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TIGSource ForumsDeveloperPlaytestingKing's Conflict: new free digital card game needs playtesters!
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Author Topic: King's Conflict: new free digital card game needs playtesters!  (Read 2694 times)
MarkSutton
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« on: September 26, 2014, 12:59:02 AM »

Hi all,
 
King's Conflict is a new and free (completely free, at the moment anyway) trading card game / wargame hybrid - units are created by playing cards, but they move on a map in a normal turn-based wargame manner. There are some videos on Indiedb if you want to see what it looks like.
 
It's still in development, but is fully playable already as a two-player online game - there's an AI too, but it's pretty basic at the moment. Windows only for now, but eventually cross platform (already works fine on Android).

You need to create an account to play, but it's quick and easy and doesn't ask for an email address, just a username and password. The game needs to keep track of who you are so your decks and collection last from session to session.
 
I'm looking for people to help me test it at the  moment, and very much open to any suggestions for improvements. I'll check here for replies, but would be even better if you used the dedicated forum I've set up.
 
Thanks in advance for any input, enthusiasm, or even negative comments!
« Last Edit: September 26, 2014, 05:34:05 AM by MarkSutton » Logged
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« Reply #1 on: September 26, 2014, 06:55:47 AM »

Adding a couple of screenshots to give an idea of what it looks like... there's full-size versions (and a gameplay video too) on IndieDB...

In-game screenshot showing cards and the map.


A screen from the help system to explain some stuff!
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« Reply #2 on: September 26, 2014, 08:08:30 AM »

The game's ______(write something like "good" or "bad" here when the thing actually installs and I can play it) ((lol, I forgot to edit that out, though, I don't really have a way of describing this game at this point.))

Is it really necessary for the game to be installed? It doesn't affect the way I play it, but most people that playtest here are more eager to play the game if the game's files are portable and you only need to download it. Also, the installer is just weird. It didn't give me the option to make a desktop link, or launch it right now. What game engine do you use? People here can help you with all these technical problems if they know more about the game, and it's better to just write all that stuff right away.

I started a game against the computer, and, I don't know what to do. I can grab the cards. I try to grab them on the battlefield, in the blue squares, they just go back to their place and nothing happens. So I move the piece that is in there up into the forest and click done. The computer IMMEDIATELY deploys 3 cards onto the battlefield, and I still can't do the same thing. So, then I realize that cards must be moved adjacent to the cards already on the battlefield. There's... 2 problems with this.

First: how was I supposed to know that? The first turn it did nothing wherever I put the cards, and the help screen you just posted said nothing about it, it just points a line to some HUD elements and explains what they do. Oh and, by the way, these kind of tutorials SUCK for any game. Nobody wants to read a huge frontloaded map of text they have to SOMEHOW comprehend to even play the game. Even if it's not that much text, it's still intimidating. It's intimidating in every kind of game, NO MATTER HOW COMPLEX the game is. It's better to make a tutorial mode, which explains to you each HUD piece step by step, and teaches you how to play by making you do stuff, rather than showing you stuff.

Then there's the second problem with the card placing system. It's hard to recognize where the card is going to land. I mean, I have the cursor and all, but it would MUCH more convenient to make the card's edge pin to the cursor's location and not just wherever you grabbed it, so that the card doesn't obscure the battlefield while you're placing it. Also, now that the card doesn't make it hard to see the battlefield, you can add a highlight to a square that the cursor is on, so that it would be even easier to understand where the card is going to be placed.

Also, there's a timeout. On a bot. And the enemy has defeated me while I was taking time writing all this. And there's no way to pause the game. I understand timeouts for a multiplayer session, but having timeouts for bots has no point. What if I want to get some coffee when I want to test some new strategy on a bot? I can't pause it, so it's either coffee or a humiliating defeat (I mean come on, it's a dumb bot), and you have to do the whole thing all over again.

I like what the game is going for, and it looks like I'd have a good time out of it, but I'm tired now and I'll go to sleep soon. I hope that all this stuff will be fixed the next time I play.

Oh and, how do you plan on doing updates? Do I have to download and install the game each update, or is it going to update inside the game? If the former, it would be more convenient to make the game's files portable, since the installation is kinda slow and glitchy. When I switch to another program and go back to the installer, the window goes black, and I don't even know what I did to fix it.


