Episode 01 on iPad - Thoughts, Concerns, Issues, etc.

[Balinaeri]

Hi all,

I'm new here, so be gentle.

I've now played a little bit of Episode 01, enough to have a few thoughts and comments.

First, read a rather negative review here: http://kotaku.com/5987760/a-fascinating-point+and+click-adventure-bogged-down-by-crap

Now, I think that person was predisposed to dislike the game. I don't know why. Maybe someone stole his coffee that day.

But there are some valid nuggets in the review. Things I have noticed so far:

1) It does seem like it takes one more tap than it should to use Erica's abilities. But, honestly, that's a nit. You frown about it the first couple of times you do it, and then you forget it. It's not that big of a deal.

2) This image from the review does come up in the prologue. I think when she's getting ready to shoot the lock on the cemetery gates:



Note, that I did not notice the issues he describes when talking to Dr. Gallagher. I'm playing it on an iPad 3. I wonder if he's on  a different model.

3) The transitions are slow at times. So slow that you tap to make Erica do something, and when nothing happens for a while, you wonder if you really did tap it. This doesn't occur all the time. Just frequently enough to interfere with gameplay. This is honestly my biggest concern so far. I'd spend some time looking into ways to speed that up.

4) Another nit, but I think the game is upside down. It appears not to use the accelerometer to determine orientation. I don't have a problem with that. There's no point in playing it in portrait mode anyway. But I traditionally hold my iPad with the volume rocker buttons on the upper left and the Home button on the right side. This is how it fits in my bluetooth keyboard as well. Cognition wants the Home button on the left and the volume rocker buttons on the bottom right. This makes it awkward to reach the volume controls. It also puts the speaker down on the bottom left, under my hand.

I feel silly even bringing up 4). It smells of user error, not developer. But I've tried quite a bit, and no matter what, I'm left holding my iPad the wrong way.

As for the good: it's an extremely engaging game and you can easily immerse yourself in Erica's world. I'm enjoying the heck out of it, and I finally have something I can do on my iPad in my downtime. Thank you so very much for that.

I'll have more as I progress through the game. I'm still not very far into it. Start of day 2, I think.

[wilco64256]

1 - We're putting some effort into simplifying this for future episodes.

2 - This is really weird, it never came up in testing and it looks just fine on my iPad. I'm not sure what causes this one.

3 - We're trying really hard to make this faster for the other episodes. So far so good.

4 - I had to pick one landscape direction for this as the game doesn't work properly in portrait mode and the engine doesn't have an option to allow *either* landscape direction and I normally use mine in landscape mode with the home button on the left so that's the way I set it. Maybe in a later engine update they'll allow for either landscape direction.

[stika]

oh that face, we should turn that into a meme

[Oldbushie]

Augh, that face.

[stika]

there's now a thread about it as well as the usual facebook and twitter posts 

[Catsintheattic]

1) I'm on an iPad Mini, and I can't seem to load a game in progress. From the launch screen, I have the option to have a new game, load game, or settings. New and settings works fine, but load brings up several different scenes (each time I select load, I get a different scene) but I can't then choose 'load' or 'delete'. I've tried all manner of related space to the (left, right, above, below) actual text, but can't find a spot where it acknowledges me.

2) the game crashed when I tried to turn the stone in the mausoleum.

3) it took me a while to figure out that I needed to choose the briefcase on any given object to use the item you have chosen from your inventory. It happened by accident the first couple of times.

Thanks,
--sarah

[Balinaeri]

More small issues:

1) Occaionally, I miss a word or two of the voice dialog. I'll read something like "Erica, are you going to eat that egg sandwich?" and what I'll hear will be "Erica, are you going to egg sandwich?" If I replay, it's usually corrected, so this is just some sort of hiccup or burp.

2) Adjusting the time and date on the cell phone photograph was incredibly difficult for me. That's a lot of precision touching that has to be done. Good for me that I have small fingers, but even still I found it frustrating and difficult.

