Closed Alpha Test One

Kevorki Lord overseeing her guard at the battle of Krag Pass.

This week was.. in a word.. intense. I got so much done and a huge part of that was thanks to kicking the week off with an internal alpha test (read, my partner and I played a game). My partner has played something like Charge in the past, but A) it was a long time ago, and B) their interest in tabletop wargames isn't huge, so it was actually an ideal test in that we managed to glean quite a lot of issues with the overall flow and feel of the game, it's UI and the overall design.

Some of the issues were pure UX and copy issues. In my designs I'd mixed up the definition of what a "roster" was and what an "armylist" was. Some were implementation issues, it was very difficult to move a unit after deployment. Others were expectation issues "I thought I should be able to zoom in on the model to paint it".

Replay feature in full swing

There's so many that I haven't yet gotten around to fixing, and plenty more, but the overall impression of the game so far is that it's in a much better spot than it was at the start of the week.

And I know I'm only just getting started with feedback and implementation.

Starting next Monday (Australian time) I'll be reaching out to people to invite them to the first closed public alpha for the game. In theory it should be playable without too much direct input from me, but... lets just say I don't have high hopes. The first proper tests are always a brutal exercise in watching your game fall apart. It's a huge reason why I've been avoiding sending out the codes so far.

A quick aside. Please don't ask me for a code. The initial rollout is just to a very select few people. If this all goes well, and if there's genuine interest after this, I'll start thinking about doing an open alpha release with a much wider audience. Until then, it's closed.

Look at those dice rolls and logs.

Charge Tasks completed: