- 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.
30 secs: The main splash page looks awesome. Very crisp and serves as a welcoming gateway to the game.
5 min: The first tutorial mission was extremely easy to understand and get into. Immediately brought back Panzer General memories.
• when moving units, click to select then click destination hex and the unit "teleports" (for lack of a better term. As I recall, in PG the units moved and followed a path to the destination hex which would be better in my humble opinion. The "teleport" thing does save time though.
• the final build could use a voiceover or text-box instructions for the tutorial.
• battle-sounds... PG had cannon shots & machine gun fire sounds depending on which unit was attacking... the current build only seems to have the explosion sound for all.
15 min: the tutorial campaign was very easy to understand and get into. Other observations just same as above.
1 hour: When finished, this game will be every bit as addicting as PG ever was. I found the hour point has zoomed by before I had even taken notes for the forum entry. Will the final build include any music? If so, suggest the music used for the original Steel Panthers. If I could find that music anywhere I'd buy a CD.
- Performance. Is the game too slow on your PC? If yes, what problems exactly you experience, and what system configuration do you have?
The game ran perfectly on my system. I shut it down and restarted it several times without rebooting the computer to see if any memory issues may linger and it always ran fine.
- Map graphics: the terrain map and the units. What did you like or not like. What could be improved?
The map looks fine along with the unit graphics. I run my system at 1920 x 1200 resolution, with the game running full-screen and it looked great.
- 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?
Main screen UI is fine the way it is. Location isn't an issue at all, but some users may prefer the ability to move it or reduce it to show more of the map. (if that feature is already in-game I didn't find/see it) The mouse interface seems to work very well. I was able to zoom in and out slightly with the mouse wheel with no blurring or streaking of the graphics. I think it may have been mentioned elsewhere in the forum about unit information not having been implemented yet in the sidebar when the unit is selected, but if not here it is.
When targeting an enemy unit, the pop-up information overlay with the numbers is good but maybe a little more would be useful. Perhaps a projected summary in the sidebar akin to Civ V where the odds are calculated for you and the game projects an outcome which may or may not be entirely correct but at least give the user an idea on whether or not to go ahead and try the attack.
- 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.
Easier settings most likely should allow for a greater prestige pool.
- Tutorial campaign. The first beta only includes the six tutorial scenarios and the tutorial campaign. When complete this will have prompts to aid the user but it would be good if we knew which areas of the game needed the most helpers and prompts so can you tell us which parts you did not understand so we can focus on explaining those.
Mentioned some of this in the first-impressions above. The tutorial campaign flows extremely well and I had no issues moving from scenario to scenario on easy-mode. Will try the higher difficulties next time.
