Board Game Arena

In the current beta implementation of Jaipur, when a card is taken into a player's hand, the moment it begins the movement from the "market" to the player's hand, its image is replaced with the image of the back of the card. This causes me to often have to look over to the game log to see exactly what my opponent just picked up. I suggest that the card not be "flipped over" until it reaches the player's hand--so that, as it is moving from the market to the hand, the player can see what card was selected.

Did that make sense?

Not necessary, you just have to pay attention to the game.

A strange reply. I don't take it that absolutely everything that happens on the screen during a game here is "necessary." After all, why keep your own camels spread out so you can count them? If you're paying attention, you'll simply remember how many camels you took, right?

Clearly, "necessary" is not the operating consideration. If it were, why, we'd have nothing but a blank screen with a minimal coded text describing the hands. Those who are "paying attention" should have no problem negotiating such an interface!

Rather, I take it that the designers aren't going for just what's "necessary," but rather, wish to design the smoothest user interface possible given constraints on costs and programming time. This entails some things that are "unnecessary" but nevertheless very nice to have. It's up to them to weigh the benefits of this convenient informational redundancy with the costs of changing the program etc.

The way it currently works, the card has flipped over before you even know which card is being selected. This is how the brain works. It expects physical cues to precede sudden changes in the environment. In a live game of Jaipur, one sees the hand going for the card, and this primes the eyes to see which card is being taken. But in the current interface here on BGA, there is no such priming cue. For this reason, in many cases you must remember what card was there that was just taken, rather than seeing which card is being taken. This is surely not ideal from the perspective of UI design. But as I said, the programmers know more than we do about how convenient it may or may not be to make this change in the interface. But the desirability of the change, abstracted from the costs, is without question.

Hi Speusippus,

This is an excellent suggestion, and I fully agree with your analysis. Thanks for the suggestion.
Not really easy to implement, but I'll try to find a way to add this for a later version.

Cheers,
Een

Thank you, Een.

Don't have a problem with that myself. I just read the game log. In real life you do not have such a log,
so be glad that you have at least log to look at.

I think the game is implemented very, very well. I have a physical copy of the game and the interface here is very accurate.

Indeed, I consult with the game log when this happens. But it would be a smoother experience if, instead, the card being taken displayed face up while being taken, instead of face down.

In a live game, you can see the opponent taking the card. You are cued by the approach of the hand, and you know which card is being taken as it is being taken. But in the current implementation online, you don't get that cue, and so you don't know which card is being taken--and so unless you've consciously memorized the cards on display, it is easy to be in a position not to know which card was just taken.

Anyway, thanks Een for the response. I hope you're able to implement the change some day.

Update: the change has been implemented since the beginning of the week. Hope it's better like this!

Cheers,
Een