Please give me a little more detail about what you would like to see and I'll try to do that in our next game. We're a very small indie outfit and it still amazes us we were able to make this game. : )
We are just two gals and a guy who is busy with a new baby. : ) Dr. Vlad has his hands full right now with his family. That's not the biggest reason--none of us are graphic artists. We depended a lot on Sylon of Redshift for 2d graphics and on graphics available from the Unity Asset Store for 2d and 3d graphics---really a great community of graphic artists. We wanted to support and still want to support Sylon but he has expenses too and charges a fair amount for his graphics---they are totally worth it. But as we are practical gamemakers, we buy them a little at a time. But we had a big game to build and so had to rely also on graphics from the Unity Asset Store. And since we made the game with Unity, we like to support the graphic artists in the Unity Asset Store too as well as Sylon. I think the combination works well enough for our first game. As time goes on, we'll hone our graphics style but I know I got pleasure playing it even with the different graphic styles and hope you will too.
Someone at my forum just finished so it's good to know there are no major bugs. : ) It did take her a bit to finish with some hints. But hooray that she did! I always give a bug reward of an item named after you if you find a bug. But hopefully we are bug free. : )
Thanks. You can find the mirror in the Worms' Lair. There's a cave entrance in Sludgetown. When you're in the cave take the transporter. Look for a chest.
Thanks. Looking for some of the runes and need help. Need W, A, L. This is a good puzzle and thanks that the statues tell you if you put the right run on them.
There are 2 runes A- don't know which one you need so spoiler below Find a coffin in the sewer that has a Sentient switch you need the mineral Sard to activate it. Mael's store sells Sard. Other Rune A is on a pillar in the Crypt Hole. You get there from a door in the Crypt. Rune W is perhaps the hardest to find if you don't walk through a fake wall in a place you get to from a door in the Upper Halls. You need to trade Galloping Ghost a Wild Ophid flower. Rune L you get from an altar in the Worm's Lair. You get there from a transporter in the old Mining Pit. Entrance to that cave is Sludgetown. Hope this helps.
Am doing a new update for Wizzard Island--- --fixing situation where sometimes you're outside a battle area but a monster follows you but you can't attack it because you're outside the battle area --added some finer fantasy ui -- the containers for dialogues etc. --you now get the Big Heal skill from the beginning in your repertoire of skills so you don't have to buy it. --better instructions on what to do when you get there --the Mining Pits (cave) is bigger and has more monsters maybe some more but testing these right now. Each time I go into the world, I love it more and more. So am always trying to make it better.
This is what the new ui looks like. We try to respond to people's comments -- this is our first independent game outside our Quest expansions and we will constantly try to improve your experience. We hope our game will be a keeper for you and if we have to do something to make it more satisfying, we'll try.
Finally got some time to sit down and provide feedback: The graphics look nice, remind me a lot of Nimian Legends. And at least Beachtown looks realistic, like a real landscape. On towards the big negative, the UI: Your screenshot of the new UI doesn't look too different from the current one, so I'd say critique below still applies: 1) Get rid of the joysticks. Move/camera works anywhere on the respective screen half anyways. So you don't need the virtual sticks at all. If you really want one, look at e.g. Chaos Rings: Stick pops up wherever you touch the screen. 2) Controls/buttons are way too small on an iPad Air, do overlap, etc. And the blue pseudo-buttons don't look good. In part due to the way the software product of where I work looks, I first thought they are just textfields. I almost dropped the game because I thought the UI has a bug. Took me a while to figure out that you need to hit the tiny backpack icon (hidden behind the top bar) to back out of a menu. The shop buttons, now those are nice. Why don't you use that style everywhere? 3) Compass: Too small, and needs an explanation. What are the small green dots? I assume NPCs; but at the Fishmonger I sometimes see 2 dots really close to each other, where he is alone. 4) Automap: Absolutely needs one. I don't want to handdraw maps anymore, nor note down what is located where. It's not 1990 anymore... 