First Impressions: what's all this about

[Sounds]

Hi there I've had little time to boot this up and give it a run through, so I thought I'd just jot down my notes as I do a play through. Please don't read this as being overly critical, as my intent here is to give you a feel for what's not working for me at the initial stage.

"Welcome to Combat" a wall of text greets me. Hmm looks a bit of TMI, maybe it could do with some word smithing or more focused on a single topic with a "a more info" button/link to expand? The font size is small, could be a little larger.

"Set movement". The last time I booted this up it used to be some sort of shoot-em-up that wasn't my cup of tea and it felt like like some type of Drox Operative imitation, so I promptly closed the program under the premise I wasn't the games demographic. Wow I'm glad I booted it up now, but it still feels tedious to play out this battle view err...thing. What I mean is I can't see myself wanting to play the tactical combat for very long. Think to myself is there a chance to skip this part? If not I'd need to have some more tangible goals than just TBS gun fight.

"Target ships"
What's the point of slow motion or fast forward? I press them in earnest, nothing happens. Hmm the radar seems pointless, but that's probably because I've not done much yet. Time will tell.

I play a few turns and now I've lost the ability to select from the three guns. All I see is six ammo icons with counts, looks like they're finite so I don't want to waste them on my first mission. Oh I see they appear after movement selection. Don't see the point, but I'll get used to it.

Four more icons that I can select; they make sense, but from a HCI perspective are a distraction from the main selection flow. Needs some work. Possibly move to a dialog that appears near the actual ship you aiming to shoot at? Not sure of a good alternative...

Gee I don't like the sound of the middle gun, sound like a pop gun not very spacey or powerful.

"End combat"
Dull, but hey that's the first mission. Assume we're looking at A KISS approach here.

"Contract complete".
Hey earns some credits yay! err what's this about escape pods? rescued and killed....hmmm should I be worried? Not a wall of text for such a big dialog. Also a bit odd the last sentence at the bottom of the dialog, is this static? I'll keep an eye on it.

"Sweet mother...." More tiny text that could do with some word smithing. This worries me. I click it without really taking it in. So now I'm at the planet overview screen and I've got no clue as to what I'm supposed to do. Probably my fault for not reading the previous dialog. Ah well it'll come to me soon.

Gee moving the ship around the screen is cumbersome. Don't see a need for this ability. Why can't I just select a planet and the ship moves consistently to the designated planet? Do I have a need later in the game to be more aware of the pixels that represent a planet? We shall see, if not the free roaming nature is a distraction here.

I double click on a planet, and was expecting a planet screen pop up but got zip. Oh I see the planet details button now, so I select it. Ack tiny text, start to think I don't want to look at this screen for long periods. Again probably a case where the game is too early make full use if the screen real estate devoted to the text.

"Friendly acts"

Pretty pictures, but all I want to do is get to the meat of the game so I again don't bother reading properly and do hurry up / next to get to the screen. Gigantic dialog appears wow for one line of tiny text and a credit limit amount this seems excessive. How do I close it? x in top corner.

"Research technology"
What's my objective again? Yeah I'm losses at such an early point in the game. Serves me right for ignoring the previous messages. I select research blindly an hope for the best. Oh no a wall of tiny text that Provides me with the feeling TMI. Everything seems valid this time versus the help dialogs. There's a pull down at the bottom that just plain hurts my eyes with a wall of red text. I don't think I want to read them, so I select the first white and hope for the best.

"Contract compete"

Another wall of text but in the form of a log list, yuk, err maybe not. Looks useful and interesting, but the red hurts my eyes. Gee it looks like lots of stuff happened because I did research. Still not sure what I researched though or how I apply it, so I close the screen.

Icon overload on the right of the screen. Feed back like this is nice but do I need to go through each of them?

Oh dear I just realised that this star/planet screen is real time gah missed a lot that's going on. Is there a way to slow this down. Hmmm think I'd prefer this to be a TBS part whilst it's not a twitch fest I don't have that one more turn, or play a bit more bit.

I look up as I type this and now there's a wall of icon for each planet. I'm now completely lost as to what, why and how I do things to progress. Possibly too open ended?

"Hostile acts"
I attack a planet and see a lot of ships, but no clue as to how many. Do I want play this out? My feeling is no looks like tactical rinse and repeat with minimal fun, so I select withdrawal and quit the game.

End of notes.

