Slitherine

First, thanks for the great game. Easily my IOS game of the year.

If there was one thing I could suggest is to make it easier to jump in between in progress games... including a game in progress against the AI. I like to have multiple online games going while at the same time having a game going against the AI. Game does a great job notifying you when its your turn, but its a ton of button clicks to swap between these games. It would be really nice to have a single pop up from within any games that shows all you games in progress including AI and allows you to switch to any of them.

Now for some more minor suggestions.

Would also be really nice if the victory points or even better victory points with the chart that shows your progress was only one click away instead of a 3 clicks away.

Both these buttons would be great right as a button on the in game control panel on the top left. Single click to see all games in progress and a single click to see your current victory points/progress... or ideally would be nice to see victory points without clicking anything. Should be on there somewhere. Personally I leave Help in the Menu popup. After a few games no one needs one click access to help anymore, make it 2 clicks away and put something more worthwhile in that real estate.

Lastly if everything that covers the map could have some transparency (including control panels at top left and right) and/or a gesture that removes the panels covering the map but leaves everything else would also be great. This game is so perfect in nearly every way but when you get in the certain situations and you want to see something and its beging covered up (usually by the combat popup) very annoying resize and move the map just so you can see when has hidden behind the combat popup.

When yoiu click menu, did you notice the little icon that comes up in the corner that looks like a grayscale version of the Game Center icon?

Click that and you'll go to the next game that is "your turn". One button-one click. It took me awhile to find it, too.

But, while we're on the topic: I'd like some title bar (or is it something I'm missing) on a multi-player game that shows whether I'm playing a full battle or "Race to the Meuse". I play each differently and I stinks to be winning distance from the Meuse, yet waste that winning mover to protect a flank on the 20th, just to discover the 20th never comes. Nuts!

Wow - great tip, thanks! Never noticed that. I'm guessing its still a hassle to jump into the AI game, but this at least is nice in some situations.

Boone737 wrote:But, while we're on the topic: I'd like some title bar (or is it something I'm missing) on a multi-player game that shows whether I'm playing a full battle or "Race to the Meuse". I play each differently and I stinks to be winning distance from the Meuse, yet waste that winning mover to protect a flank on the 20th, just to discover the 20th never comes. Nuts!

You should see a small title bar in the top left corner that says 'Meuse' if you're playing the RttM scenario.

If you don't see a title bar then you're playing the BotB scenario.

Well, thank you!

I bet there are even more little bits we're missing.

Maybe someone should start a thread: "Buttons, Titles, and other overlooked features of the game"

also .. the coloured bar underneath th ecommit button that highlights whose turn it is .. tap that for a description of the game.

Boone737 wrote:When yoiu click menu, did you notice the little icon that comes up in the corner that looks like a grayscale version of the Game Center icon?

Click that and you'll go to the next game that is "your turn". One button-one click. It took me awhile to find it, too

I've only seem that extra button for a short time, just after a Game Center notification comes in. The rest of the time it still takes far too many clicks (Menu - Full Menu - Play - Online Choose - select from Game Center list of games) to switch from active game to another. Some sort of pop-up list would be great - unless Apple is forcing game devs to go into Game Center to show the list.

While we're on this topic, the red Game Center notification number doesn't always appear on the Menu button. When it is there, it's not entirely clear what causes it to disappear again. Sometimes it goes away when I switch to the active game, at other times it goes while I'm doing my move.

dereejit wrote:I've only seem that extra button for a short time, just after a Game Center notification comes in. The rest of the time it still takes far too many clicks (Menu - Full Menu - Play - Online Choose - select from Game Center list of games) to switch from active game to another...unless Apple is forcing game devs to go into Game Center to show the list.

I agree. The next game Game Centre button is very valuable as a fast switch but far too often it's not present when I know I have active games waiting for me to take my impulse.

I'm not sure what the exact criteria is for 'polling' game centre (if that is the correct term) but the main issue seems to be when a user opens the app and is taken directly to the last game that they had open. It doesn't seem to matter whether that particular game is the 'active' one waiting for their move or not, the next game game centre icon is missing.

