Universal Kingturn RPG - (by Mangobile)

Discussion in 'iPhone and iPad Games' started by Sanuku, Apr 11, 2013.

  1. niebau

    niebau Well-Known Member

    Apr 5, 2011
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    Mangobile. Designer & Developer
    Germany
    #101 niebau, Apr 14, 2013
    Last edited: Apr 14, 2013
    I know this is a gamer's thread, but this is too good an opportunity to let it pass by :).
    So also on behalf of my fellow (indie) developers, I would like to address this topic.

    1) If you like a game, by all means, rate it. DaviddesJ has hit the nail on the head with his answer already, and there is another reason.
    Although the ranking algorithms for apps are a well guarded secret, there is enough evidence to assume that the number of ratings and the average rating have a direct impact on an app's rank and therefore on it's exposure on the market.

    2) It is very difficult to fix a bug based on an app store comment. There are many cases where it would be easy to identify and fix a problem, if the developer had the chance to get back to the customer and ask one or two questions.
    If you have a problem with an app, your chances of getting them fixed are much better if you drop the developer a short email.
    This is especially true for smaller companies / indie developers who will most likely work their a** off to fix your problem as fast as possible.

    A good example is an email I've just received a few minutes ago. One player who bought the game didn't realize that he has to exit to the main menu, and start the campaign 'Knights of Andaria'. Now he could have decided to just post a 1-star rating with a comment 'In-app purchase' doesn't work. And there is nothing I could have done to help him.
    Thanks to his email, I could help him in a matter of minutes, and both of us are happy now.
     
  2. niebau

    niebau Well-Known Member

    Apr 5, 2011
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    Mangobile. Designer & Developer
    Germany
    #102 niebau, Apr 14, 2013
    Last edited: Apr 14, 2013
    No, he doesn't. But the summoner receives experience points for summoning a pet / an ally.
    I think I know what you are aiming at ...

    During the design process, I was worried myself that the player might lose too many experience points if he relies too heavily on summoned pets.
    But from my experience so far, the impact is rather negligible (e.g. pets usually don't live long enough to 'steal' XP from other characters).
     
  3. undeadcow

    undeadcow Well-Known Member

    Dec 4, 2010
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    I agree the impact of summoned pets eating xp seems negligible; but it's good to know so I can deal killing blows with core team units when possible. I usually use the summoned pets as diversions or disposable shields anyway. Thanks.
     
  4. niebau

    niebau Well-Known Member

    Apr 5, 2011
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    Mangobile. Designer & Developer
    Germany
    #104 niebau, Apr 14, 2013
    Last edited: Apr 14, 2013
    Has anyone experienced any games crashes so far?
    I've just seen a comment on the US store about random crashes.

    (This is perfectly making my point from above now :). We have never experienced a crash during our play testing, so with this information alone we've not much of a chance to fix the problem. Helpful would be in such a case to know which device and iOS version is used, or whether there seems to be a pattern to the crashes (e.g. during user turn, enemy turn, in the dialogs and so on)).

    Edited Note: If the crashes are totally random, it's most likely a problem with too much memory consumption (e.g. memory leak). In any way, we are checking the memory foot print of Kingturn right now.
     
  5. iPadisGreat

    iPadisGreat Well-Known Member

    Dec 10, 2012
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    I know what you mean. That was why I moved to emailing developers directly after I stopped writing App Store reviews. However, I have also more or less stopped emailing developers.

    Unlike most of the developers who post here at the Touch Arcade forum, about half of the developers I emailed through the App Store were either uninterested in the bug report or else gave what they thought were sassy replies, mostly in the vein of yes, you reported such a bug, but it is not a bug because I say so and I am never going to fix it. Well, it is their business, so I just stop buying any more of their apps and leave them to it...

    But point taken. I will make a note of putting up brief good and bad reviews for games on the App Store, just without the detailed info for the dev to replicate the bugs anymore.
     
  6. niebau

    niebau Well-Known Member

    Apr 5, 2011
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    Mangobile. Designer & Developer
    Germany
    That's interesting. Do you remember whether you had this bad experience mainly with high-profile companies or also smaller developers?
    For smaller developers I would consider it rather foolish to ignore customer queries or even worse giving sassy answers.
    Besides having a good game, I would think that a good reputation is the most valuable asset for a small developer. But like you've said, it's their business and they probably know what they are doing.

    In case of a big (high profile) game publisher with several thousand downloads each day, I wouldn't be too surprised about such behavior, though.
    And if I do the math, I can't even blame them.
    For a 99 cent or 'free' app it's probably not paying off for them to employ a customer service that deals with hundreds of emails every day.
    That's quite sad, of course, but makes from a business point of view a lot of sense, unfortunately.
     
  7. iPadisGreat

    iPadisGreat Well-Known Member

    Dec 10, 2012
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    #107 iPadisGreat, Apr 14, 2013
    Last edited: Apr 14, 2013
    Those were mainly, what I presume to be, small developers for the apps I use. I mean I wouldn't email a game dev a bug report unless he was actively asking for feedback, but bugs in my business use apps are unacceptable... Cannot key in data only for it to not sync, totally disappear, appear garbled, suddenly appear with numerous copies, break the sync between my iDevices such that data on each device looks different and the system reports no error. I think you get the idea.

    And it is not like I go bargain hunting for my business apps either, in fact I usually buy quite a few just to find one that best fits my work processes.

