Really glad to hear you're looking at improving the controls. Regarding not intending to mislead though, why do the screenshots on the App Store not properly represent how the game appears? They're zoomed in and no control overlays are shown. This IS a little misleading, isn't it? The key really would be floating, unobtrusive controls, ideally that can be moved to suit. Also it's kind of annoying for me, at least, for the control buttons to mimic a console controller (X, A, Y, B buttons etc). Others, I'm sure, will have their feedback too... And again, it's great you're looking to improve - thanks.
We've always taken screenshots for every platform to showcase the artwork first. We've removed UI even from console versions so it's just nice high resolution artwork. We zoomed in on some of the shots because it looked better as well. That being said, I can see how mobile users would take the screenshots literal and how that could be misleading. I can see both sides definitely, but our intention was to make a pretty shot and we weren't trying to deceive. Okay, so now I'm starting to understand a bit more. It's less about that there's a virtual controller, but more how we decided to implement it. For a company that cares so much about visual style, we sure could have done a better job designing the UI for the controller. To be honest our artists had moved on by the point we did the port, so the programmer and I sort of just threw something together, lesson learned! Floating- are you referring to more of a drop shadow, to make it act and feel more like a "button"? Unobstrusive- we can definitely theme them more to the vibe of the game. We were actually basing the buttons off of the NVIDIA Shield which we support (which has the same layout as the Xbox Controller). It just seemed to be the most "generic" controller. But what it sounds like is the button layout shouldn't mimic a normal controller, they should be unique for whatever feels best for our game. Maybe buttons used more often can be larger, etc. Also regarding the file size- this was originally a console and PC game remember. We have thousands of very detailed original art pieces. It was definitely a challenge to get it to work on mobile, but we wanted to create the game for all audiences.
Generally "floating controls" on mobile means that the virtual stick you have isn't locked in place, but rather it shows up under your thumb wherever you put it, while the buttons are just buttons and are fixed in place. I myself always prefer fixed controls, but this is a very valid suggestion considering iPhones and iPads are very different to hold and fixed controls could be very uncomfortable for iPad gamers. Yep, precisely. The "beauty" of touchscreen controls is that they don't have to look like a traditional controller, but can fit in stylistically with the rest of the game. Take a look at Mage Gauntlet as an example: With Whispering Willows I can totally see transparent ghost like controls.
Also, see Implosion as an example of wonderful on-screen controls: 1. The d-pad is floating and almost invisible. 2. The buttons are of varying size, have unique art that fits with the game and the button layout is designed according to how and when the buttons are used.
Respect to Nightlight for coming to the thread and addressing the complaints. That goes a long way with a game's community and speaks volumes about a developer's integrity and dedication to their product. As a few others have said, it's not the function of the controls that is an issue, it's their implementation and aesthetics. They simply look out of place and jarring to the artwork of the game. As you said, they are kind of tacked on and unfortunately they look the part. As Metalcasket pointed out using the fantastic example of Mage Gauntlet, on-screen buttons can tie into and even nicely complement a game's visual style. This would do wonders for the overall appearance of polish to the game, and I'm certain it would be much easier than re-working the entire control scheme for the game, especially at the risk of having a reworked control scheme not function as well as the existing one. I also wish the camera was set a little closer to the action in-game. The zoomed-in screenshots look much more pleasing to the eye than while you're actually playing the game in "zoomed out" mode. Thanks for listening to our feedback (some more constructive than others), I know it's probably tough to read complaints and cries of "lazy" and "careless" about your 3-year labour of love, however I believe you'll be all the more satisfied when those same people (provided they give the game another spin) are telling you how improved your game is and how much more they're enjoying it after you've taken their issues into consideration. Thanks for participating in this discussion, and I for one am willing to give your game the benefit of the doubt and will be happy to provide feedback, constructive criticism and suggestions to help your game improve. I can tell a lot of effort has gone into making the game and that you clearly care a lot about making it the best experience you can for the players, and for that I have faith that when the dust settles you (and we) will have a real quality game here.
Others have already mentioned it, but as I said in my review... Yes, the appearance is jarring and interferes with the gorgeous artwork. But it's not *just* the aesthetics. The controls, especially the joystick, do not work well. I'm glad Implosion keeps coming up, because that's one of the rare games that manages to use a joystick and several buttons without making you stare at the controls the whole time. A layout like that could work very nicely here. Comfort + appearance!
I do agree with this to a degree as well. I think only the joystick needs a real reworking. The buttons work fine for me, although they could benefit from some resizing and different placement, according to which buttons get used the most, etc
Honestly the function of the existing buttons work fine for me, it's just their appearance detracts from the feeling of the game. It's not a deal breaker. But I am still enjoying the game, the sound design with headphones in is just awesome and genuinely spooky, the artwork is beautiful. This scratches all the right itches for me. I recommend picking the game up now while it's on sale and if the controls get reworked, even better!
Yeah, I would highly recommend doing so. Once the sale's up, the game's gonna be $10. The last thing you want is another "Adventures of Pip" situation where everyone's bitching about mobile games being too expensive and whatnot.
