Slitherine

I'm trying to be a good beta-tester, so here's what you asked for in your E-mail:

30 sec:
Nothing special. Looks like a standard low budget strategy game (which is fine with me). Looking for an options menu to set to windowed mode, can't find it.

5 minutes (playing the tutorial):
* No graphics showing that battle is taking place, only sound. Unclear what the results are when battle is over.
* A bit disturbed by the numbers showing possible outcomes of battle. A bit unclear who is the green and who is red.
* I like the fact that infantry can automatically be loaded onto trucks
* Trying to understand what the red cross line is all about that appears over a units hit points
* Annoyed by the end turn button being in the upper right, should be lower right.
* Wondering about the two medallions showing a sun... or a moon...?
* Understands that the red line means the unit has performed all actions. Of course.
* A bit surprised that I can heal a unit with Elite replacements while standing two hexes from a city. Used to be one hex in the old SSI games I believe?
* Understands that the numbers on the top right is your prestige. How about an explaining text up there, or maybe an explanation on mouse over?
* wins the first tutorial map.

15 minutes (playing invasion of Poland):
* Undo move doesn't work all the time even if no new units are spotted, can't understand why.
* Can't figure out how to return to main menu from tutorial campaign. Restarts game.
* Really likes how game is alt+tab friendly and quick to load.
* Cannot unselect Opel once I have selected it in Purchase screen.
* Interesting battle between messerschmidt and polish fighter. Preview shows 6 to 1 in my favor, result is 4 to 3... I get the feeling that battle results are more random than they were in old PG. And I think I like it.

1 hour:
* Overall feeling is that the game is pretty much a carbon copy of the old Panzer General, with the advantage of being able to run in windows without problems. No major bugs noticed. Interface can be improved, but imo there are no gamebreaking flaws in it.

Other comments:

* My system: AMD Athlon 64 X2, Win XP 32-bit SP3, 4 gig RAM, ATI Radeon HD4850. Game runs smoothly without bugs.
* Map and unit graphics: Looks ok. Some more variety in the tiles would be nice, now all the cities, farms etc look the same.

* The UI:

* Is a bit confusing. The numbers and symbols at the top right around the end turn button are confusing and not intuitive. Some mouse over popups here would be nice. Interface below looks good, but the minimap is useless and I want a large end turn button where the compass is...

* Purchase screen could use some work. Instead of stats showing as numbers only, I would like to have bars that goes from red to green as well to quickly be able to see the difference between units.

* I completely missed the "Save game/Quit to main/quit to menu" options in the System menu. They should be buttons or something, not links that look like text.

* Switching between Air and land units. Since you for some reason can't select units that are out of moves, you can't select an airplane for example that is located above such a unit by clicking on that hex. You must the switch to air view first, which is inconvenient.

* Mouse interface works fine.

That's it for now.

Back into the panzer...

dsk2293 wrote: * Annoyed by the end turn button being in the upper right, should be lower right.
* Wondering about the two medallions showing a sun... or a moon...?
* Understands that the numbers on the top right is your prestige. How about an explaining text up there, or maybe an explanation on mouse over?

I refer you to
viewtopic.php?t=22547
I went pretty in depth about how lacking that whole top right part of the UI is. Nice to hear someone else come to the same realization.

* Undo move doesn't work all the time even if no new units are spotted, can't understand why.

Recon units cannot undo movement of any kind. They seem to like the new recon style, but a few of us are still hoping to get it changed to something else, preferably PG2 style recon movement. Also, certain embarking options suffer from the same problem.

* Cannot unselect Opel once I have selected it in Purchase screen.

I agree there should be a way to un-select transport, but as a temporary solution you can select a new unit to clear the 'transport' selection, then go back to the unit you actually wanted to buy and you'll clear your transport choice.

* I completely missed the "Save game/Quit to main/quit to menu" options in the System menu. They should be buttons or something, not links that look like text.

I agree the text could use rectangle outlines to appear as buttons, and I also think a 'load game' button is missing from this system menu.

* Switching between Air and land units. Since you for some reason can't select units that are out of moves, you can't select an airplane for example that is located above such a unit by clicking on that hex. You must the switch to air view first, which is inconvenient.

This has been mentioned, but it's always good to hear more people reiterating problems, helps convince them of how important these issues are to address.

* Switching between Air and land units. Since you for some reason can't select units that are out of moves, you can't select an airplane for example that is located above such a unit by clicking on that hex. You must the switch to air view first, which is inconvenient.

Is there any reason to prevent selection of "depleted" units anyway? Or enemy units for that matter.

I think ideally a left-click should always select, and a second click should always switch air/ground view on that hex (if both are present) and select the other unit.

adherbal wrote:Is there any reason to prevent selection of "depleted" units anyway? Or enemy units for that matter.

I think ideally a left-click should always select, and a second click should always switch air/ground view on that hex (if both are present) and select the other unit.

I completely agree. Also, re-naming units requires being able to select units. As does the permanent sleep command. Those two are just off the top of my head. All the more reason to always be able to select units, (friendly ones anyways).

Played some tutorials early this A.M. Played clean and smooth definitely has the PG feel. a few quibbles but will keep until campaign started in case some go away.

Please post your first impressions - dont worry if you change your mind later. First impressionms will count with all new users so we need the first impressions to know how to make the game more appealing.