Game question: When I get a text message, are those stored on my phone somewhere for later rereading? I almost missed the message about Amy because I was trying to get Erica to move and was tapping on the screen.

[Balinaeri]

1) I'm on an iPad Mini, and I can't seem to load a game in progress. From the launch screen, I have the option to have a new game, load game, or settings. New and settings works fine, but load brings up several different scenes (each time I select load, I get a different scene) but I can't then choose 'load' or 'delete'. I've tried all manner of related space to the (left, right, above, below) actual text, but can't find a spot where it acknowledges me.

Thanks,
--sarah

Possibly a silly question, but did you save a game first? You can't load anything until after you have saved something, I'm pretty sure.

[Balinaeri]

1 - We're putting some effort into simplifying this for future episodes.

2 - This is really weird, it never came up in testing and it looks just fine on my iPad. I'm not sure what causes this one.

3 - We're trying really hard to make this faster for the other episodes. So far so good.

4 - I had to pick one landscape direction for this as the game doesn't work properly in portrait mode and the engine doesn't have an option to allow *either* landscape direction and I normally use mine in landscape mode with the home button on the left so that's the way I set it. Maybe in a later engine update they'll allow for either landscape direction.

Thanks for the reply! I'm a software developer myself, so I understand your pain.

As for 4 - This is the only app I know of that defaults to this orientation. It seems awkward to me, but maybe it's just me. If no one else complains, it's probably not worth the effort to change.

Good luck moving forward and I absolutely love this game so far. I still don't have as much time as I'd like to play, but I am progressing. I know the name of our John Doe now.

[Baseballguy3]

Looking at this topic, I can relate to some of the problems....
BUT before I complain, please know I loved playing this game!

I'm having the same problem with the gun glitch anytime someone uses it (in the beginning and the end)
I agree with the adjusting time precision thing for a touchscreen, I had trouble getting the right number because of my big fingers.
The phone text about amy was a big thing I almost didn't catch because I was tapping to go somewhere.
The orientation was odd at first, but honestly not a big problem
Loading was slow, but I didn't mind as much as other. Could be a little faster

With all of this said, I enjoyed this game a lot! Can't wait to play the next one, when do think episode 2 will be available?

[wilco64256]

when do think episode 2 will be available?

We're starting work on porting Episode 2 to iPad this week. We planned ahead a bit better for this one and we already worked out the major stuff (interface, etc.) for Episode 1 so it should only be a matter of weeks rather than months this time around.

[Balinaeri]

Yes, there's problems with the gun in the Church or whatever it is...I see a flat square surrounding it on the horizontal and vertical axes. I'm sorry, but I don't have anything for collecting screen shots on my iPad. I can see about obtaining something like that and submitting it if there's desire. Will be hard to catch because she keeps waving it around, and it doesn't show 100% of the time.

But I am really loving this game....wait...did I win? Hey, it doesn't feel like I won...

[Balinaeri]

We're starting work on porting Episode 2 to iPad this week. We planned ahead a bit better for this one and we already worked out the major stuff (interface, etc.) for Episode 1 so it should only be a matter of weeks rather than months this time around.

Woohoo! Mark me down as a day 1 buyer.

[stika]

you're awesome Balinaeri 

[KatieHal]

What he said!

[Balinaeri]

Thanks, stika, Katie. But I'll reserve my kudos for those who designed, built, and tested the game. You all rock and you should be proud of the results.

On another note, I didn't realize how easy it is to do screen grabs on an iPad, so I got a few of the gun issue at the end.






Hope this is useful.

[snabbott]

I can get something like this to happen in the Unity editor if I mess with the material on one of the objects attached to the gun. I don't know if it's relevant to this issue, but I've sent the information to the team so they can look into it.

[stika]

on the first image it looks like she's holding a canvas to distract the killer

[snabbott]

Right... That's not a bug - it's supposed to do that!

[wilco64256]

It's a FEATURE, I swear.

Ok, ok, we are looking into this and plan to have it fixed in a new version of the game on the app store.