Slitherine

First of all I want to applaud you for the REALLY fast replies to almost all topics. I have seldom seen such a personal, caring and swift support for a program or an app. Unfortunately I have the feeling that it is also needed very badly.

Don't get me wrong, I still spend hours after hours with the Game (a game I have been waiting for for years) but I have the feeling it could be much less time spent if the game would load faster.

I play on an iPad2, I know it is not the newest and I shouldn't expect (forgive the pun) rocket-like performance, but from the first touch of the Program-Icon to the first gaming action in a multiplayer game I seem to be waiting for ages. First you seem to be loading the entire game and then additionally the save file. Lets say each turn takes about 2-10 Minutes to perform, I feel 10-50% of that time is used just for preparation. There MUST be a way to speed things up a bit. Especially since you are going to be in the game - out of the game very often since you will not stare on the multiplayer screen until your partner has finished his turn. Maybe you could segment the loading of the game a bit more. Anyhow... the next thing that I want to mention is more iOs specific.
In iOs we have a nifty notification service that simply shows a little symbol at the game Icon that tells you that you have turns to perform. The clunky method with the e-mail notification might work as a fallback but I feel it could be much more comfortable with iOs notifications.

In single Player, after a few hours of playing the game crashes to blackscreen more and more regularly.


As I said, I love the game and it has gained very much by making it useable with multiplayer so lets make the playing experience an even more enjoyable together.

Thank you

Hello Taunide,

Glad you're enjoying the game. I'll drop an e-mail to Slitherine's PBEM server programmer to discuss whether the iOS notifications is something that can be integrated into the server. I don't have any experience with them, but maybe it's something that can be integrated relatively quickly.

Can you give me more info about the crashes you're experiencing? At which stage do they happen? Is it while playing a mission? Right after ending a turn? Also, does the game work afterwards if you reload your autosave file or does it crash again?

Cheers,

And again, superfast and superfriendly.

Now that you mention it: Yes, the crashes seem to be embedded in the auto-save. I only could continue after I loaded a manual save. The crashes themselves were a bit erratic. Mainly related to the different programs. I have no recollection of crashes while managing human ressources. The last crash today (albeit in a Multiplayer game) was when I tried to start a rocket program with insufficent funds.

But mainly the longer i play continueously the more often the crashes appear.

Hello Taunide,

Thanks for the info. Do you mind sending me a PM with your e-mail address so that I can ask you for some extra info?

I've also made some changes to the iPad port in order to reduce loading times and, if possible, I'd like to add to add you to our TestFlight group so that you can give the game a go in your iPad 2 and let me know if the changes make any noticeable difference.

Cheers,