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[zugz]

Hi,

I made this game public a couple of months ago, but almost literally no-one has actually played it. So I thought I'd post here in the hopes of getting some feedback.

It's a game about designing maximally tricky puzzles within tight constraints.

At its core, it is an abstract turn-based puzzle game in which you pick a lock by co-ordinating a pair of tools to manipulate its mechanism. The locks you pick are designed by other players; once you have figured out the secret of how to pick a lock, you must secure that secret behind a lock of your own devising.

It looks a bit like this:


It is Free software. Source and binaries for linux and windows are here:

http://mbays.freeshell.org/intricacy/

[Mr Speaker]

I'm on a mac, so can't play it (from binaries) but I think you might need to spruce up that page if you want people to get interested enough to install it... the screenshots look intriguing, but there's no hint to what this game is about (beyond the content-free "A game of competitive puzzle-design.") - most people aren't going to bother trying to figure out what the game is about, and THEN figure out actually how to play it.

Add some more descriptions, and a short-n-punchy video to explain what it's about, and who would want to play it!

[monsterkillu]

I downloaded it and played it for sometime .. Honestly i didn't get anything..  For me its too abstract.. Atleast, please give some instructions or hint about how to get started hidden somewhere (not to annoy those hardcore puzzle players) so that everyone could have a go ...

[zugz]

monsterkillu: what was the difficulty? There are full details of the game in the README, but I hoped people would be able to mostly figure things out without it.

[zugz]

Mr Speaker: I added a little blurb to the webpage. Any better? I'll think about a video... I'm not sure I could make a non-naff one, though.

[Mr Speaker]

Great description - add this everywhere you're posting it! Combined with screen shots is SUPER intriguing now!

I'd put the description (and the screenshots) at the top above "Written in Haskell, with SDL and Curses user interfaces. Free software, released under the GPLv3." - the tech and the license should not be more important than the game itself. It's cool that it's in Haskell, but makes no difference to 99.9999% of players - who just want a good game, and will just abandon the page by the time they get to "SDL and Curses".

Also, you should do some playtesting with random strangers - Don't tell them the rules, don't give them any advice or instructions - just have them play the game. Don't expect a single person in the whole world to ever ever ever read a README - let alone onscreen instructions (which are just as bad... seriously, people don't read things, ever ever ever). Your game needs to explain itself as it goes else it'll be abandoned immediately by zillions of potential fans!

The idea of a crazy lockpicking game is so interesting and cool - I think if you packaged it right you'd end up with a lot more players.

[zugz]

Mr Speaker: thanks for the advice about presentation. I have implemented some of it.

I'd still be interested in getting some feedback on the actual game, if anyone cares to try it.

I've just put up a new release, which among other things drastically shortens the tutorial - I have a hunch that people were tending to get stuck on the difficult later levels that were in the tutorial, and give up without ever registering on the server and trying the actual game.

[Noyb]

I like this! Promising start, but everything outside the main mechanics is a lot more confusing than it needs to be.

I haven't tried designing any puzzles yet, but I finished the tutorial and a few player locks (without declaring/securing solutions). Very good use of lockpick theme in the mechanics, with all the moving parts, springs, holding bits open while you do work elsewhere. I like the breadth of approaches I've seen so far: flooding the lock with pushable blocks, locks that make things worse if you try and immediately pull the pin back, multistage puzzles about gaining free space in segmented rooms.

The whole UI is overwhelming and obtuse as heck, makes it hard for the player to even find the tutorial, let alone get started solving puzzles and go into the online metagame. I'm sure you're used to it by now, but that doesn't mean it actually conveys what you want to new players! Mr Speaker made a good suggestion for this: watch someone else play your game without prompting. (If you can't get someone to test it in person, a Google Hangout/Skype screenshare works just as well.)

Took a fair bit of trial and error to get the gist of the movement mechanics: the larger tool can move 6 directions freely and rotate. The smaller ball can move 6 directions, but must keep moving until it hits a solid/blocked object. This info should probably be explicit in the game proper. Figuring out the basic mechanics isn't the interesting bit, it's applying them to each puzzle.

The number controls might make sense on a numpad, but a lot of laptops don't have those. The default non-numpad controls are oddly placed (YUHLBN?? So much space between left and right!) they made me stay with mouse control. Didn't investigate remapping.

I'm not sure showing hotkeys should take priority over onscreen buttons with more meaningful icons! I found myself having to mentally translate between the otherwise arbitrary numbers on the controls and their actual meaning. It looks like the engine can draw larger buttons, graphical buttons, and text directly on screen elsewhere. It might be clearer to have the buttons graphically show their meaning, and include hotkeys in the tooltip instead.

[Deraj]

I like the premise (namely trying to crack other folks' fiendish creations), but I felt like the interface and learning curve detracted from my experience. I honestly didn't get very far before I felt lost

For the interface:

• On Windows, a console window is launched (I believe you can tell SDL to use WinMain instead of main so that no console window is launched)
• Having to hover over each button to see what it does was tedious
• Clicking the close button (again, on Windows) doesn't exit the app
• Having a Curses interface is cool, but... is it really necessary these days? Maybe save yourself some trouble...

For the learning curve:

• The tutorials should have some text explaining what to do
• I know you mentioned there's a README, but as has already been noted, people don't want to read before diving in

Again, I like the premise a lot. If you're looking for inspiration, for kind of a similar genre but more accessible, you might want to take a peek at The Castle Doctrine.

[zugz]

Thanks Noyj, Deraj, for your feedback. I've put up a new release (0.2.6) incorporating some of your suggestions.

