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TIGSource ForumsDeveloperPlaytestingMORSE - A strategy game controlled using Morse Code. NEW BUILD AVAILABLE
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Author Topic: MORSE - A strategy game controlled using Morse Code. NEW BUILD AVAILABLE  (Read 1976 times)
AlexVsCoding
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« on: October 28, 2015, 01:55:23 PM »






Hey folks! So this is a post dedicated to getting some feedback on Morse! I'm aware the project has a rather steep difficulty curve so I'm working to fix this, but it's going to require your help.

I've always found when asking for feedback on the forums that providing questions for feedback tends to get more responses/more detail, so here's a list of things I'm wanting you to clarify/answer:

1. Was it clear who's team you were fighting for?
2. What was the first letter you managed to learn to a competent level and what ones do you still remember?
3. How quickly did you grasp the controls/How to output Morse?
4. Does what to do require greater explanation?
5. Did you manage to reach a game win/lose state?
6. What units/weapons would you like to see added to combat? (Factoring in this is World War One!)
7. Does the tutorial need to be in greater depth and do you have any suggestions?
8. Was the difficulty curve too steep and was there a point where things smoothened out?
9. Were there any game breaking bugs/issues that came up?
10. Was moving between the different battlefields an easy process?

Any other feedback or comments would be massively appreciated.

THANKS!
 
« Last Edit: November 22, 2015, 03:59:42 PM by AlexVsCoding » Logged

Fainz
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« Reply #1 on: November 01, 2015, 01:34:55 AM »

Hey folks! So this is a post dedicated to getting some feedback on Morse! I'm aware the project has a rather steep difficulty curve so I'm working to fix this, but it's going to require your help.

I've always found when asking for feedback on the forums that providing questions for feedback tends to get more responses/more detail, so here's a list of things I'm wanting you to clarify/answer:

1. Was it clear who's team you were fighting for?
2. What was the first letter you managed to learn to a competent level and what ones do you still remember?
3. How quickly did you grasp the controls/How to output Morse?
4. Does what to do require greater explanation?
5. Did you manage to reach a game win/lose state?
6. What units/weapons would you like to see added to combat? (Factoring in this is World War One!)
7. Does the tutorial need to be in greater depth and do you have any suggestions?
8. Was the difficulty curve too steep and was there a point where things smoothened out?
9. Were there any game breaking bugs/issues that came up?
10. Was moving between the different battlefields an easy process?

Any other feedback or comments would be massively appreciated.

THANKS!


Hey, I played the game until winning.

I watched the gameplay video for a couple of minutes before playing.

1. I learned that when watching the video, it might be unclear if the player hasn't watched it before playing.
2. E was the first :p. Others that I remember: I think T was - and small numbers went from .---- to .....
3. The morse output was pretty easy to learn. It took a while to figure out how to add the row number to it
4. Some small explanation for the row number could help. Also I learned the meanings of different units by watching that video, would probably be good to have them in game too.
5. I managed to win the game. Towards the end I was getting kinda overwhelmed by the amount of enemies on different rows, I couldn't kill even half of them (but I was so close to winning that it didn't matter).
6. Not sure if all of these were in WW1, but anyway: Zeppelins, submarines, tanks, flamethrower infantry
7. The tutorial should probably explain what the player is supposed to do (having just the controls presented until player manages to kill an enemy is kinda unclear). Having them in a text format probably wouldn't hurt (like: "Write morse code to enter coordinates, press red button to bomb that place. Oh, and those red dudes are enemy. Dont kill your own men")
8. The difficulty was fine at start. It got too hard when several additional rows were added and more enemies started coming (it's gonna take about twice as long to enter both a letter and a number, so having more enemies at that point doesn't really help the situation :p). Adding the additional rows at a much slower pace could help.
9. No
10. Yes that was pretty simple

Other comments:
It took a while to figure out where the demo is on the page, it looked like another gif until I clicked it.
The game was really interesting to play, best of luck with it!

