[NEW GAME] Xanadú for testing

[somiryu]

Hi! I have finished developing my first game in BGA and I think it can be tested right now. It's a game with a lot of information on the table and the cards and I tried to make it so it would help players follow what others are doing on their turn, but I don't know if it is easy to follow.

Here is the link to the game:
https://studio.boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?game=xanadu

Here are the rules in a video:
https://boardgamegeek.com/video/34667/x ... void-rules

And here the written rules:
https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/84024/rules

Let me know what you think!
Thanks!

[Benoit314]

I did some tests and I think the moving boards are a bit confusing. The guidelines say players are used to scroll...
Think of it as a table. Players don't move things around the table during the game, ie, my cards in my hand stay in my hand. So keep the hands and the table at a fixed position.
You could reduce a little bit the card sizes to take less space.
Also, maybe sort the cards in the priority they can be played (brown cards first).

[somiryu]

Thanks, will keep it in mind! I wanted to prioritize the interface depending on the particular game action, but if you find it confusing I will have to rethink it.

[DrKarotte]

I also would suggest to make the cards smaller, and add tooltips with an enlarged image and/or a description. This way you will get a much better overview, now there is much need to scroll.

[DoctorPelusa]

I tried your game for a couple of turns, and It's looking good, but there're still some things that you need to improve imo.
- First of all card animations; cards were appearing and disappearing from the top of the screen quite frequently and animations were too fast, it was impossible for me to see what was going on.
- Related to that, the top container of the page is changing constantly which adds more confusion to try to follow the movements of the cards.
- For some reason, I see "Your buildings" and "DoctorPelusaX buildings" on the board, being the container with my name always empty.
- As some already outlined the game requires a bit too much scroll, I think you could reduce card size about 25%-30% (and their info would still be readable) but you could also show it full sized on a tooltip.

Keep it up!

[somiryu]

I have updated the game so there are no moving panels. Card size was choosen as cards have a lot of information and I want to avoid tooltips because they are not so reliable in mobile devices. Also in small screens I want them to be as clear as possible.I understand it requires lots of scrolling, but I prefer clearer cards, so a sacrifice must be made . I think the interface is now better thanks to the feedback! If you can test it again and let me know if its cleared, I'd appreciate that.

[DoctorPelusa]

Why do I see the DoctorPelusa1 buildings panel?

Also after I select a card to build that card gets hidden during the worker placement phase.

[somiryu]

I'm not sure what's happening with that DoctorPelusa1 panel... will try to replicate it. From you image I see you are playing in an outdated interface... many refresh clearing cache?

[somiryu]

I had this code:

foreach( $players as $player ){
if($player['player_id'] !== $current_player_id){
$this->page->insert_block( "player_area", array(
"PLAYERNAME" => $player['player_name'],
"PLAYERID" => $player['player_id'],
"COLOR" => $player['player_color']
) );
} else {
$this->tpl['CURRENTCOLOR'] = $player['player_color'];
$this->tpl['CURRENTPLAYER'] = $player['player_name'];
}
}

I changed the !== in the second line to !=... maybe that was the issue, but I would need you to confirm. Thanks for your help!

[DoctorPelusa]

Yep, seems like I had not refreshed cache, maybe that was the issue with the panel or maybe the comparison, whatever the case it's working fine now.

Still find the scrolling excessive, but I don't play on mobile devices, so I cannot tell about tooltips on those platforms.
Maybe you could add some kind of lightbox overlay, If the player clicks a card, the background is darkened and the card zoomed on the center of the screen, clicking outside the zoomed card returns the view to normal. (Most lightboxes that I know rely on Jquery, I don't know if it's allowed on the studio)