Hanabi: grand feux (new edition)

[sourisdudesert]

Just a question : we have sometimes to give “empty clues” that lead to negative clues. This is supposed to be authorised in the rule book. At the moment, this is impossible. Why ?

This is not.

Click on card => more options

[ollyfish2002]

I have to log on PC. I cannot play any more on Ipad: “problème récurent sur http...”

[Karl Klammer]

The usability of the new interface is really low, sadly.

I have now read the first 8 pages which show that the almost everybody agrees on the same points.

I think we can distinguish between two main areas:
1) New art style
2) New user interface

1) is certainly subjective, so there is no real need to talk about.
2) has been consisting of objective criticism.

Here are my main points about the UI:

1) New clue giving
Yes, less mouse movement now. But now you need to read text (objectively worse than old giant symbols). You also need more clicks (e.g. when doing rainbow). Selecting the correct option from the pop-up window is very error prone (objectively). It is made worse by the fact that the window pops up in front of the hand I want to give a clue to. So I cannot double check what I want to clue while looking at my options and the cards.

2) New visualisation of errors
Its is now a board behind the stacks of played cards. Very hard to see as most of it is covered. Also, dark red next to dark blue is very low contrast, so objectively difficult to distinguish.

3) Discard pile
The old discard pile was real cards. Very easy to see and distinguish. The new one has extremely small numbers in very low contrast colors. It's near impossible to see the purple and the black on the dark background. Small size and bad contrast are again objectively bad. Some people also have problems seeing everything without scrolling.

4) Player colors and turn marker
Very difficult to see some player names (I think this has been partially fixed). The big red rectangle below a player when it is their turn is very... ugly? It does not fit the graphic style of the rest of the interface. Also objective problems.

5) Playing or discarding
I always use the buttons at the top. But you can also do drag&drop. So having both is great. In the old version, you would get a green highlight around the "play" and "discard" areas to show you that you can do this. The new version does not have it - so many people might not figure this out.

Some general comments about the redesign:
One argument I have read a few times was: "This is how the game is played around a real table".
This is true for the new (optional) arrangement.

But it is not true for a lot of other elements:
a) Given clues about my cards are displayed on the cards. In the real game, I need to remember this.
b) The real game allows me to sort my cards.
c) In the real game, it would be impossible to show the errors like in the current version. As the board is underneath the "played" stacks. This would mean lifting them and putting a new tile underneath.
d) The discard pile is totally abstracted as no cards are used but just numbers.

Therefore, I do not think the "that's how it is in reality" is a particularly strong argument as there is some picking&choosing going on. Hanabi on BGA should either be as faithful as possible to the "real table" version. Or optimised for screen-based play. Atm, it is objectively a mix of the two.

It is clear that a lot of hard work has been put into this new version. I don't think anybody is denying it. It just feels that usability was not one of the main concerns. And this is arguably the most important aspect next to bug-free.

[Khoo1]

1. I can see yellow names better than before.
Thank you.

2. Great to see bugs fixes.
...by developers who had them in the first place and 400 testers did not catch it

3. I understand how much work some developers did.
...400 testers must really have a spike for developers

4. I agree with Zeinab001, discarded cards should be layout sorted by colour and sequence of numerals discarded and not auto arrange.
I could be wrong, could it be made both options available for players to select? I prefer sequence discarded.

5. The height reduce is good
But I still have to scroll up and down to see all the hands and discard pile which is slowing down BGA server in hosting games.

6. Display 8 circles of token left and right is a waste of screen real estate.
Maybe make the token display option to compact size or dynamic resizing or players can select which display they prefer

7. We play on BGA, via PC / Tablet / phone screen size.
Developers trying to keep all their design in real life sizes ... the popular version was popular because Hanabi was served in compact 1 screen view

8. In spirit of Hanabi, the game maker gave 1 page rule without telling how to play.
Now BGA is displaying what moves player can select to clue ... is Hanabi still Hanabi ?

Edit: addtion
9. Multicolour on discard pile is PURPLE on Discard board DARK BLUE is difficult to view in low contrast.
Can you poke my eyes out and make be completely blind?

Make Hanabi great again

[somonflex]

Sur l'ancienne UI, j'ai l'habitude de jouer sur un demi écran 16/9 (donc résolution 960px sur 940px) à 2 joueurs :

- Avec la nouvelle UI, je ne vois pas ma main. obligé de scroller sans cesse et impossible de voir les mains des deux joueurs en même temps.
- Obligé de scroller pour voir les cartes défaussées, et je trouve ça bien mois visuel et lisible qu'avant.
- On ne voit pas le nombre de carte restantes, la pioche est hors de l'écran et impossible de l'afficher
- Les jetons indices débordent sur la main de l'autre joueur et masque une partie des cartes.
- Les icônes en plus des couleurs (j'imagine une question d'accessibilité), alourdissent l'UI, il faudrait pouvoir les désactiver.
- Le changement du sens des mains par défaut. Il faudrait mettre l'ancien sens par défaut.
- Le système d'indice (donc le cœur du gameplay) est catastrophique. Il est masqué, il faut comprendre que l'on doit cliquer sur les cartes pour le faire apparaitre, merci à celui avec qui j'ai fait ma partie pour me l'expliquer, sinon j'étais hors-temps. La moitié des options sont masquées dans un "more options". Les textes sont un mélange de français et d'anglais. Et obligé de lire des textes alors qu'avant on avait de simple chiffres/couleurs. Ça alourdit la réflexion.