-Fainz
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fingerman
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« Reply #2 on: November 01, 2015, 10:20:05 AM »

Hi Alex,

I have played your game but not completed it. It turned quite hard once the code book covered the screen and then when i was making wrong inputs i hat no way of taking them back and had to shoot my own ships and it was all very frustrating Smiley.

I couldn't quzite get the hand of how to change lanes. I gathered that you have to enter a a morse code and it changes the lane automatically without you sending it with the left button. I couldt get this to work for ---- i.e. lane 1 however!


Take care, fingerman
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nnyei
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« Reply #3 on: November 01, 2015, 07:00:31 PM »

I gave it a whirl as well.

1. Was it clear whose team you were fighting for?
No. The only thing I did prior to playtesting it was look at the controls so I didn't watch the video beforehand, and because of that I had no clue what was going on at first. Only after I've gotten comfortable with the controls and after I've killed a good chunk of my own my men did I pause to think what I could possibly do to get a victory state. The fact that the lanes where left vs. right plus the fact that the guys coming from the right were red clued me in. But even after I've assumed that was the case, I was never really sure I came to the right conclusion.

2. What was the first letter you managed to learn to a competent level and what ones do you still remember?
N is the first I memorized. I also still remember E, M, T, and P. I zeroed in on those few letters and used them over and over again because I felt like the game gave me enough leeway to only focus on those few letters without having to breach out. Throughout my playthrough, I felt like I could take my time.

3. How quickly did you grasp the controls/How to output Morse?
Pretty quickly. Although I did look at the controls for the game beforehand. I had a lot more trouble figuring out the objective of the game. Also, how to change rows took me a lot longer than it should have.

4. Does what to do require greater explanation?
I'd say yes. The game gives you basically no feedback on whether you did something right or wrong so it's a lot of trial and error going in. Or at least, it felt to me like that. I'll expound on that in answer 7.

5. Did you manage to reach a game win/lose state?
I got a victory state. But I have no idea if I did well overall or if I only just barely scraped by. If there's any visual indication anywhere that shows you how well or badly you're doing, I completely missed it. At first I thought it was the blue/red bar in the lower half of the screen, but it didn't seem to change at all so I dunno.

Actually, I started a new playthrough for a second and the blue/red bar does seem to indicate your progress. Huh. I completely missed that. Maybe you could make it more visually obvious when the bar changes?

6. What units/weapons would you like to see added to combat? (Factoring in this is World War One!)
Tanks definitely. Maybe a charging infantry group once in a while.

7. Does the tutorial need to be in greater depth and do you have any suggestions?
I think your options are:
  • giving the player feedback when they do something right or wrong (you have the progress bar, but like I said I completely missed that on my first playthrough so if nothing else, it should be more obvious)
  • putting in a little bit of story so the player knows what their goal is and a vague idea of how to achieve it (maybe like Papers, Please where the little exchanges of dialogue tell you what to do without being overbearing and intruding on the actual gameplay)
  • giving the player a little visual (like a little map) in the game that shows you the controls and who the enemy is and what your role is (i.e. that you shoot stuff so you shouldn't target your own men)

8. Was the difficulty curve too steep and was there a point where things smoothened out?
I actually found it too easy. I let a lot of enemies got by and in the stage where I was still figuring out what to do I killed a lot of my own men, so it felt like I didn't really deserve my victory. I only played through the game once so maybe I just lucked out, and maybe the "first stage" isn't supposed to be difficult to ease you into the gameplay, but in that sense, I didn't feel like there was a "difficulty curve" at all. More rows opened up later on, but I basically didn't use them because enemies kept spawning in row 0 so I never had to leave that lane. Switching between rows actually took me really long to figure out because of that. It was only in the last stretch of the game (like 30 seconds) that I really needed it and by the time I had the "oh, I see!" moment the game flashed "victory" at me.

9. Were there any game breaking bugs/issues that came up?
I tried playing it in Firefox three times and it crashed each time within 15 seconds, but when I switched to Chrome it went swimmingly. That Firefox crashed each time might be my own fault though because I haven't updated Flash in a while.

10. Was moving between the different battlefields an easy process?
The switching between air/land/sea was very easy and without any problems for me. But I basically didn't do anything with the land lane at all (it was almost always empty whenever I looked at it) and I still managed to win.