    On the other hand, I had encountered one particularly happy developer who thanked me for my detailed bug report as it finally helped him to nail down the cause of his bug. He said that a lot of users just emailed that his app was broken but did not provide sufficient info for him to duplicate the error and troubleshoot it. That was a wonderful email. :)

    Anyway, sorry for these OT rants. I will try Kingturn after a while as I had been busy playing Symphony of the Origin these two weeks and I am currently a bit RPGed out...
     
  8. bigred447uk

    bigred447uk Well-Known Member

    Apr 16, 2009
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    I find indie devs especially responsive to customer service issues. They are generally passionate about making their products the best they can be with limited resources.

    The devs here are no exception willing to devote time to checking code to investigate every reported issue.

    Personally I've played the game for several hours without a single issue. The release seems extremely stable and polished.

    Glad to see the US reviews creeping up steadily. If this does well the other games will surely get ported from Android.
     
  9. undeadcow

    undeadcow Well-Known Member

    Dec 4, 2010
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    No matter how I try I can't get Kingturn to crash on my iPod Touch 5G running iOS 6.1.2; although with Kingturn's fluid autosave system I'm not sure occassional crashes would be a game breaker.

    Got the Assassin's Guild under my thumb now.
     
  10. bigred447uk

    bigred447uk Well-Known Member

    Apr 16, 2009
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    You're ahead of me ! I am currently battling the Grimlocks ! Devious little buggers !

    I started the game again upon UK release because I had a US promo and I wanted to leave a review on the UK AppStore. I should have backed the save file really but I also wanted to start over to concentrate my gold on hiring a larger team.
     
  11. niebau

    niebau Well-Known Member

    Apr 5, 2011
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    Mangobile. Designer & Developer
    Germany
    Kingturns autosave seems indeed to be quite reliable. However, we had 2 cases on Android where the autosave of a player has been corrupted.
    We've been also informed about a case where Nicolette was not properly added to a player's team in the main campaign (for whatever strange reason).

    So in order to be on the safe side, I would recommend hitting the manual save button in the Ally camp now and then.

    Game crash:
    Thanks for the feedback, undeadcow. Another indication that the crash mentioned in the comment is quite likely not related to a 'normal bug' but to a memory issue. That's a good start for a thorough investigation.
     
  12. iPadisGreat

    iPadisGreat Well-Known Member

    Dec 10, 2012
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    Quick question. I played the first mission with the princess and the wolves after viewing the tutorial video.

    I thought victory is when I place one of my guys on top of the enemy tent and stay alive for one round? Because I did that and the game didn't end until I killed the wolf with the star...
     
  13. niebau

    niebau Well-Known Member

    Apr 5, 2011
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    Mangobile. Designer & Developer
    Germany
    The victory condition in this scenario is 'Defeat all opponents' (which is used in many scenarios).
    You really have to defeat all opponents on the battlefield in order to win such a scenario. In addition you have to conquer all enemy barracks, because otherwise new opponents would emerge from these barracks (during the next turn).
     
  14. undeadcow

    undeadcow Well-Known Member

    Dec 4, 2010
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    #114 undeadcow, Apr 14, 2013
    Last edited: Apr 14, 2013
    Kingturn features a variety of mission objectives; I don't recall that specific level but although overtaking enemy bases is a key part of many levels it's not always the victory condition. Some levels require you escort a NPC, defeat one specific enemy, etc. When you start a scene there is a intro screen that shows shows victory / defeat conditions and it often varies. Good games should have a variety of gameplay, right?

    Edit: To add, sometimes that last surviving few enemies can turn things around... some of the more rewarding matches I've played have featured the villians reclaiming their base or capturing my own.
     
  15. iPadisGreat

    iPadisGreat Well-Known Member

    Dec 10, 2012
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    Ok, got it thanks. Misinterpreted the video...
     
  16. Abbadon

    Abbadon Active Member

    Mar 25, 2011
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    Love this game so far! bought the full game after finishing the tutorial...

    Curious to find out at which point my current tactic will fail me; Letting the AI come to me and finishing of my opponents one by one until his respawn percentage is down to 0...
     
  17. Sheinfell

    Sheinfell Well-Known Member

    May 14, 2012
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    Europe, CET timezone
    Noch een Nederlander, gezellig :p
    Don't know where you are in the campaign, but for me that stopped working around the 1st and 2nd treasure map scenarios.
     
  18. Abbadon

    Abbadon Active Member

    Mar 25, 2011
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    Well, I'm just passed the 1st treasure map, so we'll see...so far, so good!
     
  19. trystero

    trystero Well-Known Member

    Aug 11, 2009
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    Ok so on the Prologue quest with Francisca... I cleared everything except the wolf, then camped a guy on the blue square so the scenario would not end.

    I then took on the wolf. I killed him, got a Robe, went to get treasure chest and the word "Victory" appeared. So.... Did I get the chest? Or I had to get it before killing all enemies? If so, that's annoying. Otherwise solid game so far.
     
  20. undeadcow

    undeadcow Well-Known Member

    Dec 4, 2010
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    As long as you have a unit on the treasure chest tile when the scene ends (victory conditions obtained) or at the beginning of a new turn you should get the contents. You should see a brown pop-up message informing you of what is in it. It's often a good idea to delay the final blow (keep that mostly harmless overpowered last enemy unit around) before you get the treasure chests so the mission won't end without maximum payout, if you can.
     

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