Only when the user navigates back to the main menu and all the way back in again to online play does the game centre button 'refresh'.

If that game centre 'poll' could be conducted everytime a user opens the app that would remove a lot of frustration.

Is that possible?

Yojimbo252 wrote:If that game centre 'poll' could be conducted everytime a user opens the app that would remove a lot of frustration.

Is that possible?

In fact, it happens now… (Technically, every time the player is authenticated, but that happens every time the app is activated.)

Which is not to say that I haven’t seen cases where a turn should be available but is not reflected. This is probably going to take a lot more detailed reproduction steps so that we can track it down…

daviddunham wrote:

Yojimbo252 wrote:If that game centre 'poll' could be conducted everytime a user opens the app that would remove a lot of frustration.

Is that possible?

In fact, it happens now… (Technically, every time the player is authenticated, but that happens every time the app is activated.)

Which is not to say that I haven’t seen cases where a turn should be available but is not reflected. This is probably going to take a lot more detailed reproduction steps so that we can track it down…

Ok I'll try and provide some in due course.

I find that if I have 2 or more pending games showing on the Menu button, then the grey Game Center button is always present. I can play out my moves, each time switching to the next move with that button.

When I switch into the app and only have 1 pending game then, 9 times out of 10, the Game Center button is not present and I have to do the Main Menu dance.

On this topic of game switching, would it be possible to have a switch to disable the notification that pops up at the top of the screen when another move comes in? It can be distracting when trying to concentrate on the current move.

Well, you cannot switch to the pending game, so it’s not surprising that it’s usually not present when there is only one.

Again, repro steps with the exact sequence are going to be helpful. The current game not updating when in the background seems like the key.

I don't know if it's a bug, or what, but if I have the game running in the background, and I get a notification for the game that's up and running, when I open the app I don't see the move my opponent made that created the notification. I see the notification bubble, but I have to go to the main menu, choose the game that I got the notification for, then I see the move and I am able to proceed.

I know my description is a mess, but hopefully someone else has seen this and can do a better job.

Thanks.

Boone737 wrote:I don't know if it's a bug, or what

A QA motto: “If it bugs you, bug it.”

This is the case I’m aware of. We ought to do better.

Boone737 wrote:I don't know if it's a bug, or what, but if I have the game running in the background, and I get a notification for the game that's up and running, when I open the app I don't see the move my opponent made that created the notification. I see the notification bubble, but I have to go to the main menu, choose the game that I got the notification for, then I see the move and I am able to proceed.

That's the same scenario I encounter.

daviddunham wrote:Well, you cannot switch to the pending game, so it’s not surprising that it’s usually not present when there is only one.

Sorry, I should have been more clear. By "pending game" I meant a game in progress for which a notification has come in which indicates that it's my move. I switch from another app into BotB and before I can see the latest state I have to go to the main menu and choose the updated game in Game Center. It doesn't seem to make any difference if it's the only game in progress when I switch into the app or one of many in progress.

Anyway, it sounds very much like what Boone737 and Yojimbo252 are observing.

In the meantime, I've noticed some other odd Game Center behaviour which may or may not be related. This morning I had notifications of several new moves from other GC players. I switched into BotB and saw the map from the last move I had made yesterday as Axis. I'd done the usual Commit-Continue so it was showing the expected "Waiting: Allies". I'll call that Game X. I played out my moves for the pending games until the red Menu counter disappeared. None of those moves were for Game X.

I went into GC to check on Game X and saw that my move from last night was considered by GC as having taken place just a few minutes before, just before the recent moves I had made for the pending games.

I went into GC to check on Game X and saw that my move from last night was considered by GC as having taken place just a few minutes before, just before the recent moves I had made for the pending games.

Sounds like the turn didn't get transmitted the previous night. Perhaps a connection glitch. Or maybe you slapped the iPad cover on before it had finished (I do that sometimes!).