Wistar is beautiful but could use some interface upgrades

[Mystical Goose]

4 quick suggestions to improve gameplay:
1 - the worker movement interface is inscrutable. It's using three colors and you're clicking on entire ranges and even after it's moved one worker you can easily accidentally move them back. The jump interface in Beyond the Sun where you're selecting individual ships where the borders change color would probably make more sense. Either way, I'm either moving wrong workers back, or having to reset often.
2- undo works on the last step while a restart entire turn button does the whole turn (like scythe functionality)
3 - the side bar interface for your actions should be locked and visible. i like the idea of it hiding but it makes it too hard to select. would also be great if the main resources you have could be always showing as you scan around the boards. so you don't have to memorize or keep flicking back to your resource counts (Even if this was like a smaller/more streamlined version than the player pad version.
4 - you shouldn't be able to end turn without taking your main and bonus actions. or at least with a hard popup that prevents you. also having the main and bonus actions listed over the quick actions would be helpful so you don't lost track of them.

great conversion overall though. very good on the senses and very tactile.

[xevizero]

Hi, dev here, thanks for the feedback, I'm glad you mostly like the game. I'll try to give some answers here:

1) I'll see what can be done to improve the experience. I'd need some more feedback because most players don't seem to have a problem with this so I would need to know what is the most intuitive way to do this to for everyone.
2) This has been often requested but sadly moving to a granular undo would be really hard for this game. As crutch, I added a Save Game button that allows you to move the start of turn checkpoint wherever you wish to. I know it's not ideal but it's the best I could do for now.
3) I imagine you are playing on mobile here? There is a setting that I think does what you want, makes the side bar into a part of the page and not expandable anymore. I can't control the resources, that part of the page is managed by BGA and it's mostly not a great idea to touch it up.
4) There should be a setting for this as well, it's called "end turn confirmation", and it works like you said, with a pop-up that warns you that there are still actions available to do. You don't always want to do every action (sometimes it's actually a better strategy to skip, depending on the situation), so it doesn't stop you, just warns you if you still have either a main or bonus action. It doesn't count the quick actions because those are mostly always there.

Hope this was useful, in general check the settings, there may be something that improves your experience but was not the default!

[alexandrajantzen]

Hi I do 100% agree on the movement - I can't tell what is selected when, what the color changes mean, the selection seems to lag leading to errors in what I intend to do, and for me it seems completely impossible to move more than one on mobile (makes it hard for me to take turns on time). Initially I expected intuitively that I'd click the worker mouse itself to move, but now I know I have to click the area it's in - even still, I can't tell when it's selected, and about 50% of the time when trying to move two from one area to the other, I end up moving them back to where they started because the area I think is selected for "to" is somehow selected for "from." A highlight of the mouse in yellow or something when selected might help.
Regarding feedback of other users, at least one report in the bugs (154682) does relate to this and also confirm that movement is not intuitive, and is generally impossible on mobile (I remember because I searched for this previously when really struggling). I enjoy the game and appreciate a lot about the interface, but I am constantly using Undo or Reset when it comes to moving mice between the sections of the board around the wheel.

[tinpan70]

I agree. Struggling to get all actions complete with all the back and forward between action selections and the boards, so can really only feasibly play in turn based for now or risk taking too long over turns. Looks great but as others have noted...labour intensive to manage turns. My solution is to get the actual game.

[Artymysia]

EVERY player has a problem with the interface. Sometimes it's so frustrating, we just give up. Many times instead of restarting the turn, I'm just ending turn because I don't want to do it all again. There were too many decision points to be made. And the only option is to completely restart which is ridiculous.

Often, almost all of my turns in the 5th round take the entirety of the clock to finish. I'm furiously clicking away as fast as I can because I have all these cascading-synergistic actions. Then there is a miss-click, or an oversight, and I just need to undo last action; but there isn't any! I have 30secs left, and instead of restarting, I just pass and end the turn. Whereas, I KNOW, I could do at least 6+ more decision points and swing the game by 20 points if the interfaced allowed.

All my friends and I were stunned that this left BETA. We had no idea it was even close. I literally ran into two bugs the week before it hit release, so I don't know how it passed. I'm sure I reported them as well. You're not getting feedback because 99% of people won't bother to. Barely anyone knows how things behind the scenes of BGA works. They don't know that reviews are crucial. They don't know that reporting bugs is important to improve the game. BGA has released so much new content, that people are overwhelmed, and their attention is in high demand. These are two huge factors that are keeping games from getting feedback.