It looks like this one is not my thing. Whilst I love AI War and Skyward Collapse (my current favourite) this plays like work and not fun at the early stage, so I think I'd have to push myself to find the fun bit. What I think it needs is tutorial and a set of objectives for the initial game that expands out to be more opened ended and less handholding. I don't ever feel a sense of accomplishment at this stage, so whilst I'm not a fan of being spoon fed, game progression is lost on me.

The key for me is that I don't feel I want to explore the numerous screens to search for the fun, so as I said I'm probably not the type of player for this game, but what I would say is I admire what you do and will give it another go next week when my own workload lessens.

Hope this is of some use.

[x4000]

Hey, cheers -- thanks a ton for all the feedback, that is useful stuff.

I feel like a lot of what you are running into is the lack of tutorial, and the lack of an overall objective-suggestion system on the solar map.  Both of those are things that I intend to address, along with some of the interface things that you bring up.

If I could make a request: can you not play the game any more for a while, and not read about it or anything of that nature?  I'll come back into this thread when I've fixed up the stumbling blocks that you're running into (may be a week, we'll see), and then if you would not mind taking another look, that would be really helpful.  It may very well not be your cup of tea, and there's certainly no hard feelings or whatever if that is the case.  But right now your feedback is really useful in helping to weed out the possibility that someone who would like it thinks that they don't simply because of interface woes, if that makes sense.  Kind of my first experience with Dwarf Fortress, in other words.

[Sounds]

Hey, cheers -- thanks a ton for all the feedback, that is useful stuff.

I feel like a lot of what you are running into is the lack of tutorial, and the lack of an overall objective-suggestion system on the solar map.  Both of those are things that I intend to address, along with some of the interface things that you bring up.

If I could make a request: can you not play the game any more for a while, and not read about it or anything of that nature?  I'll come back into this thread when I've fixed up the stumbling blocks that you're running into (may be a week, we'll see), and then if you would not mind taking another look, that would be really helpful.  It may very well not be your cup of tea, and there's certainly no hard feelings or whatever if that is the case.  But right now your feedback is really useful in helping to weed out the possibility that someone who would like it thinks that they don't simply because of interface woes, if that makes sense.  Kind of my first experience with Dwarf Fortress, in other words.

Sure thing. I'll come back to it in another and stop reading about it.

Hey I'm glad you mentioned Dwarf Fortress, that's one game I want really play but just can't get past the interface as it too hard work. I've installed it several times, the end result being I think gee I've better things to do with my precious game time, and quickly uninstall it. TLF gives me the same vibe, just not as insane as Dwarf Fortress.

TLF is by no means a Civilisation (1,2,3,4,5, pick your favourite) type game  but what I always like about the initial game mechanic/set up is how it gives you a small set of interesting choices at the start by way of the tech tree progression and thus you're never overwhelmed by options and choice as your learning of the game progresses. I don't know how you'd accomplish this in TFL per say, just the missions/contract screens with so many choices you can't possibly do at the start hurts the learning curve and leaves me with the feeling what I should be focusing on. I'm sure it's awesome and very relevant, just not clicking for me at the start or giving the right amount of incentive to want to know more.

Now I better get back to my own crunch time non game painfully complex project. 
Fingers crossed for next week.

[Sounds]

Hi there, I've a spare couple of cycles in an hours time. Thinking it would be great to have another go at this game and see what's changed, but if it's safe to do so now.

 I've avoided this forum since I posted this to avoid bias, so am I good to go?

[keith.lamothe]

Hi there, I've a spare couple of cycles in an hours time. Thinking it would be great to have another go at this game and see what's changed, but if it's safe to do so now.

 I've avoided this forum since I posted this to avoid bias, so am I good to go?

We definitely want the feedback, yes   Release is Friday.

[Sounds]

Hi there,

Below is my follow up to the tutorial section based on the new changes that have occurred since I put up this post. If you're a TLDR type, see the summary after the ------.



Welcome to combat
Gee this looks different than the last time. Not sure about the radar seems to show little of interest. Time will tell if it's of any use.

Bah, did it again and closed the dialog before reading it, so I've no idea how to zoom out. Assuming must be a mouse wheel thing which I don't have. Fingers crossed there's a keyboard shortcut......yep. Page up/down.

Pointing snorkel thing is better than the last one. Part of it shadows out...hmm.....speed probably... Press left mouse and a dialog popped up, now I'm not sure what the shadow does. Dialog useful though.

Some sort of bauble gets attached to my cursor. Oh it's autofire target, a bit flashy, but makes sense. I press it on a ship but it doesn't seem be targeting that ship.