5) Main ingame menu: Why the tiny button at the top? Make a small icon (like those arrowhead-style decorations on the shop buttons) that I can drag out to open the menu. 6) HP/SP: Numbers, please. The current bars take up way too much space, and don't tell much. Replace them with reasonably sizes numbers, e.g. 50/100 HP. 6) Why can't I tap on a character name to open his menu? 7) Combat: Only ran into one so far, and the first reaction was "huh?" . At first, I wasn't even sure what the - again, tiny - blue "crossed swords" icon means. I thought it indicates a status effect or such. Not to mention that the realtime did not leave a good first impression. It took so long to turn around and face the enemy that he hit me twice. 8) Collectable flowers: Make it more obvious what you can collect. I only walked through Beachtown, and I'm already sick of bumping into every plant to figure out if I can pick it up. And the confirmation dialogue window isn't needed. Just show a message onscreen for a few seconds. 9) I want skill/spell/attack buttons onscreen, ideally freely configurable. Overall, look at e.g. Avadon 1&2's UI to get some inspiration. Then, please, redo the complete UI. Take note that Avadon (like all of Spiderweb's games) makes the mistake of having really small UI parts like buttons, too; and even worse than Wizzard's Island. This looks like it could be a very good game, I especially like the landscape visual style. But the current UI puts the game into the "unplayable" category for me. Plus, it gives off a *very* amateurish vibe, which I know you are not
Phew! You give me a lot to chew on! One by one--- 1) Get rid of the joysticks. Move/camera works anywhere on the respective screen half anyways. So you don't need the virtual sticks at all. If you really want one, look at e.g. Chaos Rings: Stick pops up wherever you touch the screen. I started out with no visible joysticks but a few people couldn't get used to that. They needed arrows to help them feel comfortable. I can go back to no joysticks. I much preferred that. However, I can change it so they pop up when you touch the screen. 2) Controls/buttons are way too small on an iPad Air, do overlap, etc. And the blue pseudo-buttons don't look good. In part due to the way the software product of where I work looks, I first thought they are just textfields. I almost dropped the game because I thought the UI has a bug. Took me a while to figure out that you need to hit the tiny backpack icon (hidden behind the top bar) to back out of a menu. The shop buttons, now those are nice. Why don't you use that style everywhere? I can use the shop style. And make bigger buttons. 3) Compass: Too small, and needs an explanation. What are the small green dots? I assume NPCs; but at the Fishmonger I sometimes see 2 dots really close to each other, where he is alone. I can make the compass bigger and explain it in the HowTo book. Instead of buying the HowTo book in the shop, I can give it to the player from the beginning. 4) Automap: Absolutely needs one. I don't want to handdraw maps anymore, nor note down what is located where. It's not 1990 anymore… Working on this but this is about two updates away. 5) Main ingame menu: Why the tiny button at the top? Make a small icon (like those arrowhead-style decorations on the shop buttons) that I can drag out to open the menu. I can try to do this. No promises. : ) 6) HP/SP: Numbers, please. The current bars take up way too much space, and don't tell much. Replace them with reasonably sizes numbers, e.g. 50/100 HP. Easy to do. 6) Why can't I tap on a character name to open his menu? I'll try to do that. Not sure if I can do it with our present engine. I know I can do it in our next game. 7) Combat: Only ran into one so far, and the first reaction was "huh?" . At first, I wasn't even sure what the - again, tiny - blue "crossed swords" icon means. I thought it indicates a status effect or such. Not to mention that the realtime did not leave a good first impression. It took so long to turn around and face the enemy that he hit me twice. Did try to explain the crossed swords in the Wind Spirit's speech and in the HowTo book but can try to make that clearer. Speeded up movement already. 8) Collectable flowers: Make it more obvious what you can collect. I only walked through Beachtown, and I'm already sick of bumping into every plant to figure out if I can pick it up. And the confirmation dialogue window isn't needed. Just show a message onscreen for a few seconds. I can do this. 9) I want skill/spell/attack buttons onscreen, ideally freely configurable. The attack button is on screen in a battle area and the skill/spell button as well on the left hand side. I can have them always onscreen. Overall, look at e.g. Avadon Downloading it. : ) Thanks for all the feedback.
