Some feedback

[quote="solidbenny"]First I gotta tell you that I showed my mother Pirate Quest and she got hooked. However she got reaally slow fps on her Athlon 1000 with 512mb and geforce 2 gts. It managed Roadclub with "no problem" (~30 fps) so something's up. PQ played at like 5 fps and Minigolf at 10.

Second I have to agree that much more help getting started and explaining features and special tiles is needed. I know you're working on this though. And I found just today that when the pirates scream something about cannon you have the bombs ready heh.

Third, I wonder: how do you make sure there's always a row of three possible somewhere? Do you cheat and send out symbols that immediatly match whats below or is it some clever maths that makes sure that with this many tiles and that many types of symbols it will always work. I noticed that some symbols suddenly disappeared and got replaced by other ones. Is there some kind of time limit how long symbols can be stuck or was it a bug?[/quote]

* Hm I guess(and hope) the slow framerate is due to the large textures we use in PQ... and I have done absolutly no optimizing in that game... hm I will take a look at that!

* Yup the help system must be improved...

* Hehe I just remove random symbols when no moves are possible

new version with some optimisations has now been uploaded...

* at least 50% better on my computer

Try it!

Still works fine here but I gotta test on the slow computer later.

NOW I noticed a graphics bug though. While you drag a symbol some weird black lines appear on the symbol.

The FPS counter on the bottom left (I assume thats what it is) is weird too. It's either 1 or 62 all the time.

Great!

I finished PQ today and I have some final feedback. I repeat some of the stuff I wrote in the other thread to keep it in one place.

GAMEPLAY:
1. This game really needs an online highscore like the others with your collected treasure from all puzzles in the quest. This way it's more fun to play new quests and to get as much out of the puzzles as possible. Now I don't feel like playing it a second time. Maybe even have a highscore table for each type of puzzle.

2. The toughest puzzles should really benefit from more options for the player. For example. Spawn bombs together with some new symbols (instead of the pre-placed ones). When the symbols these bombs are attached to are destroyed. Give it to the player to blow up anywhere so he can blow up an area that you haven't been able to make any moves in for a while.

3. When you run out of time it would be nice to be able to click anywhere like when you complete a puzzle.

4. Sometimes you pick up a bomb when you suddenly notice you don't need it for the time being. I found out you could place it outside the puzzle to save it but that's a pretty bad way to do it since you blow it up but still have it available. Make it possible to cancel the bomb action with the right mouse or just remove the bomb pointer when you click outside the puzzle area.

5. More puzzle boards. Maybe one batch that is repeated for every type of treasure location (land, cave, ship).

6. And of course help to introduce all concepts during the course of the quest like we talked about.

SOUND:
The game would also benefit from a few more and longer musical pieces.

Sound is great otherwise, love the voices.

GRAPHICS:

1. A clearer graphical sign that you actually found a treasure here. First I didn't notice I found one until I moved the ship. Some people may play without audio, and it is more satisfactory to see a nice big sign "You found it!".

2. The green blob and fire effects that come when you bomb or match symbols are pretty ugly. You can do better and probably add some nice particle effects.

3. The numbers that float above the puzzle when you get points could fade away instead of just disappearing.

4. The puzzles could be nicer with some scenery around them in the water and on the ground and a few other tile environments. Like ice, desert, jungle or whatever. Also surroundings in the puzzles should match the type of treasure location symbol that you entered. For example a ship deck (well, below deck since thats where you'd store treasure. But woody and stuff) if you entered a ship wreck.

5. The main menu background image is a bit sketchy at places. It could be more detailed and cleaner giving a better first impression.

HUB:

1. An image, short description and a link to more information about each game would be nice.

2. It would be nice to have a changelog or release notes accessible for updates.

3. The hub is a great tool for indies. Have you considered if and how you could let other indies distribute their games through it? You would immediatly get attention to your games with traffic from other developers since everyone that downloads the hub (together with the first hub idea above) would see your games too. I'd be happy to hear your thoughts here and it would be really cool to release roadclub on it. Would be a great test to see if it works with multiple developers too.

That's all I think. Happy updating

Thanx fot the massive amout of high quality feedback!

It is just copy paste directly to my to do list!

now it is time for breakfast!

[quote="solidbenny"]Tried again on the slow computer. Maybe a little better but really not good. The mouse pointer lags like a second behind already in the main menu..[/quote]

Hm sounds like a reference rasterizer... got latest drivers on that one?

Got the latest drivers. But it seems I was wrong. It was a mx and not a GTS. Maybe it lacks some vital 3d components and reverts to reference rasterizer.

Coool I meant the changelog to be in the HUB but this works too Doesn't work as good for the other games and is harder to update though.

I hope the issues have been fixed, not included (sorry I had to)

Really nice to see that your opinions have effect! I'll play another quest soon

Yup, that is probably the case... I have some 1024*1024 textures there... probably not needed or could be divided into smaller ones...

I will test this

New version released where the pathfinding should be a bit more stable, check it out!