Regarding the UI: mouse control is not a good fit for this game (the lock-picking part at least), so the GUI is designed around teaching the player the keyboard controls. I expect players who are wedded to the mouse are going to find this painful whatever way it is presented. The buttons are meant to make it minimally painful, however, by providing a permanent on-screen reminder of the keys, giving new players the fall-back option of mouse control, and making remapping keys relatively painless (right-clicking on a button).

"hyulnbjk" are extended-vi keys, traditional in roguelikes, and make sense for touchtypists. I considered making "awedxzqc" another option, closer to the "wasd" which FPSes seem to have popularised, but it's rather cramped and clashes with too many other natural keybindings (like 'q' to quit). I'm open to suggestions for alternatives.

Text in tutorials is a good idea. I've added a line in each of the four, briefly explaining the absolute basics, and also advising to use the keyboard for movement and indicating how to rebind keys (which is otherwise insufficiently discoverable, I feared).

Listing key bindings in the hover text is also a good idea. I've added it.

Quitting using the window manager should now work. I don't know what's going on with windows and the console window, I'll look into it some time.

I've also removed a couple of buttons from the layout you're presented on first starting, which will hopefully make it a bit less daunting. But I don't see how to take that further without removing functionality which ought to be there.

I hope all this will help make the UI less confusing for new players. I suppose it will always be confusing, because unusual, but I'd rather it didn't put off too many potential players.

Regarding the curses interface: that's the main interface as far as I'm concerned

And yes, the release of the The Castle Doctrine alpha was what prompted me to actually write this game (the idea had been bouncing around in my head for many years), and the design of the metagame was very much informed by that of CD. The differences are due to (i) this being a pure puzzle game, rather than the "tactical roguelike" CD aims for, and (ii) my wanting it to be entirely resistant to cheaters and sock puppeteers, without needing a money-gated community like CD's.

[Deraj]

I don't know what's going on with windows and the console window, I'll look into it some time.

Definitely not a big deal, but, depending on your compiler, this could just be as simple as building the program as a "console" app versus a Windows app. This may also help:
http://wiki.libsdl.org/FAQWindows#I_get_.22Undefined_reference_to_.27WinMain.4016.27.22

Also, I have to say that it's awesome you (apparently) use the Curses interface. Way back when I used Bash/Screen/Vim/GCC/Links for all my development... glad to see you're still keeping the dream alive

[zugz]

Fixed, ta.

(by adding "ghc-options: -optl-mwindows" to the cabal file)

I use Bash/Screen/Vim/GHC/Elinks, actually, but close enough!

[zugz]

You made me realise that it was a bit silly that there was no direct mouse control of tools when lockpicking. So I've added it - click on a tool to select, next to it to move, use mouse wheel to rotate hook. It's cumbersome, but maybe better than clicking on buttons as a stepping stone to using keys.

[mpolney]

Latest build doesn't seem to work for me (0.2.5 worked fine). This is what the game looks like after loading. Also, if I click on a black hexagon in the main screen I get an non-exhaustive pattern match:

SDLUIMInstance.hs:(309,53)-(315,74): Non-exhaustive patterns in case

The new controls are better, but I think both the controls and presentation have a long way to go. It needs smooth animation to make the mechanics more intuitive. For example, when you perform an unsuccessful move I'd rather see the partial movements and collisions than collision markers.

[zugz]

> Latest build doesn't seem to work for me (0.2.5 worked fine). [156]This is
> what the game looks like after loading.

Hmm. That means it's failed to find the font file. Is this on windows? How are
you running the game? Did you move the executable out of the directory it
comes in, or anything like that?

> Also, if I click on a black hexagon in the main screen I get an
> non-exhaustive pattern match:

Ugh, that's a stupid bug I've introduced with 0.2.6.1. Thanks, I'll upload a
fixed version soon.

> It needs smooth animation to make the mechanics more intuitive.

Hmm. I don't think the mechanics can be faithfully represented by an
animation, so I suspect this would be more confusing than helpful, while also
being annoying and distracting.

But perhaps there could be some in-depth visual representation of the details
of the mechanics - I'm imagining a command which will show a step-by-step
account of the processing which led to what happened in the last move. Would
be tricky to make it wordlessly understandable, but maybe possible. I'll
consider it.

[mpolney]

I'm on Windows 8. VeraMono.ttf is in the directory I'm running intricacy.exe from. The problem has disappeared though. Maybe I made a mistake unpacking the zip.

[zugz]

It's been a year, so maybe I can reasonably prevail upon the friendly TIGSers once more to tell me what's wrong with my game.

I've tweaked the interface in miscellaneous ways over the last year, including making the game fully playable with the mouse. I'm hoping that deals with the worst of the difficulties newcomers were having in working out how to drive the game.

I guess I'm interested in knowing about anything which might put potential players off (modulo the obvious niche appeal of an abstract puzzle game with a focus on level design!).

That url again:

http://mbays.freeshell.org/intricacy

[Quicksand-S]

I start the game and see a bunch of spread-out hexagons of different colors, along with one big, outlined one. Clicking a red one caused a green and red one to appear. I clicked green and the game closed...which makes me think that I'm missing some text or something and that was actually the "Quit Game" option. My screen has absolutely no text on it anywhere.

Maximizing the window sometimes causes the graphics to stop drawing. In that state, clicking the X in the corner actually makes the graphics come back rather than closing the window.

[zugz]

Quicksand-S: sounds like it isn't managing to read the font file, VeraMono.ttf. Is this on Windows? If so, are you running it from the directory you unzipped it to?

[Quicksand-S]

Yep. Windows 7 64-bit. I unzipped the archive, font file and all, and ran intricacy.exe. I just tried installing the font to see if you'd programmed the game to possibly find it that way as an alternative, but there was no improvement.