Mobile First Impressions

[Iser]

Awesome guys!  Just got it and finished a game.  
I am so happy that I can take my favorite TD on the go with me.  

 

I can see that you guys worked very hard on this.  

Thank you guys.  

 

Here are the notes: 

 

- Element selection process can be improved.  The edge glow is not enough.  Several times, I didn't realize that I had elements to select.  Implement another visual cue to highlight that it's the user's time to pick an element. Adding a flashing arrow could draw attention it.  

 

- I didn't even realize that I had to press Start to begin the game.  You need a bigger attention grabber there.  These things need to be obvious, especially to a beginner.  

 

- Improved death animation would add a lot.  Right now, it's awkward. Maybe try adding a fast fade-out?

 

- Great controls in general.  I was pleasantly surprised at how well it worked.  

But, the outer edge selection could be improved.  Here is a picture: 

 

 

Right now, pressing anything outside the green lines (basically blue line and out) completely de-selects everything.

Make the blue-line a neutral zone.  I can't count how many times I pressed into the blue area and lost all my selection.  

 

- How about a selection lasso with a 2-second long press?  Long press locks the screen from scrolling, and enables you to create a sim-city style grid to select your towers.  

 

- There is no information for the next wave unless you click into it.  Make it visible on the main screen.  It is a very important piece of information.  

 

- There needs to be text to the elements.  Here is an example of how it should be: 

 

 

- Upgrading towers is a massive confusing process.  Display a tree when you press on the tower.  I'll do a mockup of this later.  It's midnight and I need to go to sleep.  

 

- Level 3 Element was INSANELY hard to kill.  Also, it was very hard to see its HP bar.  

 

- Too quick especially being able to skip the wait time and playing it at 2x.  Add more waves.  The game felt like it ended way too soon.  Maybe adding 10 more waves to it, without elements, could work.  I dunno.  Maybe 5 waves. 

 

- Add a quick tutorial that makes beginners play through the first 15 waves.  Also, most importantly, release a free version to just play the tutorial.  

 

- Everyone, go leave a review of the app.  

 

Aight, I'm going to sleep.  I'm sure I'll have more notes as I play some more.  

Edited June 16, 2016 by Iser

[Iser]

Just woke up and played a game in bed.  That's how excited I am about the mobile version. 

 

Couple more things: 

 

1)  Right now, if you have tiles selected and you scroll the screen, it de-selects.  There were several times I had to zoom into get an accurate selection, only to lose all my selection when I, by instinct, try to scroll.  

 

2)  Seriously, what's with the level 3 elements? I never had trouble clearing it in Dota 2 version in normal difficulty. I have leaked it every time in mobile.  

[Karawasa]

Awesome feedback! We're going to be implementing most of these for the next release.

 

12 hours ago, Iser said:

- Upgrading towers is a massive confusing process.  Display a tree when you press on the tower.  I'll do a mockup of this later.  It's midnight and I need to go to sleep.

 

I look forward to seeing this.

[Iser]

here is a quick mockup of two different styles.  i did it at the office, so i couldn't put as much time into it as i would like:  

 

 

it could just be an icon and the text.  oh, i forgot to include arrow/cannon towers.  

 

 

this is another style with more complete information.  i personally like this.  also, forgot to add upgrade/sell buttons.  

 

i'm pretty busy all throughout the weekend, but i'll try to refine it whenever i can.  

 

edit:  some more thoughts real quick.  when multiple tiles are selected, the branch should be anchored on the latest selected tile.  on a computer, you have the benefit of the hotkeys to be able to execute fast.  right now, on mobile, you have to move your finger all the way to the bottom of the screen.  make sure the branch-out begins from the last location of the fingertip.  

Edited June 17, 2016 by Iser

[XaeonBE]

Just finished a few games as well. I must say the game is fun! But with the stuff Iser is pointing out here well it would be even better. The lack of information is clearly a little downside at the moment. Also see if u can get any achievements in the game maybe? (This isn't priority though) If I find something I'll post it here.

[WindStrike]

As cool as that mock-up is, there's some issues with it, especially with regards to cluttering:

• On smaller screens, that information will not be visible unless it covers half the screen. 
• When you have all 6 elements, it'd take over the entire screen trying to upgrade into a dual or a triple tower.

We actually used to have the elements anchored around the build location; the problem was, it was too intrusive and covered too much of the screen, especially when trying to select other locations, cause the UI would actually block it, plus scrolling around the map was rather difficult.

 

I think eventually, we're going to be including a tower table of sorts in-game, similar to the on-site tower page, but it might be a while, because it'll require a new full UI to build it. Something of a menu of sorts you can check out from an in-game menu, similar to the creep legend, though a little more complex.

 

 

On 6/16/2016 at 9:08 AM, Iser said:

Seriously, what's with the level 3 elements? I never had trouble clearing it in Dota 2 version in normal difficulty. I have leaked it every time in mobile.  

 Not just Level 3 elements, but I noticed it doesn't seem to matter what towers you use, I had some Fire towers kill water elementals on Insane, which usually doesn't happen. Gonna go look into it some more, re-verify the Base HP levels and scaling, as well as the element armor types of said elementals.

 

 

I think we got the rest of most the feedback listed here on the "to-do" list of next version. Thanks fer da feedback!

 

 

22 hours ago, XaeonBE said:

Just finished a few games as well. I must say the game is fun! But with the stuff Iser is pointing out here well it would be even better. The lack of information is clearly a little downside at the moment. Also see if u can get any achievements in the game maybe? (This isn't priority though) If I find something I'll post it here.

 

We do wanna add Achievements, buuuuut between UI shenanigans, new art icons for them, and figuring out potential rewards systems for them.... yeeeaaaah this won't be anytime soon unfortunately. We're still trying to focus on improving the functionality of the core game first, but we will be adding achievements down the road.

[XaeonBE]

On 18-6-2016 at 9:29 AM, WindStrike said:

We do wanna add Achievements, buuuuut between UI shenanigans, new art icons for them, and figuring out potential rewards systems for them.... yeeeaaaah this won't be anytime soon unfortunately. We're still trying to focus on improving the functionality of the core game first, but we will be adding achievements down the road.

Amazing to hear I will be looking forward to the updates in the future I'm very happy to see you guys creating another great implementation of u guys one the Android platform.

[WindStrike]

We apologize for the game being broken in the last hour or so, it's getting hotfixed, our bad. >_<

[XaeonBE]

oeee an update got released I shall try it out and if I have issues post it somewhere.

[keijimaeda]

looks awesome. when is the ios version coming out? 

[Karawasa]

6 hours ago, keijimaeda said:

looks awesome. when is the ios version coming out? 

 

We have been beta testing it and that has gone well. There is an app store hurdle we have to jump before we can release though. I'd like to say within a couple of weeks.

[keijimaeda]

16 hours ago, Karawasa said:

 

We have been beta testing it and that has gone well. There is an app store hurdle we have to jump before we can release though. I'd like to say within a couple of weeks.

Nice! Really looking forward to it, can't wait to play it on my phone (i think it fits better as a phone game than custom game)