With that said, it was fun once I figured out what I was supposed to do Smiley Hand Thumbs Up Right
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Hypocee
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« Reply #4 on: November 07, 2015, 10:51:31 PM »

Hi, I've signed up here after reading TIGForums occasionally for years because it seems like your preferred venue for feedback on Morse.

1. Was it clear who's team you were fighting for?
Yup. I would note, though I'm not RG colorblind myself, that red and green bars aren't great for colorblind users but it doesn't matter so much for the ships because they only go one way. It would be trouble if you tried to distinguish the airplanes that way. The pure red planes may also be blurry or uncomfortable against the light background. I don't know how to fix that easily though, especially given that you've deliberately made everything a little blurry and dappled.


2. What was the first letter you managed to learn to a competent level and what ones do you still remember?
I went in knowing A, E, O, and S. I believe I is the first one I surprised myself by typing from memory. I, T, M, U, and the odd one out J but for reasons below.

3. How quickly did you grasp the controls/How to output Morse?
A minute or two? I had little trouble mapping the Morse key and field switching but didn't immediately understand the fire key and it felt strange for some time to use a 'movement' key for an action like that. On balance I do like very much that it's playable with three fingers in one place on the keyboard, so it's probably worth the weirdness.

It took me a deliberate effort separate from playing just now to figure out the order buffer system at all. The top row was clear enough but without close examination, I read the two bottom rows as an ordered list and was puzzled that things got added to the second row only except when they didn't. Part of this is starting off with one row and implicit zero fire - it established a rhythm of latter fire letter fire, and that remains good enough for a very long time until there are at least three rows opened up, and in many cases beyond that. It's probably very bad to refuse entry or firing without a row number, so I think you're stuck with training that bad habit.

"If a user reports they had a problem, they're almost always right. If they suggest a solution they're almost always wrong." Nonetheless, my first draft at a visual presentation for this would be to
1. Separate the dot-dash echo buffer from the other two rows by half or a full text line.
2. Play a very short but mellow sound when a character is translated and added to the fire buffer - a teletype or typewriter keypress or pencil scribble? This could easily become obnoxious and may be bad on balance.
3. Instead of two rows of brackets, have one set of brackets two rows high to the left and right of the fire buffer.
4. Show the implicit zeros at all times - in parenthesis, in grey, on a grey background, whatever. Establish ahead of time that firing is always actually on a row number as well.
5. Separate the first column in the fire buffer - the one 'in the chamber' - from the rest by half an em, a vertical line, a different background...make it special. If you decide this is worth putting salable work into you could sexy things up with sliding the characters left, but that may not suit the theme and is for far down the road.

4. Does what to do require greater explanation?
Yes. I had some previous introduction. In particular the air battle can easily miscommunicate itself in a couple of ways because planes go both ways and there may only be one color on the screen at times. It's reasonably obvious after a couple minutes that the colors indicate sides, but equally valid initial reads were that the red planes were just more important in some way and that there were different colors because you thought one color was boring. A 'happy' halo or trail on your planes coming back and a 'scary', quickening pulse around enemies going back might help a bit. Another possibility, though cheesy, is to flag paint 'em up. The major Western allies fortuitously have the same three colors in their flags, versus those of united Germany.

The land battle also starts with nothing on it for a long time and remains the darkest field, unreadable and unspectacular, yet is the goal into which the other two ultimately feed. This is a broad communications problem which needs time and iteration to address, but one initial step I'd try is to fade-flash the appropriate ship silhouette large on the land screen for a moment when a new unit is added from a ship, and the appropriate land unit if on the sea screen when a ship arrives. Similarly, an airplane silhouette on the land screen or the unit's silhouette on the air screen when a unit is revealed. Which direction the plane should face is a bit of a decision but probably the departure direction (right) would be best. If this makes sense it may well make sense to do it when the enemy gets through as well. The frequency of these events seems low enough not to be annoying.

