Hi Frand, it seems I could replicate spmwinkel's 'problem'. I just started the Tree of Challenge and when trying to wrap this object, this happened. I don't know if it's intentional or not, but in reality, the paint should've been solid-straight without any blotch? ps: btw, it didn't only happen on the front side. It also happened on the lower area in the shade. It's dark, but you can still see the blotch.
Get a piece of string, soak it in paint / dye. Pull it over a box and the pattern will be just like that. The pressure at the corners in the string pushed the paint out of it, but where it has no corner there is no pressure. It looks exactly how it would if you do this for real. And hey, there would be no challenge at all if it laid down a solid road of colour
Nope. The middle part won't go completely blank. And it really depends on how wet the rope (not string) is. Rope can absorb quite some paint (string can't really), so looking at how big the blotch is, I guess it's quite wet, in which case the middle part should be still painted (though not as much as the corners). And as the paint from the middle part and the corners are connected, they would join together. If the rope is a bit dry and needs to be pressed to get the paint out as you suggest, then when we cross over our rope (like X mark), the top rope wouldn't paint the surface at all. Even if we pull the rope tightly, it can only paint a little bit. Of course it's different if we literally push the rope to the surface with our hand, but we're pulling the rope in the game, not pressing it. I don't mind the challenge, but that's a totally different point
The blotchy paint thing is something we're looking into. Honestly, we noticed the behavior during development (obviously), but didn't consider it a flaw since it's possible to complete each level at 100%. Now that people are actually paying attention to it and considering it a bug as opposed to "that's just the way it is, but doesn't hurt the gameplay", we'll see about tweaking the code to make it behave more like the audience expects it to. It's not quite a trivial thing to change as it may distort our current level difficulty adjustments, but it's on the list of things we'll look into. There are more critical things to get done first, though (like that Tree of Nostalgia thing ).
You should try painting that part of the object from left to right. My guess is that it will be painted properly. And not just because it's a shorter section than from top to bottom. I'm guessing that Zen Bound 'expects' that the object is painted in a certain way, some kind of perfect solution. And if certain spots don't get painted when they're covered by rope, they probably should have been covered in another way. Not sure of course, just some thoughts.
i just bought this cuz there's nothing else i really want to buy...didn't think i'd have much fun wrapping rope around wood. i was wrong
Man this app is awesome! I tried it with my €300+ Bose Noise Cancelling headphones, I was there for hours! P.S. I made a wallpaper, it's in the wallpaper thread. (cpl)
A slightly unnerving observation: Zen Bound has about 380 positive user reviews in US iTunes (*** or more) Zen Bound has about 20 negative user reviews in US iTunes (** or less) Because of this, the people who dislike Zen Bound have a focused set of reviews to consider helpful, whereas the positive thumbs-ups are spread over a larger distribution. The end result is that the three reviews on the front page of iTunes are mostly negative, because they are considered the most helpful by the iTunes rating system. So as a developer request, if you ever give a thumbs-up to a five-star review, it helps if you pick one that already has a lot of votes.
Frand...wow, that bites. I just took a look and you are exactly correct. That is such a subtle effect (the smaller group having a bigger effect on potential customers because their reviews SEEM more helpful and therefore appear higher on the "most helpful" list. Phew.) with potentially dire consequences. But we (the TA community) can fix this. Come on people...call to arms. If you purchased Zen Bound and think it is great, go find a review in the app store that you like and find helpful (ideally one that many people have already found helpful), and click "yes". If enough people do this (I mean, even just 10 or 12 people might make a difference) we could get some of the positive reviews higher on the list of "most helpful". This app clearly deserves support...let's try to help.
Once again, another flaw in Apple's rating system. Btw, Frand, how are sales? Is the income enough to be getting profit? I hope so.
It's dropping on the Aust AppStore chart. I hope being featured on the banner can help ZB get some deserved exposure. And while we're at it, I'm again thinking about Lite version. Would it help or would it not? Would it ruin the momentum? If only ZB has a lite version, everyone can try it first. Those who like it will purchase the full version and give it good reviews, while those who hate it can simply delete the app and forget about it, as they don't pay a penny for it so they're less likely to bother writing a review saying 'I get ripped for a boring game'. But then there would be less sales from those impulse-buyers or those who 'just wanna try it'..
I doubt there'll be a magazine article about a success story, but things are starting to look a lot better. Seems we'll be making games in the future too (And we still deny the existence of a Stair Dismount game on the iPhone.)
lol! how much do you earn ? 50.000$ per day with zen bound? why do you complain... many people don't like this game because it is really boring, but many people love it because it is nice, that's life, be happy with what you get
Heh, nowhere near that sum. And yes, we are happy for every day that the game is selling, and there's nothing we take for granted. But the observation is valid, judging from the majority of the reviews, people are mostly happy with their purchase, yet the system presents only the voices of those who feel otherwise. Every customer is entitled to their opinion, and we take all constructive feedback to heart, but it would be fair if the front page opinions in iTunes were a balanced overview of customer response, instead of a biased one. I can't imagine why we shouldn't be concerned over the sales of our game.
come on, we all know that top 10 games' selling are around 10.000 per day, at 5$ it makes 50.000$... ok you get "only" 70%, i forgot this. many people vote for negative comments because they agree, i don't see a problem there... is there another game on the store with "biased review" or is it just for ZB ? you made a fair game and your sales are really really good, you might not ask too much i think, just be happy with that, this is my point.
maybe you could try not be a total d-bad and just not comment if you're to lazy to take 5 mins to try and help out a dev who make a great game but due to a flaw in the system his reviews are getting worse
Unfortunately your projection is way off, and top 10 games do not sell 10 000 copies per day. Top 3 perhaps, but not top 10. As for biased selection of reviews, the point is still totally valid. Example: Game sells 103 copies, 100 people love it and write 5-star reviews, 3 people hate it and give it 1 star each. 200 more people buy the game and love it, 9 people buy the game and hate it. Then all the users vote the reviews with perfect distribution: Each of the 5-star reviews gets two thumbs-up, but each of the 1-star reviews gets three thumbs up. Therefore the front page of the game that shows three "most useful" reviews (as judged by the number of votes each) only shows the negative reviews, and the positive impressions of the vast majority of customers are ignored.