Get to move the snorkel again, not sure it has anything to do with speed. I get the flashy autofire target and I press it on the enemy ship. This time it hits what I aimed at. Must have not done the right thing the first time.

Enemy ship slips out of my window, so I select the radar to try and move the view screen. Nothing happens.

Hey I can pan and scan now! Wahoo! Not sure whether the radar is of use now, taking up real estate for little value. Again time will tell whether it's of any use.

Gah the music is starting to annoy me now. I love Pablo's othe works, but I thing this one is getting old too quick. Turning the music off.

Flagship power management unlocked! Yay for me. I know it's only the first combat, but I like this positive acknowledgement and the explanation of what's going on. Nice.

I will say the hurry up button is useful, I wonder if there's an option to make it the default. The scrolling text is going to get old pretty quick.

Ooh very nice. Next 'hurry up' or two later I see that the snorkel can get longer by adjusting the bars. Gee the shadow on the snorkel actually wasn't a speed thing per say - waypoint along the movement line. Duh obvious to me now.

After close the dialog I'm back to the combat screen, so I turn the music back on as it seems empty and then off. I think I just found a track I don't like by Pablo (sorry). I make a mental note to taking one of the ai war tracks as a possible replacement.

Anyway back to the combat. One quick selection with the rail gun and they're now all dead. Like the last time, what's this about escape pods? I murder three in their escape pods? I don't think I was given a choice on that. Sorry pilots.

"Sweet mother...."
The solar map looks a lot better, fingers cross that odd blob thing is gone...I zoom out...no sign of the blob....hmm.

Nice overlay. Visually more appealing. Visually better than their other games, but hey I didn't purchase the others for eye candy. Fingers crossed there's substance beyond this point.

Quests at the top of the screen, last time I had no clue what to do here with little purpose but to fly the blob around and hope it would become apparent. This time the direction is clear.

I turn on the music again and this time the music is a lot better. Will definitely replace that combat soundtrack with another from AI War (sorry again Pablo). Gets very grinding on the ears.

So I select the Evuck? Quest. Hmmm get to a drop point... Not too hard to do but expect this would be the case for now. Quest results say good and negative things, it makes sense, but what 5 of Terraforming Kit? Do I want one? Next dialog that pops up I vow to read. Still the text at the bottom of this huge dialog of empty is out of place, seems it would be better at the top of the screen, but hey that's pretty minor.

Argh back to the solar map where's the quest suff gone? Now what should I do. Like the music nice atmosphere.

I right click on Tiamat and get on nice transparent list with an odd looking dialog down the centre bottom. Clunky is the word for this here. Again minor but will get annoying after long hours of play. This type of stuff needs to be consistent so far nothing is uniform - still minor though.

I select another planet and do a friendly act. Sure enough my minor niggle is there again. Nice see the background image, but a tiny green border text box at the top squashed with text, and a humongous one down the bottom. Where the close button? Oh x top right, this is probably just one large dialog box with complete transparency, doesn't work for me. Consistency in interface leaves a lot to be desired.

I select x and are back at the map.....I try another friendly act and same dialog appears. I think I'm supposed to select the squashed text box (duh)

Ack! Tiny text in a grey on a black background, gah this is painful to read. I haven't got my HCI book handy but I do recall that this is a poor choice of interactive metaphors. Don't really care about this much when I play games so I'll let it slide and press the "take action" button.

More combat music I think it's time I changed that track... Muting it for the moment.

"Tech tree unlocked" fantastic. I open it up and see some ghosted outed items. It's ok, but wish this was more 'tree like' hard to tell the prerequisites at the moment.

5 minutes late I notice an advisor button, and a breath a sigh of relief I know have a way to learn the game without doing a blind approach. It's not much at this stage, but it is something. Still I look at the options and wish for more quest like info.

I save the game at this point.

-------

Whilst I didn't go far beyond the tutorial, I think it safe to say I enjoyed it a lot better this time. There's still some glaring interface oddities, and walls of tiny text that could do with some adjustment in size and layout but still a better start.

What I don't like is the battle music, to each his own, but I think it might be worth reviewing as it gets old and grinding pretty quick.

Is the game my cup of tea? Still not sure, I love AI War (crap at it though) and Skyward Collapse; but TLF still feels like a bit impenetrable as to what I should be doing or focussing on initially.

The solar map hides many interesting things but the interface still seems to be making it hard to get going. In a round about sort of way I'm not sure whether my interest to learn the interface mechanics is worth my time in the long term. To be fair though I need to play it a lot further tomorrow after my own crazy schedule dies down a little.