Lucky to have a few lines of conversation with the editor in chief of TouchArcade about our game: Chain Reaction 2 : Online Multiplayer! The first reaction from him was this : Eli Hodapp @hodapp Aug 4 @ChainReaction02 I really dont understand how to play this. I guess its a variation of Go? We have included a tutorial in the beginning of the game and most of my friends were able to master the game gradually and were able to beat the computer. But as the editor says, is it too hard to master? iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/app/id1016209529
He isnt even talking about difficulty, it looks like he just wants to know how to play. Where did you get the "too hard to master" line?
we have had a few more lines of conversation where he said that the major problem is that the rules are tough.So i was just thinking whether we need to make the game more simpler.
Yeah, I did not at all understand how to play the game from the tutorial. My point was more along the lines of if you need to send someone a email explaining to them how to play with associated video to understand your game. That's a death sentence in mobile, which is typically all about bite sized pick up and play experiences. I mean, look at a game like Prune. That's a shockingly complex puzzle game with all sorts of crazy mechanics they introduce to the player without any text at all in easily digestible chunks. I mean, I'm sure you'll find your audience somewhere as a oddly complicated puzzle/board game, it'll just be very, very small in its current form.
Thank you very much ELi for the reply.Now i know how helpful toucharcade is for indie developers.We are straight away going to work on the tutorial part and this time the tutorial will be explanatory enough to let people understand the most complex rule through simple mechanism.However,what we had in mind was that explaining every rule will be a spoiler and it may ruin the sense of achieving something. Keep us encouraging and keep giving your valuable feedback to help us make a game that you'll certainly like someday! Thanks!