I've watched some guy's What is Morse? video and don't know whether there's one from you that people are talking about in the other thread. I still have no idea whatsoever which ships produce which things, which doesn't really matter because my goal is to get any and all through but the whole relationship between them could become a wasted system.

5. Did you manage to reach a game win/lose state?
My first few minutes goof around session, no. My second half-hour session, I think so. I got a bunch of rows and a newspaper. My third session I've won several times.

6. What units/weapons would you like to see added to combat? (Factoring in this is World War One!)
Sappers, maybe? Anything to make the trench visibly change over time. There's so little you can do on the land screen that it's really all just fluff, and there's no inherent need to add a bunch of units if you're not inspired to. Rifles, artillery and dirt, for years - that's pretty much WWI.

In terms of it being WWI, my brain did take a turn at one point - wait, Imperial German sea convoys?! Yes Britain ferried across the Channel and the US and Commonwealth nations shipped long distances, but the defining WWI experience shared by both sides and the technology that more than any other built the bloody stalemate was the railway. Fundamentally this is a videogame about Morse code so whatever, but if there's a non-stupid non-wasteful way to replace the sea screen with trains that'd be historically cool.

7. Does the tutorial need to be in greater depth and do you have any suggestions?
Tutorial?

8. Was the difficulty curve too steep and was there a point where things smoothened out?
My second - first real - session I felt went on a bit too long. I was challenging myself to learn Morse while managing threats and eventually won but did start to feel panicked and pressured at the end as enemy ships started to use lower rows. I had no idea I was near victory - didn't notice the bar despite it being reasonably conspicuous, thought the increased rows were an increase in difficulty rather than that and a reward near the end of the game. I just now played maybe my fourth and fifth games and won handily while still looking up most inputs, at a rate pretty much determined by whether my units happened to be randomly picked off or not. It seems waaaay easy - fine at the proof of concept stage, just down the line this should be close to the tutorial difficulty if I'm typical. I did not expect to be winning while knowing like 8 letters of Morse.

9. Were there any game breaking bugs/issues that came up?
Game breaking no, but I'll file my bugs here.
1. Juliet cannot be entered in any screen. Dot dash dash dash is echoed in the buffer, disappears but nothing is entered into the fire buffer. All other characters work.
2. After the first transition between screens, and every screen transition thereafter, the Morse cheat sheet reopens, covering some of the play field and encouraging lookup rather than memory. It should default to closed.
3. The initial image of the key and "Controls" placard in the middle of the screen never goes away. Since the black and red keys are duplicated and responsive in the lower right, I assume it's supposed to. It's a real hassle. Maybe there's supposed to be a tutorial? But the game just starts with those objects on the screen forever.
4. The indication of squares being hit when you fire extends in a cross pattern three squares out, as I gather from your blog it actually affected back in May. The actual affected area is a one-square cross.
5. The indication of squares being hit always appears centered at A0, no matter what square is actually hit. I believe I had one game where the indicator hit the proper squares for a while, but can't swear to it and don't know what I could have not done.
6. The indication of squares being hit is not very conspicuous on the sea, and virtually invisible on the other two screens. Eventually you'll presumably want to Vlambeer it with little streaks down and infrom your side of the board and a pattern of randomized splash/gout/puff animations, but in the placeholder art phase you may want to think Bomberman.
 

10. Was moving between the different battlefields an easy process?
Trivial. Sensible.

Outside those inquiries, two suggestions and a sub-suggestion:

If you can spend small effort in these early stages to eventually let the player choose a side, why not do so? There are plenty of Germans and Austrians and so on, and picking a side in WWI doesn't carry the meaning WWII does. Its cultural legacy is of a weird, crazy, imperial nonsense tragedy all around.

With the one-square cross area of effect, it's easy to rely on a few of the easier letters and skip the rest. If players want to challenge themselves I suppose they can, but they'll have to resist temptation. If the game is currently too easy as I experienced above, we may have a solution in the shape of two problems. What if the game periodically (say, every 30 seconds) randomly rerolled a set of columns to be unavailable for targeting? You'd have to ensure they were spaced a minimum of one apart, of course (edit: not of course at all! So there's a square you can't hit at a given time? Tough! Could be cool), but if the central concept is a game where sending Morse is the central challenge, this would prevent just aiming at T and E all the time and accepting some friendly fire.