EDIT: Some cards lack descriptions. As in: Agent; Knights; Wall; Peasant Archers; Crossbowmen; Apprentice Mage; Men at Arms.
« Last Edit: September 26, 2014, 12:00:53 PM by ActionGamemaster » Logged

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« Reply #3 on: September 26, 2014, 08:42:52 PM »

ActionGamemaster made some good points. I strongly agree about the installer vs. portable issue, especially when it comes to testing works-in-progress.

I also found the interface very unclear, and some elements of gameplay hard to understand. For example, my troops were starving (as far as I could tell) but I had no idea how to obtain more food. I was also frustrated that I couldn't click on an enemy card to see what it was, until I realized I had to right-click even though zooming in on the cards in my hand uses a left-click.

I didn't have any trouble with where my cards would land, but I was pretty confused about the purple-bordered cards. I managed to put one down but none of the others I tried to place in the games I played ever worked.

Is all the art placeholder art? The cards use all sorts of different styles and the map looks like programmer art, so I'm hoping that's all going to change.

I find red apples to be more appealing, visually, than green ones so it seemed strange that green ones were good and red meant my troops were starving.

It might be a good idea to add little, convenient things like a "Play again?" button when a game ends.

This is a small thing, but in a game where you drag things around a lot, it surprised me that units were moved by clicking instead.

A configuration option to adjust the AI speed would be nice. Sometimes it takes a while for them to take their turn.

If I right-click on a unit and then right-click the same one again, it plays the fade/transition animation a second time even though it's the same card.

The map seems a little bit limiting with only one bridge, but I haven't really played enough to see how much of an effect that has.

The deck editor looks pretty nice. I had a weird issue with my mouse wheel in it, where the faster I spun the wheel, the more slowly the screen scrolled.

It's strange that the X is on the left when quitting, while in most games/programs I've used it's been on the right. That threw me off for an instant.

I liked the music quite a bit. The sound effects were decent too.

I never figured out how to attack, which seems like something that should be simple, so I didn't have any chance of winning.

Despite all the issues I had with the interface feeling unclear and sometimes counter-intuitive, I see a lot of potential in this game. I feel like once I know how it all works, this game could be really great. It's like a mix of a bunch of games I enjoy, so I ended up liking it even though I couldn't even play it properly.
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« Reply #4 on: September 27, 2014, 02:03:40 AM »

Thanks both, very useful initial feedback. I'm glad you like the concept - that's enough encouragement for me to carry on with it I think.

It sounds you are both telling me I need a proper tutorial - I'd been putting off doing this (not straightforward), but maybe I was misguided to think that labelled diagrams were any sort of substitute. These DO answer most of the questions you had, but I realize that no-one really wants to sit down and read or listen to a 15 minute lecture.

I guess walk-through tutorial is the next job then :-)

Some answers to other stuff:
- right click on cards for info - I think this may be OK if I make it more obvious (a floating hint perhaps?)
- obtaining more food, card colours, how to attack, etc etc - all in the help system, will be in the tutorial
- play again button - yes, easy enough to do, though it only saves one click. The AI is pretty poor at the moment anyway, you probably wouldn't want to play it repeatedly.
- art - mostly placeholder yes, if/when it ever gets commercialized it will get redone.
- AI speed - yes, could be adjustable, will put it on the to do list
- Moving by clicking not dragging - this is because dragging is used to scroll the map if you zoom in - dragging to move units as well would be an easy source of errors! Will make sure it's better explained
- Minor UI stuff - yes it all needs a bit of a polish
- Map - there are 4 for 2 player games - AI at present only plays on one
- Installer - I can easily add a 'start now' option. Plan was (for now) for patching to be done by re-downloading the installer, but I can move to a different system. Will have a think.
- Card placing - card should go translucent when you hold it over the map. Did this not work on your machine? I'll make it a little more translucent, and I like the idea of the tile you are going to drop on highlighting.
- Timeout - no need for it against AI I agree, can be removed
- missing descriptions - these cards have no special  powers, but maybe I should add SOMETHING for them.

Thanks for feedback again - will work on a tutorial then re-post here...

Mark

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« Reply #5 on: September 27, 2014, 06:20:19 AM »

I try to go into games mostly blind, so I didn't look at the help screenshot beforehand. I didn't see it in-game at all because I only needed help once I was playing and there doesn't seem to be any way to access it while currently playing. Also, that question mark on the main menu screen wasn't very noticeable to me.

