Slitherine

OK, I've cooled off enough to offer some considered, non-snarky feedback. The following post will have lots of detailed feedback on aspects of the iphone implementation. Before I get there, though, can I offer a few overall thoughts.

First, it seems to me that many game designers have basically outsourced testing to the public. This is crazy - I mean, imagine a book publisher releasing unedited books, and relying on the public to pick up all the typos, edit the flabby paragraphs, and point out the inconsistencies in the plot!

That's not to say some public feedback isn't useful. But rather than using feedback from a public beta as input to the testing process, too many developers are using the public beta as the testing process itself. This will never work out well. Testing a game has to involve a rigorous, systematic, and utterly and completely mind-numbingly boring process of trying to break the game, over and over and over again. Most public beta-testers, even if you do get them signed up, don't have the time or interest for this sort of thing.

Iain, you yourself have said that issues may not have been picked up because you were "too focused on beating your opponent" during pre-release tests. But playing a game and testing a game are totally different activities. You should have focused on breaking the game, and viewing the game - one screen at a time - from dozens of different perspectives. ie, "what does this window look like if I'm colourblind? What does it look like if I'm somebody who pays close attention to graphical details? To a first-time player? To somebody who doesn't understand the rules and needs to know what just happened?" Etc etc, and all of that repeated an as many different platforms as you can stand without vomiting. Testing requires delving into every single corner of the game, every navigational pathway. It means intentionally trying the break the game by doing things no rational user would ever do.

This sort of work can not be outsourced. Public feedback will give you a very limited lens on what is working and what isn't. And game developers neglect this sort of testing at their peril.

I have no idea what your actual testing process for the iphone version was like, but I suspect you relied mostly on a few play-throughs, and/or very limited public feedback, and/or emulators. The backlash you're getting on the iphone is a result.

Second broad point: any product designer (for anything) needs to understand in detail who and how their product is being enjoyed. You may have detailed metrics on this already, I don't know. For what it's worth, here's how I was enjoying BotB:

- I'm sitting on the train, on the morning commute. I open my iphone, and immediately see a turn waiting for me from zzxx, somebody half a world away who I didn't know previously, but have now played many games with. ZZxx is a good player, skilled, and I enjoy sending quips back and forth as we're playing. eg, "enjoy bastogne, you won't be there for long!", sort of thing. But in between turns, we've also found out a little about our opponent - where he lives, what he does, etc. I open the turn, see his move and his comment, and immediately respond with my move. To my delight, he's online at the same time, and his response comes through automatically, as I still have the app open and am having a look around the map, doing a bit of analysis of the situation. We follow with about 12 turns, playing turns and commenting back and forth. It's all a casual interaction, each of us know the other can be pulled away at a moment's notice. But while we're playing, it's close to real time, with no interruptions or prompts needed to keep going. My train reaches the destination, I flick a final turn his way with a note "gotta go, see you". When we're done with that game, I can initiate another by a direct invitation to him, and he'll get an instant notification of it.

OK, that's BotB. For PC games, the experience and the setting is very different. I love playing Decisive Campaigns, for instance, but running a single turn there takes an hour or more, so it's not a casual or real-time sort of game. I play a turn in the evening, send it off by email with a longer note, etc. I won't play BotB while I'm at my PC, because when I'm at my PC, I'm either working or doing games that require greater focus and time.

Now, the above BotB experience just doesn't work under your multi-platform system. No push notifications, no chat box that automatically appears at the end of every turn, no real-time game play when xxzz and I are both online at the same time. No direct game invitations to a persistent list of friends, with whom I might play other games as well. Not even a persistent login.

So, pretty much everything that facilitated a seamless and pleasant multiplayer experience on BotB is gone from the current iphone implementation. I for one don't mind if there are different user communities for the same game - ie, one the iphone using GC, one on PC using a different multiplayer platform - if it means my user experience on the iphone version is preserved.

Third broad point:

Underlying my anger and others' disappointment with the game is a sense that CiC was a work of extraordinary craftsmanship, in an age where we are subjected to a constant stream of throwaway, mediocre content of all kinds. Truly outstandingly designed objects and pieces of art - and I include games as pieces of art - are very rare. I just re-read the design diaries for BotB, and was struck again by the intense dedication and very close attention to detail that went into all aspects of the initial implementation.

You say that this business model is unsustainable, and that may be so - although I would certainly have paid far more for BotB than I did. Nevertheless, to have taken something that was so well crafted, and to have replaced it with something that feels very slapdash... well, it felt to me like you were defacing a wonderful piece of art.

OK, that's my last word for a while. On to some specific feedback

Big issues.