Not a request - you're doing plenty just by making this neat thing so far - but if this is successful down the line, I choose to think out loud. In Morse acquisition hearing/copying is more difficult than sending. I'm imagining this same general concept applied to dogfighting maneuvers - naval shell splashes - incoming artillery, just in the space offered by the same theme, based around moving to the right word on a shifting word-search board. You'd get dragged into Farnsworth vs. Koch vs. SRS and your purpose in this project is to entertain, not to instruct. I'm just throwing that out there for someday maybe, it might make another good game as well as a handy one.
« Last Edit: November 07, 2015, 11:41:47 PM by Hypocee » Logged
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« Reply #5 on: November 08, 2015, 08:22:42 AM »

Something I remembered and forgot three times while assembling that report: I had the impression from my first session that the game took a very long time to get going. I have memories of flipping between the screens multiple times with no enemies in sight anywhere. Even when there's something to do, most of the action until the end game is on the sea screen and you're often waiting for an enemy ship to creep away from friendlies or vice versa.

My second session I won multiple times in a reasonable time, so it's entirely possible this isn't a problem. The question I'd have is whether I crossed some threshold of avoiding friendly fire so the positive feedback loop on rate could ramp up, or whether I just didn't happen to get a game where lots of my units were shot by the enemy. Only more runs will tell.

I can't say for sure that this is a problem at all, nor whether it's a problem specifically for new players getting their first impression or will become a problem specifically for experienced players waiting for the good part. If you decide it is, the option I felt like requesting during my first session was a fast-forward key.
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« Reply #6 on: November 08, 2015, 03:29:25 PM »

Oh my, this is a brilliant game! Thanks for making it. I've got some Teensy boards (basically Arduinos) and am somewhat inspired to build my own Morse key...

1. Was it clear who's team you were fighting for?
3. How quickly did you grasp the controls/How to output Morse?
4. Does what to do require greater explanation?
7. Does the tutorial need to be in greater depth and do you have any suggestions?
I saw the playthrough video first and that made everything clear.
Quote
2. What was the first letter you managed to learn to a competent level and what ones do you still remember?
I already knew most of the Morse alphabet.
Quote
5. Did you manage to reach a game win/lose state?
I've played two or three times now and comfortably won.
Quote
6. What units/weapons would you like to see added to combat? (Factoring in this is World War One!)
X-Wings and TIE Fighters, obviously. And zombies, even more obviously. Wink

Seriously though - an enemy type which appears in a fixed spot and requires a direct hit to kill. And maybe a ship which moves up and down the battlefield, or on a random patrol path, firing at your ships - again forcing the player to fire at a specified place.
Quote
8. Was the difficulty curve too steep and was there a point where things smoothened out?
9. Were there any game breaking bugs/issues that came up?
I wondered why the land battlefield had no enemy troops - turns out that I was sinking all the enemy ships, which meant that enemy troops never appeared. This is a bit of a slippery slope. Perhaps there could be a base rate of enemy infantry, which is boosted by successful ships?

Also, the bars increase exponentially. Once you have five lanes of ships pumping troops into the battlefield, the remaining five seem to arrive almost immediately.
Quote
10. Was moving between the different battlefields an easy process?
No - the guide would pop up each time. Why not have the spacebar toggle the guide for all the battlefields at once?

Otherwise I noticed it's much easier to key a familiar letter and wait for a moment than it is to fumble for a less known letter and get an immediate hit. I was mostly using about four letters. There's rarely an occasion you'd use Z or Y unless you're very fast. Also the numbers: I was keying 1 and 2 a lot, but haven't keyed a number higher than 5 yet.

Can the length of the space between keyed codes be made adjustable or linked to the keying speed? I found I had to leave an exaggerated space between a letter and a number.

A 'cancel' or 'clear' function would be great - perhaps using the Morse prosign for 'error'?

