment the rules are so simple to learn and apply such that people will master them within minutes, the next moment the game is about players exploiting their opponents weaker grasp of the rules. Which one is it?
I assume you're not trying to optimize for the UX of an experienced player bullying a newbie.
Again: this game is not chess with hundreds of years of history of being played in a very particular way. It's a digital-only game with no cultural cachet. It doesn't get evaluated by the same criteria as chess. It's unfair, but it is also the reality. A digital game has different affordances and capabilities than a physical one.
Your specific example is bad, because it's talking about potential, not certainty. If you make a move, that's the state the board ends up in. (Unless the move was invalid, and then no chess program will let you do it at all). Now, that move might have left you exposed in one way or another. But there's no guarantee that the opponent notices it, or chooses to exploit it.
By contrast, in this game the battle resolution is completely deterministic. Their blunder is automatically exploited. All you're doing by showing a preview of the results is to either signal to the player that they have completely misunderstood the rules or the dictionary.
That's a huge difference. I pointed that difference out already a few posts back, and you are just offering up exactly the same example again. Do you not see the distinction? Do you disagree with it?
Digital games in general have different capabilities than physical ones and require different affordances. I have implemented a digital version of a popular board game, with tens of thousands of players, and put a lot of effort into highlighting information that the player really needed without ever playing the game for them. E.g. the game has multiple component limits ("can't hold more than X of this resource type", "can't build more than Y of this building type"), and I'd always highlight the components where the limit was about to be hit in the UI.
Did it remove a skill in the game of always double-checking each component type before committing a move? Sure. Did it lead to players actually being able to concentrate on actual strategy rather than doing trivial checks? Almost certainly. Did anyone ever complain about those UI affordances? No, literally never. Actually the opposite, adding new QoL features was the thing that players were most likely to send thank you emails about.
Sure. I genuinely believe that, and it's great for you. Could you also grant others the same courtesy, and believe what they post about their experience with the game is true?
The thing I really can't relate to here is you arguing against simple QoL changes. They're not taking anything away from you. You'll still easily be able to defeat worse players, because they'll have built a worse board. But at least those worse players will be around to be defeated, because the game didn't just immediately push them away.
Well, you did originally claim that the fun in the game was in avoiding blunders...
The only way I see of avoiding blunders is to check every potential word against the dictionary, just like the way for beginner chess players to avoid trivial blunders is to basically follow a checklist. But since you find this idea so absurd, I'm guessing you have a better way of doing this?
What challenge is being removed from you? You've already mastered the rules and internalized the dictionary so well you rarely need to check it, so you should never make a mistake where this excessive handholding would impact you.
I don't think so? It's both things. It's not that hard to learn the rules well, and applying the rules well is also an advantage. I don't see a contradiction here. This is the case for many many games.
Newbies should use a tutor mode! I just don't want the primary mode of the game to be watered down.
I do see the distinction you're drawing! And frankly, you've (belatedly, sorry about that) convinced me that chess is a poor analogy, for this reason.
Yes? But where does that get us? I'm happy to grant you and others the courtesy of believing you when you say that you find the battle resolution rules super hard to figure out, but I also don't want the game's creator to think that everyone feels that way, and modify their game to be more boring and rote because of everyone commenting expressing that same feeling. Which is why I started out my first reply in this thread by saying that personally I think (some of) the changes you're proposing would be a bummer.
To me, what you think are "simple QoL changes" sound to me like "the official client of the game should include a cheat-bot", which is fine and all, I just think it would be lame and less fun that way. I just don't really want the game's client to tell you "that move totally sucks, are you sure you want to make it?".
I didn't say that.
In all games, part of the fun is in figuring out what is going to happen when you do something. Having the computer tell me that ahead of time, so that I can then not do that thing if it sucks, is the challenge being removed from me.
Yup, I like a good puzzle game but the interface is limiting and (despite reading the tutorial numerous times) the battle results aren't intuitive. I'd describe my reaction as "immediate disinterest".
To chime in further, the battle log would be more legible if it listed the rules that applied.
Eg:
Defender bonus = 2
Shortest word = 2 (*in*, top, sugar)
Attacker word = 5 (*twine*)
Attacker wins (5-4=1)
At least for me I’m always getting ganked and trying to decipher the battle log to see why it didn’t do what I expected.
That being said, thanks it is fun.
Nice! We've had this on the list for a while so this is great validation for building it :)
The game looks great!
One way to fix the tutorial is to make it more interactive than just asking players to place a specific tile in a specific place. Once you explain the most fundamental rules, introduce subsequent ones in the form of mini games where players decide what tiles to put and where, and can lose. Have a look at the Queen's Gambit game about chess. It is free if you have a Netflix subscription.
One feature that I would request is to let me organize my tiles. Just my 2 cents.
Good ideas, will check out the queens gambit game :)
I "played" the tutorial (after trying a game without knowing anything, during which I appreciated the error messages as guidance, and was confused when I'd attack and lose, and my inner game designer was tickled by the ability to play nonsense words- lowers the barrier to play) and it didn't feel overlong or too sucky, though the "that's all the rules!" message at the end was welcome. Still, a page of rules would be welcome, yes.
The rules or tutorial should also say which dictionary is being used. There are plenty of standard dictionaries to use for word games,like SOWPODs.