I never reviewed Wistar out of the 25 times I've played it. But if I did, I would give it a 2 for implementation. It's gotten to the point that I barely enjoy it anymore. It's not competitive because the UI is too clunky and over fiddly. For such a great game, it really fails on the implementation. I want to introduce this game to a wider berth of players, but won't if the UI is not improved.

On a brighter note, I really do enjoy this game, and the art is lovely. It's convinced me that I want it in my collection. I won't be playing it digitally anymore until improvements are made, but I'll be playing it physically once my copy comes in. Thank you for this creative game.

[CptPugwash]

I'll start with the good. The game looks so good, and I got a good enough sense from playing on-line that I'd enjoy the game that I too bought the physical game.

Now the bad.

This is the only game I have ever played on BGA where I've had to zoom out to be able to make the move I wanted to. In the worst example I had to zoom at 33% as the action I wanted to make first was about the 10th down the action list.

I am fed up thinking I've taken an action. (usually the main action) and ending up with zero reward, because I've done something in the wrong order. This often destroys an entire game plan. Please Please can there be a warning that you are about to do something that means you are getting jack diddly from the main action.

I can't imagine trying to play this real time. chaining 4 Inventions and 2 cubes and 4 movements in the right order in a limited time must be a nightmare.

[Alfonsov86]

It is a game I love in real board. I played once at BGA and will not play again here. The interface is horrible. I understand why you need 15 minutes to find oponents. Please, devs, hear users requests and do what need to be done, or retire the game. Thanks.

[Mystical Goose]

All of this - 100%. I had a friend so excited to play but he bailed immediately. It wasn't just hard to figure out - his entire turn would get wiped out or passed over, and he'd have no idea why. He was like never again. I'm only in because I love the game and I figured out the Ark Nova interface. But that's mostly complicated because the game itself is complicated, but it's actually clear on where to go and what to focus on and won't let you accidentally blow your whole turn. Rats is unparalleled in how many times you have to undo everything.

Save button is a bandaid that creates it's own set of problems and honestly i only use right before doing the movement token interface because that has to be the worst of it all.

Need to fix:
-make interface so you can't erase your actions without doing them
-undo that is chunked by actions not the whole turn
-some visual guidance on where to focus
-ability to combine benefits from multiple action sources (project points from main, card, mission actions)

On the plus side? BGA picked real colors for yellow and white pieces!!! Not sure why the IRL board game chose like jaundice white and mustard yellow, which look exactly alike lol

Glad online I can at least tell them apart.

[dashmudtz]

Have to echo the sentiments here. Saying

most players don't seem to have a problem with this

is probably inaccurate. This game has 11 topics in the forum threads, 5 are UI complaints, several include others concurring.

I kinda assume that most players are actually like me, tried to play the game and either didn't finish the first game, or never tried to play a second time because the UI is questionable at best. I just check every few days to see if maybe there has been a meaningful overhaul so that I can start playing again.

If you have access to the user stats for the games here on BGA, it is probably worth checking to see how many players either abandoned their first game or never started a second game. Compare that to other games on the site and that would probably give you some meaningful insight. As I am typing this, other games with a similar demographic (complexity, length, depth, etc...) have far more active games going. Currently 500 Wistar, with similar games all having 1000+. Given How many people love the physical game, general online hype for it, and the fact that it is a new implementation; having less than half of the other games is a sign that something is wrong.

[deeezz]

All of this - 100%. I had a friend so excited to play but he bailed immediately. It wasn't just hard to figure out - his entire turn would get wiped out or passed over, and he'd have no idea why. He was like never again. I'm only in because I love the game and I figured out the Ark Nova interface. But that's mostly complicated because the game itself is complicated, but it's actually clear on where to go and what to focus on and won't let you accidentally blow your whole turn. Rats is unparalleled in how many times you have to undo everything.

Save button is a bandaid that creates it's own set of problems and honestly i only use right before doing the movement token interface because that has to be the worst of it all.

Need to fix:
-make interface so you can't erase your actions without doing them
-undo that is chunked by actions not the whole turn
-some visual guidance on where to focus
-ability to combine benefits from multiple action sources (project points from main, card, mission actions)

On the plus side? BGA picked real colors for yellow and white pieces!!! Not sure why the IRL board game chose like jaundice white and mustard yellow, which look exactly alike lol

Glad online I can at least tell them apart.

And also, designer can make the house and the wheel side by side instead of up and down. This way, I dont have to scroll up and down 100 times.