Honest feedback for our first iOS game Circlestances

I like how clean the UI seems. Is there audio? There was none when I just did a few rounds on my iPad. The gameplay is great but I feel like it is missing polish in the presentation. The menus are a little confusing too (although I did fumble through it and learn how it works - I like how simple it is to start a game just getting into the options etc was weird). I think with some extra work this game could be really great.

 

Hey,

I've tried it and I think it's a nice idea, but the gameplay seems not so bidder to me.
All in all, being your first try, I think it's a good outcome.

Good luck with it!

 

I gave it a try and I actually think there's quite a bit of promise here, with nice-looking minimal graphics and pretty fun gameplay with an interesting mechanic that I don't recall seeing before, but there's a few things that occurred to me when playing it that could be better without too much trouble, and since you asked for honest feedback, here's what I noticed:

The biggest issue for me is I'm never sure whether I'm scoring points or not because there's really no feedback to the player that they're scoring points until they lift their finger off the screen, and then it shows "+40" or whatever number they scored. This makes playing the game confusing because the player doesn't know if they're scoring points, or if they aren't pressing down hard enough and maybe not scoring - I'm just not sure what's happening. My suggestion: first, have a sound effect that plays when the player is scoring points; and second, show each point next to the circles as you earn them, don't wait until the player takes their finger off the screen. When they do take their finger off, show them how many points total they earned, and maybe move it over to the score in the upper left corner to reinforce what just happened. This starts to give the player the kind of feedback they need when playing the game. The player has to get clear feedback from the game whenever they do something good or bad, not be left wondering if the game is working right or not.

The only mode I've played so far is the 30 second mode, and I have to tell you it feels pretty bad to get zero points unless you make the game last 30 seconds. What this means is if I get a good score in the first 15 seconds, it's better for me to just sit there and let nothing happen for the remaining 15 seconds in order to register a score. I don't understand this design decision at all. What is fun about sitting there doing nothing? It's already hard enough to get any points because of the random way the two balls move. Just let the score count even if they lose before the 30 seconds are up.

Another forum member mentioned the lack of sound, and I just wanted to reiterate the point. It needs sound effects, otherwise it just seems like something is missing. I actually went to the Settings screen to double check that the sound effects weren't defaulted off. If you can add music too, even better. There's no reason not to have it and believe me it'll make a big difference.

This next point is less important, but some of the in-game button icons don't clearly indicate what they're for. The one with three horizontal lines works as a "Back" button. How about just an arrow pointing left? Maybe I'm just thinking this because it's hot out, but the Leaderboard icon looks like a fan to me. The Stats and Settings buttons are also pretty unclear. I would highly recommend using more standard-looking icons so people don't have to try them to see what they do.

Hey, I hope my comments don't sound too harsh. I actually think you guys did a good job with this and have a good starting point. A little bit of extra work could really help polish this up and I think you'll be even happier with the result.

 

This. So much this. I finished my first 2 rounds thinking that there was a bug, and on the third round I realized what was happening. Round 4 and 5 I actually got points, but the first 3 left a sour taste in my mouth that I had to force myself to play it.

Re: Scoring. During the session I had no idea how well I was doing. Some kind of emotive feedback, especially on the great scores, would be fantastic. I'm not expecting full on Candy Crush 'EXCELLENT' with voice over to match, but if the orbs pulsed for regular scores and pulsed and glowed a different color for exceptional scores I'd feel so much better.

Lastly, about the game at least: Randomness. When I was looking at your screenshots I thought 'it's weird they'd have luck in a skill game', and until just a moment ago I let it slide. My score was dependent on how often the circles would cross paths, but often I found them going near parallel to each other wasting precious seconds in 30 second mode. That might be fine for endless/zen mode, but not in the default one. I think you should look at your random angle generator and exclude ones near the one that the other ball has is on.

Your app store screenshots look like the tutorial. They're not tempting. I'd suggest showing some movement. Move the circles to different sides of the screen. Move the finger (and make it 3 different fingers!) to show motion.
Going into the app I thought it would be a timing game where the circles would reset and shoot towards each other, and I had 0.012 seconds to tap where they're covering each other. I wasn't far off, but the product you did have is much more exciting than the one I predicted.