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:
- Bug: Rout retreats to spawn point, not board edge.
- Significantly condense logs
- Bug: p2 for game centre games doesn't pick an armylist?
- Bug: First replay text doesn't show.
- Bug: UI recycleables disappear?
- Bug: Turn 0 should be shown as "Turn 1"
- Bug: Changing the current replay state manually with slider doesn't pause replay
- Bug: Dice rolls sometimes don't appear (again, recycler..)
- Bug: Replay pause button doesnt work.
- Bug: Replay shows empty logs
- Bug: After replay all the orders show up on in game screen
- Bug: Local game, not switching properly again.
- Bug: Entering pass and play, exiting pass and play then selecting game centre (or vice versa) locks game type selection
- Selecting a unit then ordering an ability does not deselect the unit.
- Bug: Leadership rolls don't show up in log.
- Bug: Archers trying to fire after turn one fail because they count as moving?
- Bug: No rolls show up in summary log.
- Bug: targeting enemies with "Ranged Attack" immediately bails out of target screen
- Bug: In Waiting Screen, p2 presses "ready" button doesn't dissappear.
- Input: Touch
- UI: Pick Armylist View
- UI: Invite Opponent
- UI: View Army
- UI: Settings
- UI: New Game View
- UI: Games View
- UI: Main Menu
- UI: Alpha Test: Add Help page to in game view / Deploy view
- Unit Painter: Unit spins too easily
- Unit Painter: not zoomable?
- UI: Not clear the button to get to paints is the unit logo
- Bug: Armybuilder: Inconsistency beteren "Armies" and "Rosters"
- Bug: Deploy screen: Hard to deselect units
- UI: Leader ranges need to be always visible during deployment?
- Gameplay: Camera needs to be able to zoom out some?
- UI: "Continue" on mainscreen is confusing, maybe use play? Begin?
- UI: Tick on armylist select in roster selector is confusign, should be an eye
- UI: Banner Style flow is confusing, add continue button on create flow.
- UI: Unit picker needs to show that at least one leader is required for a force.
- UI: unit id numbers are confusing. Deprioritise them
- UI: Unit picker needs to show a better summary of owned units?
- UI: Need to show maximum points on unit picker.
- UI: Unit picker gives information overload. Consider redesign
- UI: Show all three armylists for launch, only enable one for alpha
- UI: Alpha Test: Add quick tutorial tip on GameType page for using Game Centre || Ready screen
- UI: Add link to armybuilder from newgame if player has no army
- UI: Add "Waiting" to ready screen
- Bug: Local game often has the camera at the wrong spot
- Can't pivot units on default deployment
- Bug: UI scale in settings doesn't work
- Bug: in-gameUI shows through during non-ingame moments
- Bug: have to press twice on delete game for local games in games view
- Bug: Upgrades aren't saving to roster?
- Remove user editable Roster names.