I agree that you need a tutorial, but the main thing that caused trouble for me is how your game does some things in uncommon ways:

-The aforementioned X on the left and checkmark on the right
-The Options and Help buttons on the left instead of the right
-Using the left mouse button to scroll the zoomed-in map instead of the middle mouse button
-Not allowing the mouse wheel to be used for controlling zoom level
-Using left and right mouse buttons for the same action (zooming in on a card) in different situations, rather than keeping things consistent

I know I had more examples, but I've forgotten them now.

As for dragging pieces, I think it could work fine. You'd still want to snap them to the grid like you do when initially placing them.

Speaking of placing things, the "glow" of valid spots when placing new units is so dim that I didn't even notice it until my fourth game.

The "floating hints" would probably be a good idea.

The fire icon really comes across as a menu-related button to me, because it's beside the Options button. Putting game-related icons next to menu-related ones seems likely to confuse.

Looking at the Help section, I noticed that the text on some buttons flickers as I move the mouse over them. The way you've explained things there is pretty helpful, though.

The audio narration seems surprisingly good. The music should probably get quieter when you're talking, though. I could hardly hear you. A less important suggestion I have is that the Play button should be replaced by Pause when the voice is playing, rather than having both buttons sitting there and not visually reacting to clicks.

Little comments now that I understand some new things:

-Some of the apples are so far off the grid that they straddle the line between two squares. It's hard to know which square they're actually in.

-Requiring the player to press a button each time they want to see where food is seems unnecessary. Why not just make those tiles look slightly different? Most new players will probably never think to click the apple but could easily figure things out if you had a square with some sort of food in it. It's the same with the gold.

-Unless I'm missing something (Very possible), having the enemy always attack first really seems to put me at a disadvantage. Any unit that dies in one hit feels useless.

-When the camera is scrolling, it should probably get stopped by the edges of the map rather than going past and then popping back into place. I also felt like the movement needed more friction. As it was, even a small click-and-drag motion would send the camera all the way to the other end.

-In the last game I played, I only had one card per turn so I was severely disadvantaged against an opponent with a full hand.

Bug? The Help page about attacks seems to show diagonals being valid. I had one unit beside and enemy and one unit diagonally touching the enemy, but only the first unit attacked.

Bug? I clicked to move some horsemen to a valid square and my turn ended suddenly without them moving.
« Last Edit: September 27, 2014, 06:42:05 AM by Quicksand-S » Logged

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« Reply #6 on: September 27, 2014, 12:33:17 PM »

Thanks again Quicksand. My to do list on the UI is growing - I'll give it some attention over the next few days and try to do a tutorial too, but some responses to your comments:

- X and checkmark - easy to swap, will do it
- Options and Help in menu easy to swap to right too
- left button to scroll is largely so it will work the same on touchscreen OSs (e.g. Android). I can easily let the middle button scroll it too though
- mouse wheel - easy to add, will do it
- the left/right mouse button thing is something I'll have to think about how to handle - using left button to get info on in-play items is hard if you are going to move them, as pop up card might hide where you were moving to. Will give this some thought.
- dragging to move - will try implementing it and see how well it plays with things like scrolling.
- 'glow' - it's pretty clear on my screen, but will beef it up a bit, and maybe make it pulse or something
- fire icon etc - you are right I think, I need to move the settings/zoom icons to somewhere else
- reducing music volume during narration easy enough, good idea, will add it. Play/pause idea too.
- flickering text is a bug in the windowing library I use, not sure why it happens, will try to find a workaround


'Some of the apples are so far off the grid that they straddle the line between two squares. It's hard to know which square they're actually in.'
- They aren't in a square at all, they are in the centre of a region (group of squares of same type). I need to find a way to make this clearer...

'Requiring the player to press a button each time they want to see where food is seems unnecessary. Why not just make those tiles look slightly different? Most new players will probably never think to click the apple but could easily figure things out if you had a square with some sort of food in it. It's the same with the gold.'
- same as above, food/gold is (mostly) from regions, not squares as such (unless there is something in that square generating gold/food, like goldmines or farms). I'm not sure I can easily find a way to display this all the time without obscuring the board - will leave it as it is for now I think, but think about better ways.

'Unless I'm missing something (Very possible), having the enemy always attack first really seems to put me at a disadvantage. Any unit that dies in one hit feels useless.'
Enemy attacks first in your turn. But your units attack first in the enemy turn. I think it works quite well as a mechanic from a gameplay perspective, but it's maybe not very intuitive. A tutorial will help here I think.

'In the last game I played, I only had one card per turn so I was severely disadvantaged against an opponent with a full hand.'
Both players only get one card per turn unless they have anything in play that gives them extra cards... Player who goes second gets an extra card in initial hand though.

'When the camera is scrolling, it should probably get stopped by the edges of the map rather than going past and then popping back into place. I also felt like the movement needed more friction. As it was, even a small click-and-drag motion would send the camera all the way to the other end.'
- flick back at edges is easily turned off - I quite like it, but maybe it's a bit much. Flick speed is probably a bit high too, agree, will tone it down.

'Bug? The Help page about attacks seems to show diagonals being valid. I had one unit beside and enemy and one unit diagonally touching the enemy, but only the first unit attacked.'
Diagonals are valid for things with range 2 attacks (e.g. archers, magic users) but not for melee units. Possibly that's what was going on...

'Bug? I clicked to move some horsemen to a valid square and my turn ended suddenly without them moving.'
Assuming it didn't just time out then that does sound like a bug, though it's not one I've seen. Will keep an eye out for it...

Thanks once more. Next chance I get I'll get onto all this stuff and put a new version up. Might be a few days though...

Mark




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« Reply #7 on: September 27, 2014, 03:04:51 PM »

- left button to scroll is largely so it will work the same on touchscreen OSs (e.g. Android). I can easily let the middle button scroll it too though

Ah. That makes sense. I forgot that this was meant for touchscreens too.

Quote
- the left/right mouse button thing is something I'll have to think about how to handle - using left button to get info on in-play items is hard if you are going to move them, as pop up card might hide where you were moving to. Will give this some thought.

Maybe letting the right mouse button always be used for extra info would make sense. That way you're not messing with the left button at all.

Quote
- They aren't in a square at all, they are in the centre of a region (group of squares of same type). I need to find a way to make this clearer...

Ohhhh. Well, in that case maybe your "food display mode" makes sense. Since it's toggled on and off, you could potentially color-code regions to make it even more obvious how the map is broken down.

It might also be worth considering just having a "show resources" button, rather than separate ones for food and gold.

Quote
Both players only get one card per turn unless they have anything in play that gives them extra cards... Player who goes second gets an extra card in initial hand though.

Ah, I see. Well, it felt terrible to play the game with only one card per turn. Maybe there should be more "give me extra cards" cards in the default deck? I don't know.

Quote
Diagonals are valid for things with range 2 attacks (e.g. archers, magic users) but not for melee units. Possibly that's what was going on...

That does explain it, but it felt counter-intuitive and seems even worse if ranged units don't have that restriction. Then again, I suppose I managed to get used to the rules of various chess pieces, so this should be something players can just get used to and accept. It might be a good idea to show weapon ranges when a unit is selected.

On that note, tactics games I've played in the past have waited for me to confirm my moves before actually executing them. That way, I can temporarily move into a certain position and get an idea of how things are going to work out if I try that. Any chance you'll set up that sort of system, or do you want to ensure that players think before trying things? Either style seems equally valid to me, but I thought I'd mention this.
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« Reply #8 on: September 28, 2014, 11:04:41 AM »

Thanks, some more good ideas
- food and gold now work on mouseover instead of click (well they also work on click too, for touchscreen interfaces that don't have  mouseover). Will roll this and other changes out into another release next week sometime. Colour coding regions in some way is not a bad idea, will have a think about how to make it work.

- More 'give me more cards' units - yes, quite possibly, at the moment each king type only has one I think - that's a balance issue that needs playtesting out. But cards are meant to be a resource, you need to be careful how/when you use them. Again, a tutorial can make this all clearer.

- Ranged things - yes, I think chess piece analogy is good here - there are different attack types with different strengths, which players need to learn. Ranged and magic ARE stronger, as they can attack further and hit first, but they also cost a lot more gold in the first place - should balance out and enrich the game if I get the balance of costs right. Indicating attack range is a good idea, but will need to think about how to indicate that AND tiles it can move to without it looking too confusing.