1. performance is perhaps the biggest concern. The game runs very slowly, and animations are jerky. I won't dwell on it further...
2. interface responsiveness. This may be related to performance concerns, but I find it very difficult to tap on buttons, select units, and otherwise get around in the game. Panning and zooming the map is pretty seamless, but all tapping is difficult. In many cases, I tap on a menu button, it gets "pushed down", but then pops back up again and nothing happens. Tapping on a button and seeing it pushed down indicates that the tap is registering, but then for whatever reason the command doesn't get processed. It also seems like the game doesn't store taps that happen while the game is processing something else. For instance, frequently in a game, you will want to move three units from one region to another. Previously, this was a very quick set of six taps - and you could tap on unit two even if the animation for unit one was still going. Now, you have to wait until the full process of moving unit one is complete, and it seems that this can take longer than just the completion of the animation. All of this seems minor, but it contributes to a severe overall sense of sluggishness and non-responsiveness compared to the earlier version.
3. Sound is glitchy, mentioned elsewhere and I won't go into detail.
4. Multiplayer is far less functional than it was, as explained above and I'll leave it there.
5. Legibility - across the entire game, numerous elements are smaller than they were previously, sometimes to the point where they can not be read. This is particularly the case with the combat window and the combat modifiers icons, which are minuscule. The combat window needs to be close to full screen on an iphone.

Detail issues:
6. At the end of a game, there's a "Continue" button, but I can't press it. In the previous version, there was an option to keep playing a game against the AI, even after you had won on points (and not just the Bitter End scenario). Also at the end of a game, there's no option to see a final reckoning of the VPs or the final map situation.
7. No ability to load a multiplayer game when it's not your turn to have a look at the map situation and analyse.
8. Initial video doesn't fit full iphone screen.
9. The green and blue borders denoting who controls which provinces are often glitched, or even flipped the wrong way. For instance, have a look at Kruchten Allied against Trier Axis - the borders are the reverse of what they should be. And for a glitched case, look at Wiltz Axis against Beaufort Allied.
10. Under the "History" tab, you can't scroll through anything on the left-hand panel. This means the top-level headings are visible only down to "Day by Day". And if you click on "Day by Day", you get the list of dates only down to December 23, and can't scroll any further.
11. Under "Help" tab, the right hand buttons are too small, and there is a large white vertical band in between the right hand buttons and the main content. This could be used to make the buttons a proper size.
12. Combat animations - the puffs of smoke are not well aligned with the icons, and in general the combat animations are jerky, not aligned well to the sounds, and not aligned well to the number of hits as they pop up. Further, as units fire, you can (barely) see their shots being depleted (turning grey), but then when a unit has fired all its shots, the little boxes all seem to turn white again, or perhaps a lighter shade of grey, I can't quite tell. It all combines to make it very difficult to tell what's going on.
13. Combat modifiers are too tiny to make out, in the combat analysis box, the combat box itself, and the pop-up box explaining the symbols.
14. When re-loading a game versus AI (at least), the information on the "Reinforce" part of the briefing tab is no longer present, and you can't see how far along you are in the day until you play at least one turn.
15. At the end of every AI move, there is a pause of up to 3 seconds. During this time, the "confirm" button is visible in the upper right. I'm not sure if this pause is deliberate or not, or why it's there. It is not needed, and significantly slows down the game - especially as it seems to happen after every piece moves, not just at the end of the AI's turn. So AI moving three pieces can take up to 10 seconds.
16. Game frequently gives you the "Are you sure you want to Commit? Some active units have not been moved." message when it is not actually the case. This happens, eg, on Allied turn one even if you've moved all your cav/arm units and have no possible moves. Also has happened to me on exploit after combat by armoured units, even when I have moved all the armoured units. Also, commit shouldn't be capitalised.
16. You shouldn't need to hit "continue" after every AI turn.
17. There should be a "review last turn" option, or better yet a comprehensive history replay option.
18. At the start of one's turn, the black box in the upper right corner with the "pass" or "confirm" button should not be visible, as it occupies a fair bit of screen real estate and can get in the way of unit selection - especially for Gemund and Monschau areas. Instead, the black box should automatically appear once you've made a move and need to confirm it, or when you press the little green or blue button in the top right to make it appear (eg, if you want to pass).
19. When resuming a game, you get a list of saved games. When you tap on a saved game, a little red asterisk gets drawn next to it, and you tap again on the resume button to proceed. The red asterisk is very nearly invisible, I missed it entirely the first few times. And the animation to draw the asterisk takes way too long. Probably it should just be instantaneous. And the whole saved games window is far too small, nearly unreadable.

AI issues

I won't go into detail here, except to agree with others who have observed that the AI still makes too many basic errors and I can't perceive any real increase in the challenge. I just played a game versus Montgomery, where the AI rushed units out of Liege to Trois Ponts, allowing me to grab Liege undefended with my panzer division sitting in Verviers for an auto-victory that turn. Somehow the heirarchy of things that "must" be held at any cost still isn't right for the allies. (Granted, this was a problem in the earlier version as well - after a while, only PvP games could really satisfy)

Hope this is all helpful, good luck restoring this game to its previous brilliance-

and yes, I'll shut up now!

