First Impressions

[rayduhz]

- First impressions. What were your impression after 30 seconds, 5 minutes, 15 minutes and an hour. If you could write these down and post them to the forum it would be very useful.
Very similar to PG (a plus), graphics are very nice and detailed. I enjoy the size of the units so that you may see minute details on the units. I believe any NEW user who purchases this game will enjoy the progression/learning curve from the onset of the game.
-Performance. Is the game too slow on your PC? If yes, what problems exactly you experience, and what system configuration do you have?
Run great, no problems as of yet. Let me know if you need DXDIAG.
Win7 32bit
Core 2 Duo 2.8ghz
4gb RAM
-Map graphics: the terrain map and the units. What did you like or not like. What could be improved?
I thought the map graphic were very well done. Enjoy the variety of terrain.
I like the unit graphics as well. I notice the minute details on the variety of units. The scales of the units are perfect imho.
I think there should be more graphic/cinematic during battle between the units. Not just highlight opposing units for a second.
- Usability and UI of the main screen. Is it intuitively clear how to control the game? Is the UI convenient? Do you like the existing mouse interface, or would you prefer a different one? What useful information do you miss in the UI sidebar or the main map view?
I do have some problems with the UI.
Turn button needs to be more obvious. A simple abstract quarter through clock is just not UNIVERSALLY obvious to all.
Turn and amount of turns needs to be more obvious.
Prestige amount needs to be identified as prestige, not just a number in the corner of the UI
During deployment, it is hard to tell if units have trucks attached to them.
During deployment it is difficult to tell how much experience they have gained. The “stars” are so small you cannot tell how filled they are.
With all the extra space on the UI lower right hand corner, the unit details window should be enlarged (especially the text)
- Game rules. Please note that at this point game rules are not final. We are still thinking about some aspects, and we'll change and tweak some things as we test the game. However, any opinions on what you see in the game now, and what could be improved, are very much welcome.
So far the game rules are cut and try. I have run into nothing game changing. To be honest I do not think I have progressed far enough in the game in order to find anything outstanding (up to scenario 4 in the campaign). Please pay attention to unit balancing during
Just some points I would like to add:
Sound is OK. Nothing outstanding about each unit’s movement. All unit types have the exact same sound no matter what.
The overall camera should focus on the turn battles during combat. I found some battles happening that I did not know unit my turn.
I realize there are a lot of placeholders and unfinished work but it would be nice to have a nice map during briefing showing both units and there perspective goals, just for the finished product
So far so good, very stable and no game breaking problems.

[lordzimoa]

Great feedback.

With all the extra space on the UI lower right hand corner, the unit details window should be enlarged (especially the text)

>>> That space is empty as people on smaller resolutions like 600 pixel netbooks will see nothing underneath the minimap. So we had to add some space for higher res. screens.

We still need to add that empty space up with something nice looking, suggestions are welcome though.

Most text BTW will also be replaced by larger icons, so the text will appear when hovering over as a tooltip, but we want to avoid text for obvious localization issues.

Sound is OK. Nothing outstanding about each unit’s movement. All unit types have the exact same sound no matter what.

There are just some basic SFX in at the moment and no music as it will enlarge the builds too much and it is easier for testing, in later builds more SFX and custom music will be added.

I realize there are a lot of placeholders and unfinished work but it would be nice to have a nice map during briefing showing both units and there perspective goals, just for the finished product

Aye, one of the reasons we hand picked just a small group is just because of this, the game is stable, but the end product will be looking much much better, we hope to add more already in the next build.

[lordzimoa]

Turn button needs to be more obvious. A simple abstract quarter through clock is just not UNIVERSALLY obvious to all.

A bigger button, a sandglass maybe? If you have suggestions please feel free to express them.

[rayduhz]

Yes and hour glass would do alot better.

[boredatwork]

I too had problems finding the next turn button - however I think it might be adequate as is.

It's not so much a question that the stop watch didn't make sense, as it was that it was different from what was used before. Once that was figured out I never lost it again.

The save/exit game button on the other hand I don't think is intuitive. I would suggest ideally use the word "MENU" on it or if you don't want to use words for language reasons then use a picture of a folder to make it more obvious that your file options menu is accessible here.