-Confirming moves. Hmmm - most card-play games I've seen don't let you take card-plays back, as they reveal your cards to the opponent - better to encourage players to think before doing anything. Moving pieces could in theory have some sort of undo, but there are some technical hitches. I think I'll leave this as it is for now, but keep it as an option.

Back to work on the UI and then the tutorial now... :-)

M.




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« Reply #9 on: September 30, 2014, 07:37:26 AM »

****UPDATE*****

Have done a load of work on the UI - changes listed below. Am going to hold off on v0.106 release though until I can get the tutorial written, but if you want to look at the UI stuff in the meantime I can give you a replacement 0.105 installer with them all in...

M.

- Options and help icons on main menu screen now on top right, player name on top left. Help icon is bigger.
- X and check (tick) icons reversed in all pop-up dialog boxes
- Close icon in help system now at top right, not in button row at bottom
- Problem with flickering button text in help system now fixed
- Music volume now automatically drops to 25% during help system audio narration
- Several in-game icons not directly related to gameplay moved to a second column on the right hand side  - these are zoom in, zoom out, settings, and the chat icon in multiplayer. Only gold, food and fire icons remain on the left column.
- Fire icon moved to the centre of the left column
- New 'resign' and 'help' icons added to column on right. Resign does same as pressing escape. Help does the same as the help icon in the menus, bringing up the help system
- Food and Gold icons now only need a mouse-over (rather than a click) to show income and food source summaries. The enemy icons work for this as well as yours.
- Mouseover tooltips added for most game-screen controls. These tooltips can be turned off in the settings page.
- Highlighted squares on map (for movement and card placement) are now more strongly indicated with pulsing colour
- The tile into which you are about to move or play a card is indicated with a flashing black-and-white border
- Card translucency when dragging over the map slightly increased to improve clarity of placement point
- Map now scrolls a little slower when 'flicked', and correctly scrolls to the edge. It no longer overshoots and bounces back
- The mouse wheel now zooms the map in and out. Currently it doesn't keep the view central - this is a known bug and will be fixed in future versions
- Units can now be moved by dragging. The old click-and-click movement system still works as well.
- Info on units now appears when the mouse is hovered over the unit for 1.5 seconds. This previously required a right-click - right click still works as well
- Info on units is accompanied by on-map indication of which tiles the unit can attack
- Info card for units now appears in the play area on the left rather than on the map (to avoid obscuring attack indications). The play area is dimmed to emphasize the card.
- Info on an individual region is now available - hover the mouse over a tile or right-click. This shows the region on the map in a yellow highlight, and provides text giving it's size, value (in gold and food), and ownership. If it is contested it tells you how much health each player has in the region, and how much more you or your opponent would need to place in it to change its ownership
- Two-minute time-limit on turns no longer applies when playing against the computer.
- Settings page is now closed using an X icon in the top-right, rather than by clicking on the background. It can still be closed by pressing escape
- Installer now offers a 'start program' option
- New graphic for 'Oakenhearts' card (thanks to Erebus88, http://erebus88.deviantart.com/)

Improved patching system (to avoid new installer each time) is going to be a pain, but will do it this or next version...

Thanks again for feedback!
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« Reply #10 on: October 16, 2014, 03:39:05 AM »

King’s Conflict – big changes and version 0.200!

After weeks of sleepless nights and hard work, King’s Conflict has now been heavily updated and upgraded. The game now has new and improved artwork, a walkthrough tutorial, and many improvements to the interface.

A big announcement is that the King’s Conflict team has been joined by the talented young artist Nikita Kaur - http://nickkaur.deviantart.com/ - who has produced new card artwork and, most importantly, a hugely improved set of map tiles. Nikita is busy churning out more high-quality artwork, which will make its way into future updates

King’s Conflict is still the same great game, but now it looks much better and is far easier to learn. It’s also still free, ready to download and play, and looking for alpha testers. Download and join the fun!

Two images to whet your appetite - the new-look game-screen and some of the new card-art






 
Full list of updates in this version:

Miscellaneous:
- Tutorial now available from main menu - this carefully walks players through a game against the AI, explaining all key game concepts.
- New and improved art for 'Oakenhearts', 'Spy', 'Armoursmith', 'Mermen', 'Fire Mage', 'Lightning Wielder' and 'Mage King' cards (see credits for artists)
- New set of enormously improved artwork for the map tiles, courtesy of Nikita Kaur
- Log window listing all game events now available, so if you  missed something you can scroll back through it to see what happened.
- Two-minute time-limit on turns no longer applies when playing against the computer
- Music volume now automatically drops to 25% during help system audio narration
- Installer now offers a 'start program' option

GUI:
- Units can now be moved by dragging. The old click-and-click movement system still works as well.
- Options and help icons on main menu screen now on top right, player name on top left. Help icon is bigger.
- X and check (tick) icons reversed in all pop-up dialog boxes
- Settings page is now closed using an X icon in the top-right, rather than by clicking on the background. It can still be closed by pressing escape
- Close icon in help system now at top right, not in button row at bottom
- Problem with flickering button text in help system fixed
- Several in-game icons not directly related to gameplay moved to a second column on the right hand side  - these are zoom in, zoom out, settings, and the chat icon in multiplayer. Only gold, food and fire icons remain on the left column.
- Fire icon moved to the centre of the left column
- New 'resign' and 'help' icons added to column on right. Resign does same as pressing escape. Help does the same as the help icon in the menus, bringing up the help system
- Mouseover tooltips added for most game-screen controls. These tooltips can be turned off in the settings page.
- Highlighted squares on map (for movement and card placement) are now more strongly indicated with pulsing colour
- The tile into which you are about to move or play a card is indicated with a flashing black-and-white border
- Card translucency when dragging over the map slightly increased to improve clarity of placement point
- Map now scrolls a little slower when 'flicked', and correctly scrolls to the edge. It no longer overshoots and bounces back
- The mouse wheel now zooms the map in and out. Currently it doesn't keep the view central - this is a known bug and will be fixed in future versions
- Info on units now appears when the mouse is hovered over the unit for 1.5 seconds. This previously required a right-click - right click still works as well
- Info on units is accompanied by on-map indication of which tiles the unit can attack
- Info card for units now appears in the play area on the left rather than on the map (to avoid obscuring attack indications). The play area is dimmed to emphasize the card.
- Info on an individual region is now available - hover the mouse over a tile for 1.5 seconds or right-click. This shows the region on the map in a yellow highlight, and provides text giving it's size, value (in gold and food), and ownership. If it is contested it tells you how much health each player has in the region, and it reminds you of the rules
- Food and Gold icons now work with a mouse-hover to show income and food source summaries. The enemy icons work for this as well as yours. Right click also works.
- Hover-info for units, regions, gold and food can be turned on and off in the settings screen. Right click (or long-press) always works for these.
- Card text-box graphics improved

Balance:
- King's Touch raises health by two rather than one

PLANNED for upcoming release(s)
- Messages to tell players currently in menus or playing the AI when there are players waiting for an online game
- Improved patching system - currently new versions require manual download of a new installer from the website. A more convenient patching system is planned.
- Fix bugs with clicking right mouse button while dragging with left (just don't do this for now- I know it doesn't work properly)
- Audio narration for the walkthrough tutorial
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« Reply #11 on: October 20, 2014, 07:52:57 AM »

And...

v.201 is now out, with a proper patcher, and a system to notify users when other people are available to play online :-)

Enjoy!

Mark
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« Reply #12 on: October 22, 2014, 10:06:54 PM »

Wow. The amount of improvement is pretty astounding.

I really enjoyed playing this time. The battles were enjoyable. The interface was much, much clearer. Everything felt pretty good.

Gameplay seems to need a bit of balancing, though. With two archers guarding the bridge with a wall across it and a crossbowman nearby, nothing could get near me. If horsemen could attack diagonally, though, I would've actually been threatened. Having a second bridge would probably have made it a lot trickier too, because we both had big armies by the end but I didn't have to worry about theirs at much all because it had no way of getting to my leader.

One that would be nice is if I could see the attack range of a unit as I'm determining where to place it. I really expected guard towers to have a ranged attack, for example, so I positioned it in a spot that was terrible for melee.

I noticed some weirdness where sometimes I'd go to drag a piece onto the map and my cursor would be misaligned (sometimes something like 150 pixels from where it should have been). In those cases, placing the card didn't work either, so I had to let it go and grab it again.

I don't think units should participate in battles when they've just been put down, or maybe units should but structures shouldn't. I had the enemy place a castle (3 attacks in a row) right beside my army and just wipe it out without giving me any chance to respond.