A related game idea: playing as an artillery spotter. You would issue fire instructions to your battery(s), and then send them corrections so they can adjust their aim. And maybe receive requests for fire onto particular targets from ground commanders. I'm envisioning a fixed map (not one which increases gradually) where the difficulty could ramp up with more targets presenting themselves, counter-battery fire... and the player could either be situated in a high place, in an observation balloon, or in an aircraft...

I really like the aesthetic of the game! All the trapezoids.
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AlexVsCoding
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« Reply #7 on: November 16, 2015, 12:24:06 PM »

Hey Folks!

Update time!

So I've added an absolute tonne of stuff in the last week - Based on the feedback of wonderful folks like yourselves I've added/fixed a bunch of stuff!

These include:
1. Tutorial - There's likely still a lot of work to do on it, but I've added a basic tutorial into the game to get players started. I've scrapped the old widget, instead staggering the introduction of the controls (First getting you to target a unit, then launching commands, then movement between levels). You cannot move off of No Man's Land until you have eliminated your first unit using Morse Code. I've added two indicators (A flickering on the Key Sheet on the letter X and a slow flashing on the grid where you need a strike). Upon hitting these, it loads the second part of the tutorial and unlocks movement.
2. J is fixed. Woo
3. Progress Bar - For the units you destroy/escort, you'll receive experience. Fill the bar and you unlock a row, along with a fresh set of enemies. This currently manages the difficulty (Starting with a manageable number of enemies and ending with a tremendously high volume. It's worth noting at this point that it is possible to win without getting to the top level (And worth attempting since 10 rows of military is a very hard thing to manage.
4. Basic introduction and explanation of objective.
5. As you level up, you are able to stack an extra number/letter each time. To add, I've reversed the order that new commands are added:

BEFORE:
I type the letter Q
T, P, Y, Q
AFTER:
Q, T, Y, P

This doesn't seem like much of a change, but it makes a colossal difference to how you input commands. Rather than having to wait/launch co-ordinates to get to your current commands at the end of a long list, you can type a new coordinate in and it pushes everything back one. I'll get a visual example to explain how this effects gameplay (In the meantime give the new build a try to find out for yourself).
6. Fixed Key Sheet - Whilst I wanted to have a Key that pops up and down, for now it's been causing too many problems (flickering/popping up when it isn't meant to) so I made it into a background and toggle it with a fade in/out. This looks a lot smoother now.
7. Added an extra level to give the player a little bit more time on the highest difficulty.
8. Colour coding of grid and co-ordinates, updating of font and changes to spacing.

Give the updated build a play now!
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« Reply #8 on: November 16, 2015, 05:02:26 PM »

I gave it another go. Smiley I'll forego the QA format because I'd repeat myself.

I played it two times and I got massively overwhelmed. I lost both times -- on my first playthrough I had opened up 6 lanes and on my second attempt I had opened up 5 lanes.
I still need the morse cheat sheet except for a couple of letters, but I feel like I can't keep up with the game in its current state. Every battlefield was swarmed with enemies and I found myself internally giving up once 4 or 5 lanes had opened up. The game's too hard for me right now. No No NO(How the tables have turned!)

I like the little introduction/tutorial. Hand Thumbs Up Right

BEFORE:
I type the letter Q
T, P, Y, Q
AFTER:
Q, T, Y, P

↑ I like that new system. I hardly had time to use it though because there was no time for planning with enemies popping up everywhere.

I find changing lanes a bit cumbersome. I was grateful when enemies spawned in the 0 lane because it meant I would only have to input a letter to take care of them. Part of me wants the game to work the way that once you type in a number e.g. 3, you stay in that lane until you input another number. That would speed up the gameplay a lot, especially because I found myself so overwhelmed this time around. Though, that might only be because I haven't played the game a lot of times yet, not to mention that it might go against the whole idea of inputting coordinates. So take this comment only with a grain of salt because I'm coming from a position as someone who got stomped on by the game in this particular version.

One thing you certainly accomplished with this update: you can't rely on just a couple of letters anymore. Which is good in my opinion, but like I said the difficulty is too high for me at the moment.