Constructive and VERY helpful!
We appreciate your effort.
We've just started categorising these issues into your bug database.
Will come back later at this thread once we've sorted all out.

This is great - thank you very much,.

We really struggle to get iOS feedback and iOS testers. iOS gamers just don't engage with us the same way PC players do and as a result its very hard to polish the games to the same level. Its this feedback that allows us to make the games better.

G'day Iain,

I know this isn't your intention, but the message you're sending is something like this: "We're not capable of polishing an iphone app without relying on the user community to test and refine the product."

I suspect you don't really mean that, or if you do you shouldn't be developing for the iphone. You'll never get public beta engagement with the iphone community. It's a PC phenomenon. And think about what a strange phenomenon it is... the expectation that users are responsible for design, quality control and polish exists in no other field of content production. (OK, except Wikipedia.)

It also sounds like you are making excuses for the fact that you released a product that falls far short of our expectations. Again, I don't think you really intend to do that, but perhaps what people are looking for is a bit more like this...

"Dear Slitherine iPhone customers,

We messed up, and I apologise. In our recent release of Battle of the Bulge, we were so eager to get the game out to the broader PC community - and to get some motion and life back into the Command in Crisis series - that we didn't make sure the iphone version was well designed and fully up to customer expectations.


While all new software products will have bugs, we accept that the iPhone version of this game has serious performance and interface issues that should have been caught and fixed before release. I take responsibility for these oversights.

In retrospect, we should have released the PC version, and taken more time to make sure the iPhone version was right before putting it out there in its current state.

We value you as customers, and we recognise that our reputation on the iPhone depends on our ability to demonstrate that we can develop apps that work smoothly and reliably in the unique constraints of iPhone gaming.

We will fix the problems with Battle of the Bulge, but I can't promise that will happen overnight. It may well take a few months to get a polished product.

In the meantime, for one week only, we will be making Battle of the Bulge 2.0 available as an "update" on the iPhone through the App Store. For those users who choose to revert to this version, please understand it will not be a supported product after that week, and we can offer no assistance or support of any kind for it going forward.

We are committed to getting this right, and carrying forward the CiC series with the polished design that makes this series stand out in the sea of iphone games. I promise we will invest the time and effort into meeting your expectations.

Regards
..."

I absolutely am saying that and its true for all developers. Without a beta test a game is not going to be as good as it could be. Beta tests are all about polish and without them it is very hard to do that. The dev team are never able to polish without the feedback that comes from testing. There is a certain amount the team can do itself but they become blind to issues after staring at them for months which is why you need fresh outside eyes to look at it. The issues being raised here are not issues the dev team even attempted to fix as they didn't see the issue . As I said, frame rate was absolutely not an issue we even discussed once in development. It ran fast enough for a turn based strategy game and it was never even looked at. The good news is that means we haven't attempted to optimize performance so there are very likely areas that can be sped up.

We've re-opened the iOS beta test and would love to get more feedback from iOS players.:
http://www.slitherine.com/beta_test

When we have a build with improvements we'd like your feedback so if you are interested in getting the polish in and making this a great game please do sign up.

well if i had the equipment, i'd sign for it, really enjoyed the pc beta's so far i've been on

Hello Sourdust,

A new internal build will be available shortly on IOS for those who registered for it this week.
We've made the following improvements to it:

- Performance: the game should feel smoother now during scenarios. Animations should feel cursive and you should experience 30fps (capped) even on Iphone 4s.
Loading times have been slightly improved, but they are not as fast the the original version (we'll see what we can do here, but the improvementes won't be drastic).

- Interface responsiveness: there was an issue we've found in our interface code. If you dragged your finger for more than 5 pixels when pressing a button it would show the animation but not execute the command. We've fixed that and also increased the tolerance of dragging to 20. Let us know if you have further issues with the buttons.

- Sound: we haven't had time to work on this yet, sorry

- Multiplayer : we're looking at a system to make multiplayer similar to the old one and still be cross-platform. This will take some time to do, but it's totally doable.

- Legibility: we're in the middle of changing the whole iphone interface. You should see a lot of changes in the upcomming iphone version. It will not be 100% ready for this internal update though.

- Combat animation have been smoothed. We still have to align them perfectly.

- We have upped the AI's intelligence. It will make *less* stupid mistakes.

That is all for now. Please let us know what you think of this week's update.
Meanwhile, we'll continue implementing the rest of the feedback .

Thanks Mboog, I must say I'm impressed both by the detailed response, and from the sounds of it what you're doing to improve the app.

I'd register for the Beta test & happy to put more time in improving the product - but could you clarify whether the beta is for ipad only (as it states on the beta test page), or is it useful for me to participate as an iphone-only user?

cheers

Yes, you can register for the internal builds only with your iphone. The build is universal, it will detect your device and load different interface from the ipad version.

Sourdust - thank you for putting it well. I think you have spoken for A LOT of BoB devotees. Thank you.