The AI was a little weird. At one point kind of made a settlement in the top, right quadrant of the map rather than sending units to fight me. It still felt surprisingly good to beat it, though.
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« Reply #13 on: October 23, 2014, 02:52:25 AM »

Thanks again, feedback like this is gold dust, and glad you enjoyed the game. I'm getting enough positives back from people to carry on working on this.

A few responses/thoughts....

1. Bug with placement. I'd run into this too, though was hoping it was just a glitch on my system. Will have to investigate.

2. The AI. It does need work. The placing units in the top right thing is something it's meant to do if it thinks it needs to protect it's King, but maybe the weightings are wrong and it's doing it a bit too assiduously. The game is really meant to be primarily human v human, but I'm getting the message that people also want a better and more varied AI opponent. Working on improving it is my next big push I think... I'm going to tweak the algorithms, give it better sets of cards, and teach it to play on the other maps too. If necessary I can also provide a more challenging 'hard' mode where it gets more resources than you!

3. Attack range. I did toy with showing this when you place, but it would be hard to make it clean and clear as I'm also showing valid placement points at the same time. You can get it from right clicking of course, and attack ranges quickly become second nature after a game or two. Tempted to leave this as it is, but monitor other feedback.

3. Game mechanics. This is the interesting stuff! Some of the things you identify are just a function of a weak AI... your bridge plus wall plus crossbowmen thing for instance is perfectly breakable or bypassable by a clever human player. Units attacking on the turn they are put down is a thorny one though. I did think quite a bit about this when I designed the mechanics, and I think it mostly works OK. Plonking something like a castle down in the middle of tightly bunched low health units will indeed be devastating, but that probably just means that players should learn to avoid creating easy targets like this. The 'defender attacks first' mechanic also helps mitigate the problem - units put down will have to be a higher attack grade to get their attacks off first - and ranged or magic units with multiple attacks are expensive, have weak attacks (mostly), and often low health too. Things like dragons and fire elementals (very strong magic units) have other restrictions that keep them under control. This is one I want to monitor very closely and get as much feedback as I can on. Some possibilities might be capping the damage done by a unit on the turn it's laid down, or having it ALWAYS attack last regardless of it's attack type.

Thanks again for input - it would be great if you could post any further stuff on the KC forum (http://www.kingsconflict.com/forum) as well as or instead of here... if you don't mind I think I may post this exchange up there anyway...

Thanks once more!

M.


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« Reply #14 on: October 23, 2014, 08:40:55 AM »

2. The placing units in the top right thing is something it's meant to do if it thinks it needs to protect it's King, but maybe the weightings are wrong and it's doing it a bit too assiduously.

Oops. I must've been more tired than I realized when I wrote that. I meant top left, nowhere near their king who sat alone and unprotected on the right. They seemed to hang out around a town that was placed, instead.


What you say about the game mechanics makes sense, but I think there's still a lot of balancing needed. Many units only have 1hp, so everyone was dying constantly to the ranged units before they could even do anything. Only one enemy got near my bridge-blocking wall and it was melee so it couldn't even attack the archers that were standing right beside the wall, nor could it do more than a couple of points of damage to the wall before getting slaughtered when I moved an archer over slightly. If a player has two archers and a crossbowman guarding the bridge and defenders make the first move, what can the other player do? They'd have to send a bunch of units to the slaughter before they'd ever manage to get through. Are there many units that can cross water? That would probably help.

I also had a ton of gold by the end and nothing to use it on. It would be nice if there was some way to "buy" another card from my deck or something. Like my previous game, I had a very, very small hand for most of the game and it would have been nice to have a chance to get another card or two even if it meant spending gold and/or using up my turn.

Quote
it would be great if you could post any further stuff on the KC forum (http://www.kingsconflict.com/forum) as well as or instead of here... if you don't mind I think I may post this exchange up there anyway...

I don't think I'll be signing up for another forum, but feel free to post my comments there. Maybe they'll spark some more discussion.
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« Reply #15 on: October 23, 2014, 11:24:42 AM »

Ah yes, the AI does sometimes favour that corner. I need to adjust the weightings it uses for placing units.

Re balance - I'm certainly not saying that the balance is exactly right, I guess it will need a lot of tweaking, but Ideally I want to get lots of real data on this from a bunch of online games. I'm not so worried about balance against the AI.

Cards running out - I think really what's needed here is a few more mechanisms to increase card-drawing power. I'll add some more general (none king-specific) ones soon.