What I hadn't realized until I saw the gameplay video (i.e. you might want to make that a bit clearer for the player):
What actually gets you a victory. That is, the importance of the land battlefield and that getting a man over to the other side gives you an additional lane. I had no idea what did that on my first couple of playthroughs.

Bugs or things that were weird for me:
Shortly before my defeat, my screen was covered in enemy ships and airplanes and I experienced massive slowdowns. The game lagged so hard it even failed to pick up my inputs properly. Maybe it's the web player's fault, maybe it's just that my computer is a bit of a potato, but either way it became almost unplayable at one point. Though, you can argue that the run would've already been unwinnable at that point even if it had run smooth like butter. Tongue

Would be really nice if the game would start after you've completed the tutorial. I went away from my computer after I've completed my first playthrough and when I returned to give it a second go, the progress bar indicated that I was already at a massive disadvantage. While we're at it -- a pause function would be nice, though I'm sure you already know that.
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« Reply #9 on: November 22, 2015, 07:03:26 AM »

Hey folks, so this is a quick update regarding Morse. Based on an event I went to earlier in the week, I have made a bunch of changes: whether these are for the better or worse we are yet to see.

1. I have implemented a pause state as I know many people have been struggling with comprehension of everything along with being able to get away from the intensity of gameplay for a moment. For now I have locked the camera movement once the game is paused. I might change this to allow people to review what is happening on different battlefields, although this might give the player too much of an advantage.

2. Sound is now toggleable which I personally added so I can play the game whilst watching videos simultaneously/listen to music.  It's currently locked to a key but I would like to implement into the pause menu.

3. The help sheet that comes with the game had some problems with people reading the dots and dashes incorrectly in particular the number based Morse which they perceived as a dot to start a bullet point rather than part of the actual message. To fix this, I shifted all the full stops up a row in line with the dashes.

4. The biggest change that I've implemented is a new control system. Rather than recording, then instantly removing a coordinate, the last recorded coordinate is retained until a new one is inputted. This means you can fire as many times from the same spot as you like without having to re-input the information. It means you could select a row then choose coordinates along it to eliminate multiple targets without needing to type it in over and over and over again. At this time I plan to offer both methods of gameplay along with potentially a third extra hard setting where the amount of data on the screen is limited.

5. I've also restricted the spawning of enemies until the tutorial has finished to prevent players from being overwhelmed.

6. I'm currently looking into method of having the soldiers have less influence  individually as the balance shifts further to the extremes. What I mean by this is many games I have seen end with the soldiers attacking in very large groups but only needing one to cross the trenches to win (which feels somewhat of a hollow victory). I prefer as the balance of power shift that it becomes necessary for more soldiers to cross the trenches to influence the shift of power.

 Stay tuned for a build release soon.
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AlexVsCoding
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« Reply #10 on: November 22, 2015, 04:39:32 PM »

Hey Folks!

The new build is launched! Here's some additional things I've added in:

1. Difficulty select - I've decided to present the two different modes of control (explained in the previous post)

2. Fixed a bug where the player infantry ran on the spot instead of playing the idle animation

3. Tinkered the hell out of the diplomacy system - Totally broke my brain today adding an extra layer of complexity to the battle balance bar - For every 1 number in the direction towards a victor, the number of soldiers required to cross no man's land is whatever that value is.

Let me explain:

At the moment in Morse, if the enemy/player reaches -11 (Enemy) or 11 (Player), the game will end. In-between those numbers, you have a tug of war esque scale with which the players must get soldiers across the trenches in order to push in their favour. Many were complaining that there wasn't enough time spent on the higher levels (The moment you were level 10, even though there'd be a huge number of soldiers on the opposite side, one of your soldiers crossing the border would mean you would win. Rather than it taking just one soldier to shift the bar across, it works like this now:

Number of soldiers needed = Value trying to acquire
1 = 1 Solider
2 = 2 Soldiers
3 = 3 Soldiers
4 = 4 Soldiers
Etc etc.

I've also added all of the updates/upgrades to the iPad version, and it looks pretty good.



Stay tuned for more updates!
« Last Edit: November 22, 2015, 05:00:55 PM by AlexVsCoding » Logged

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