En 1920px sur 1080px (donc un écran standard en fullscreen, chose que je ne fais jamais), tout ne rentre pas dans l'écran, je ne vois pas le bas de main, et je ne vois que la moitié des cartes défaussés.

Je comprends l'envie de moderniser le visuel, le code et tout ça, mais là c'est au détriment de l'usage et du gameplay.

TLDR: Je trouve cette nouvelle version catastrophique et limite injouable, quelque soit la configuration d'écran. Je vais passer pour le vieux qui n'aime pas le changement, mais c'était mieux avant.

[Salome1]

Bonjour,
Serait il possible de rétablir l'ancienne version de Hanabi ?
Je ne comprends plus rien au fonctionnement du jeu, notamment lorsqu'il y a des joueurs en vertical, comment savoir où est leur droite et leur gauche ?
Où est la pile de carte restante ?

Je trouve ça particulièrement illisible, et pas intuitif pour un sous

[11196]

You've done one hell of a job to spend so much resources to downgrade something. I've seriously never seen anything like that. It's almost like you're here to sabotage BBA.

[VitaminZ]

Despite being very careful, I have several times ended up cluing incorrectly because the touch area between deciding on a color vs number clue is very small on my phone. This absolutely has to be fixed. The last touch of a clue should be enormous, which is why the old system, in which your final touch just indicates the player, was superior.

[sourisdudesert]

Another update

Thanks again for your feedback that helps us to make things better and better!

_ "Stacked" layout with 5 players: we reduced the height so you don't have to scroll to see the 5th player.
_ We made multicolor & black cards more visible on discard section.
_ We improved readability of active player names.
_ We highlighted zones to drag'n'drop cards to identify them better.

To everyone: please provide screenshots when you have some visual issues. Everyone has a different computer/phone/tablet with different resolutions, and it's difficult to improve things if we don't actually see what you see.

Example: on a 4 players game with multicolor, here's what you should see on a smartphone (no need to scroll more => everything is accessible):

[small faerie]

We worked hard on this new version, which is the new official version of Hanabi, and we continue to work hard to fix the last bugs and take into account your feedback, as you can see with the continuous update since the release.

I understand that you worked hard on this version, I really do, but unfortunately that doesn't change anything about the outcome.

Now, if this thread is just a collection of "your attitude is awful" and "I want the old version and nothing else", well, we will just stop reading this thread because it's absolutely pointless.

But it really wouldn't be pointless if you instead made it at priority to listen and maybe question whether or not you might have made a mistake.

We will not go back to the old version: we want to have the most advanced and recent version of all games, and this include Hanabi. So if you want to help, please move forward, make constructive suggestions (on this version) and stay polite. Thanks.

But why do you "want to have the most advanced and recent version of all games", if that means that you end up offering a worse product and lose players? I actually work with these very questions and the first thing to evaluate whenever you choose to do to something to your product is what _value_ you actually bring with the change in question. Is this change for example bringing customer value? Clearly not, if you aren't implying that all your customers are too stupid to understand the benefits of a new interface to a game many of them have hundreds of hours of playing time in. But by your phrasing I'm guessing that the main idea of having "the most advanced and recent version of all games" is rather to do with some form of brand value for BGA. But is that really the best priority in this case? If you lose the trust of previously happy customers, how many new customers do you suppose you will you have to gain to erase the bad effects of displeased previous customer?

Hanabi IRL and Hanabi online play in quite different ways which possibly makes copying the physical game without question a bad idea. Everything from the readability of the actual cards, to the practicality of the board setup can differ between the two. These new graphics are very hard to interpret quickly on the screen for example, but they might work better IRL. Also, we play very differently IRL vs online - the IRL game is usually played with friends and in a slow paced manner. The online version is instead usually played in a fast way and it can be hard to have time to exchange even smaller bits of communication. So, adding to the time needed to just find what you want to do and do it (the new hinting system is, like so many have pointed out, an immense downgrade) makes for a very stressful play and longer playing time which adds no value for the player at all. If I want every game to take 30 minutes instead of 15, then I'd really prefer for that extra time to actually grant me something of value, not just be time spent sifting through hint options in a stressed out manner.