Slitherine

Dear developers

First, you have me hooked with this series! Thank you so much for porting to console! It actually plays and controls very well once you get used to it overall, even if it has a bit of “bolted on” feeling. I am coming in a little late and didn’t even realize it existed in the PSN store until the recent sales... taste tested, now bought more than 1/4 of the DLC! Keep up the port work.... this fan of the genre appreciates the option to play on console for sure.

But..... as so many others have stated, the font size for nearly all aspects of the game is just far too small. I have played on 2 consoles with 2 different TVs as well as downloading the free-to-play PC version on my laptop... all are generally tough to read overall. I know my eyesight isn’t as it used to be now past 1/2 century mark, but even on the PS5 with decent size 4K TV it’s not quite couch playable. I have found I really need to grab a chair about halfway to really enjoy without strain. The PS4 on older/smaller plasma and LCD I tried even struggle with the unit strength numbers and badges as they start to lose their definition and are harder to see then they should, especially at a distance. The laptop used admittedly has a small screen, but even though the text is sharper, it is still entering glasses territory for me for sure (which I don’t normally have to wear yet thankfully!)

For consoles, specifically Playstation as I’m not familiar with the control options for Xbox, would there be any way to introduce some sort of ‘magnifying glass’ type zoom box or overlay using button and/or center touch pad combos? I don’t believe the touch pad does anything in game... at least that I have discovered yet anyhow. This or some basic font size/scale menu option would really make a huge difference. I realize the pop up ‘flavor’ event screens may be hard-coded and harder to deal with but those are definitely the worst offenders.

It’s just such a shame that this aspect, to me, holds this game back from absolute brilliance in an otherwise surprisingly deep and enjoyable port to console. We don’t get many games of this style, so this gets to stand out still despite this though... well done! Just hoping an overhaul or some interface addition can be made to address the tiny text sizes.

Is it possible to switch the places of two units on console ?

I’m by no means an expert, just picked the game and some DLC up in fact this week, but I do recall the Bootcamp mentioning it in the tutorial text. I KNOW I tried it successfully ‘live’ between two units near a city - both had not moved or used any points that turn prior to trying as I recall... and it worked, swapping them for each other. On PS it was holding the X button. I believe the process was, select unit, move over other unit that also hadn’t moved (not sure if this is required?), hold X and they swapped positions. In my test case a full strength unit ‘replaced’ the damaged unit next to CP which was moved back. I really only test-tried it the once, but it seemed to work in that one case at least. I know I’ve seem posts saying it doesn’t but I did see it work in THAT situation once at least. Good luck!

Thanks for the answer, I will try but I play with Xbox one for this game.

So, I just loaded a save I had from bootcamp, and can confirm that two units who haven’t moved and are next to each other will swap places as I described above. If a unit is not next to the one being swapped (ie has to move to get next) it will not work. If one of the units has moved already it also will NOT work, despite the unit trying to swap hasn’t moved yet.

That is what I have found and just tested. Is this how it is supposed to work by design, or is it only partially working as expected as noted above?

Yes, it only works for two adjacent units that can still move and it also depends on the terrain.

Cool. I’ll be anxious to hear if it works for you on Xbox, at least similar to what I tested.

All that said, man, some game huh? I know I loved the simplistic nature of PG back in the day... this has that but with a great deal of additional depth under the hood. The DLC can get expensive to be sure, but hope for some future sales... I just think it’s a well made little game system. I just can’t believe I didn’t notice it until thumbing through the recent PSN sales! A hidden gem for sure.

On Xbox one, it is the green (A) button that must be kept pressed to switch two units :

Changing the language is very easy on PC but much more complicated on Xbox One. I prefer not to play in my native language but in VO (English) because of the presentation.
On PC, just choose on the menu page the language you want and the change is instantaneous. On Xbox One, you have to go to the console’s system settings menu and change the language...