*sigh* Something tells me there will be no avoiding that when the price goes up. It's just not a paid mobile gamer's society we're living in, man. If anyone from the future has bought the game at the cost of $10 is now coming back and retroactively reading this thread, and you're here to bitch and moan about the price after you just learned it used to be $5, do us a favour and just don't. Nobody here wants to hear it. This has been a public service announcement from your friends at TA from the not-so-distant past. Thank you, and enjoy the game.
Alright, now that I've actually spent some time with the game, here's what I think: - Controls, right? Unlike AppUnwrapper, I haven't had any problems with the virtual stick. Yes, the controls are a little clunky, but since this isn't a hack 'n' slash and you're slowly walking most of the time, it's serviceable. As mentioned time and time again, the controls need to be re-skinned to fit the overall theme of the game. I personally don't mind having the inventory and menu buttons right next to the transformation and action buttons, but yeah, they could be moved off to the right side of the screen or upper right corner where they don't clutter up the screen. It wouldn't hurt to be able to customize button position and size too, along with giving us the option to either have a fixed or floating v-stick. Lastly, there's no need for the controls to disappear. - Auto-rotation is a must. While I do play solely with the home button to the right, others may not. - That "Quit" option on the main menu has to go. I know this was originally on Ouya and then PC and whatnot, but I'm surprised Apple let this one slide. Weren't apps getting rejected in the past for retaining Android features? Whatever the case, there's no need for it. - "Whispering..." under the app icon. Oh man, you guys know how much that bugs me, right? This is due to the app title being "Whispering Willow". Could this be changed to either "Whispering", "Willows" or even better "W. Willows" or best: "Whispering W."? - The "zoomed out" issue and App Store screenshot complaints are just nitpicking and are completely pointless to talk about. Other than that, there's not much to talk about. The game in its current state is very much playable and worth the money (and size) but with a couple of tweaks could be something else entirely. I don't think this port warranted the amount of complaints and gross finger-pointing and accusations towards the developer. EDIT: Oh, don't even get me started on embargoes. >_>
On the 3rd chapter now and haven't come across a single bug while playing, game-breaking or not. Oh, one other thing to mention: Despite saving the game under a different profile name, it still shows me Elena on the "Load Game" menu. I don't know if that's an isolated incident. Frankly, with all its little faults, I still love the game to bits and pieces. While I say that I only buy games, but never actually play them, Whispering Willows has proven that to be wrong. When there's something I truly enjoy, I don't put it down.
Well after having given up a bit on this, and having slagged this off somewhat, I then read the posts from the devs and was extremely impressed by the way they took the harsh criticism, promised to listen and seem really passionate about turning this in to something really special. So I gave it another shot and really, there's a gem under some of the rushed controls and if the devs live up to their promise this'll be truly great. I'm a little ashamed at how harsh I was earlier - I take *some* of that back and look forward to seeing what happens next!
I'm impressed with the dev response, so I just picked it up too. Cheaper on iOS than Vita right now anyway, so it'll be a nice one to play. I'm also guilty of buying games and not playing them, haha At least if there's MFi support so I can just play that way -- wonder if there's an opacity setting to hide the onscreen controls?
The onscreen controls disappear when the screen goes untouched for a few seconds (slightly annoying if you're using them, but useful if you're not!).
Just finished the game. While it certainly isn't as scary as Neverending Nightmares or has the same creepiness level as Knock-Knock, I enjoyed it far more than both of the aforementioned titles. The puzzles are extremely, extremely light, but I enjoyed the game from start to end and nothing overstayed its welcome. Was it worth the $5? Easily. I'll definitely revisit the game once the controls are ironed out, but even now this is an easy recommendation from me. Of course those of you looking for a deep gaming experience, stay clear, but for anyone looking to spend a few hours getting immersed in a much deeper story than you could imagine, you'll love this.
Next Steps... Thanks everyone for your feedback, especially metalcasket who went into extensive detail, and provided visual reference, very helpful! I'll be posting the draft of our UI to see what you guys think, and we will be further optimizing the game. Essentially for the controls: -Will be using visual symbols to represent buttons instead of "A, B, X, Y" (this may prove difficult when referencing buttons, but we'll see what we can do) -The interact button will appear in a "neutral" state when there's nothing to interact with, and will turn into an Eye when the player can "Inspect" as well as a Hand when they can "pick up" or use something. We may add one for talking to Ghosts as well -The astral project button will show the current form Elena is in. Touch it and it changes to the other form. Minimal animation as well here. It will be placed bottom right next to the Interact button -Inventory and Settings will be smaller buttons in the top right -Joystick will be floating, removed from it's anchored bottom left spot We're also looking to patch in: -Optimize the game so some lower end devices don't automatically quit out and crash -Add more bluetooth controller support like the MOGA controller -Add screen rotation "flip" -Increase size of typography overall -Attempt to make the Chinese language less blurry -Update app display name to "Whispering W." or something that fits, maybe "Whisp Willows" if it fits -Remove "Quit" button
That seems to cover pretty much everything what we want. If you're able to put most of those items in a few updates that would be amazing!