As for your blockade scenario - two archers and a crossbowman guarding the bridge - well it's quite fun to think of ways to deal with it, so here goes :-)


Warrior king specific:
1. King's Wrath to pick off units
2. Blade flurry - instant damage before the combat phase to all adjacent units
3. Any heavy melee/charge (knights, barbarians, men at arms) buffed by armoursmith and/or warhorns
4. Castle buffed with Reforged Heads from weaponsmith

Mage king specific (MKs excel at this sort of thing)
5. Firemages, carefully positioned, would make a real mess of this
6. Lightning Wielder and Lightning strikes would one shot the archers
7. Castle + Flame arrows so it attacks first
8. Wild Firestorm
9. Arcane Shield + pretty much anything
10. Mage towers
11. Teleport past the blockade
12. Fire elementals

Rich king specific (RKs really rely on normal cards + lots of cash)
13. Agents and assassinate
14. Bribery to get crossbowmen to change sides

Available to any king
15. Heavy melee or charge units buffed by priest(s)
16. Boatyards + Boats to cross river elsewhere
17. Kraken to tank and kill archers
18. Invisibility potions to walk straight through blockade
19. Alchemists - various potions used to buff a variety of units - lots of possibilities rolled into one here
20. Weather masters + rain, which negates range attacks
21. Mermen in the river allowing units to be placed on the other side and skip the blockade
22. Get control of the road with heavy units on it near your end, then place mercenaries at the other end
23. Just plonk down a castle, ought to be enough on it's own
24. 'normal' attack using something (e.g. a wall or farm) to tank some of the damage, then your own range or melee
25. Ice terror loves this sort of low health bunched target
26. Frost mage and Freeze plus a normal attack by other units
27. The Red Dragon! Just bypass the blockade, or fry it

There's probably more, that's just a quick brainstorm - but that's 27 that would work :-)

Thanks again...

M.
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« Reply #16 on: October 23, 2014, 11:45:54 AM »

I'm pretty sure the AI tried using mages, but they just got wiped out.

It seems like the game really relies too much on randomness. I got tons of long-range fighters and a few melee ones but very few upgrade-style cards. I never got a castle, or mages, or potions, or boatyards. Had I been faced with a blockaded bridge, I would not have had anything that could deal with it. I would have had to send my horsemen at the wall and let the first couple die after hitting it. I didn't even know 80% of the things you mentioned even existed in the game, even after playing through an entire battle.
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« Reply #17 on: October 23, 2014, 01:01:40 PM »


I'm pretty sure the AI tried using mages, but they just got wiped out.

That's the AI just being dumb I think... you'd want to make sure mage was only in range of one unit at a time. Probably it didn't.

As for all the other stuff... sounds like you have only played with the default deck, which is deliberately rather pedestrian... its meant to be a gentle introduction rather than being packed with cards that work in unusual ways. The real fun comes in building your own decks, and selecting a mix of cards that broadens the strategic possibilities. Probably I don't make that clear enough at the end of the tutorial.

Randomness... well your deck isn't random, you can edit it at will, but the order you draw cards in IS random (excepting that you can specify up to three cards to be in your starting hand, at a cost of starting gold). This deck shuffling randomness is an essential part of the way other trading card games work as well, and the core of what KC is trying to do as a game is to marry this source of randomness to a strategy wargame. The theory is that this will make sure no two games are the same, bring up lots of situations where you have to improvise solutions to problems with less than optimal resources, keep things generally a bit unpredictable, and still provide scope for strategic planning in deck design, and within each individual game. How ultimately successful this will be, to be honest, I don't know yet. I'm looking forward to finding out though ☺

M.
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« Reply #18 on: October 23, 2014, 02:51:22 PM »

Ah. Yeah, I completely forgot that there was deck-building in this game. I just went straight into battle to see what the changes were.

It would be nice, though, if the default deck had some interesting cards in it. I'm sure a lot of people who aren't big CCG players will just play with the default deck and focus on the strategy side of things. I realize that they're bound to miss out if they ignore such a large part of the game, but I think having at least a couple of special cards in the deck would be good. It's especially important if you want new players to get a feel for what the game has to offer.
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« Reply #19 on: October 23, 2014, 10:55:04 PM »

Thanks, good idea, I didn't put huge amounts of thought into the default deck... will see if I can jazz it up a little bit!

M.
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