@Catacomber: Thanks a lot for the nice reply! And good to hear that you might be able to do at least some of those things. Will be patient and wait for the automap update before playing further, I think
I already have half your requests in for the next update. Can you put up any screenshot of how the buttons look on your iPad Air that are small? Or overlap? Especially how the backpack is obscured by the top bar in the latest update as I moved things down. Thanks if you can. I might be able to work on the minimap this week.
That's fast, awesome job, Cat! And sure, here you go, one of the worst offenders: quest screen. - No need to have the joysticks visible - Back(pack) icon almost completely hidden - Quest buttons not of equal size (why is the right one 2x as big as the left ones) - Blue highlighted quest turns flat, looks like text only - Textwindow on the right is badly positioned, and too small. Why not make it fill the whole right half of the screen? Gives more space for quest info. Oh, and I'd make the game title and volume slider (especially that one) a lot bigger on the main menu screen. The slider also is missing a scale, to give you an indication of what you set it at. For added bonus, it's quite common to have separate volumes for music, background noises, normal noises (like combat), voice, etc.
I can try to make that better on the iPad Air--can you show me what your initial game screen looks like with the title and Start Game buttons? Would you like an item named after you in the update for all your help? I know how to make the different sounds turn down independently but most people either play with the sound on or off so not sure that would be that helpful but can work on the other things. I took the joysticks out now--all you have to do is touch the screen---some people will throw eggs at me for that but I always liked it as cleaner and simpler. You get a how to book now from the beginning so that should help people figure out that there are joysticks there even though you can't see them. : )
@Cat: Start menu screenshot, coming right up... I just found out WI runs in portrait mode too, and the proportions of e.g. the Djinni's turban are a bit different there compared to landscape (which is better for playing, with the wider view arc) . The screenshot is in landscape, btw. Very nice of you to offer that, very much appreciated. But no need to name an item after me. All I did was complain about the UI Doesn't feel fair to your "fulltime" betatesters etc. If I should end up giving a small novel in feedback, then we can talk again
Dear Nullzone----I downloaded Avadon and with all respect it's not at all the kind of game I've liked to play. I can't even get out of the first room and I tried really hard and have never liked that kind of touch to move gameplay. For me it was bucks down the drain but interesting. Since I didn't like the gameplay I had trouble concentrating on the UI. : ) I think our game has a lot going for it no matter what the little problems might be that would make one person more or less happy. I've gotten many comments that the graphics are beautiful and the quests are intriguing and other positive comments. I've gotten smashed on the fact that you could die before being able to kill something. But this is a problem players have had for always. That's how I got my name Catacomber. I could never kill the monsters to get out of the Catacombs in Castlevania. I think if you get a strong sword from Old Shaman's shop and beef yourself up a bit and go try to kill the monsters, and use your Big Heal skill to revive your health you will find the monsters are puff cakes--at least in the surface levels. I've played a lot of rpg games and although I know it can be tough not to get killed here, I've managed to survive very well. I think it just gets a little getting used to as is the case with all games. I can see that ui is important and will work on it and I suppose a minimap is important but I think you'll find you won't really need it that much in our game. I am concerned if there is any visual problem on the iPad Air so will focus on that right now. Please feel free to offer any comments and I appreciate the comments you offered and have made as many changes as I can that I think will make all players happy. I'm not sure getting rid of the visible joysticks will make others happy but am willing to try it once more. A lot of our players like that kind of graphic on the screen with the arrows to give them some direction. Not sure exactly why you didn't like it. But I changed it and have made as many changes as I could based on your suggestions. I really value your comments but have to get my two cents in too. : ) That way it's a real give and take and we get somewhere. I'm sad you never got a chance to play in the Casino or make gold with the Alchemy skill. Try to forget the minimap which is not really going to help you much. It's not that convoluted in terms of the map. : ) There are some fake walls but there is also a strong hint.
