Board Game Arena

Thank you for this implementation. I have played the board game several times and it is nice to have an online version. I have a couple of suggestions:

1) It is difficult to distinguish on the recruitment disks when a unit has been take or not. As it is now, when a unit is present, the small circle is slightly raised and you have to look very carefully. It is hard enough to see the difference on a computer monitor, but even more so on a small device like an iPhone. I would recommend blanking out the small circles when the units are removed to clearly distinguish.

2) When playing turned based, the game moves at a good clip but it really bogs down when the reveal units segment comes every four turns. It would be real nice to be able to authorize showing all your units at the outset rather than authorizing peasants, wait for everyone, authorize archers, wait for everyone, etc. Based on the turned based game that I am currently playing, this part of the game is going to take 90% of the game time.


Besides those two points above, I am really loving the implementation.

i think both of these are valid suggestions, especially the first one (my poor eyes !!).

replacing the recruitment spaces with blanks would work. my thought was that since you are using a slightly larger image for the spots that can still be recruited from, instead of just increasing the base image size, put a light halo around the original image to contrast against the background dark grey. the 'next' piece could be haloed in white, while the rest of the available pieces could be haloed in yellow. also, when recruitment pieces are added, they should start with the light halo image. currently it is very challenging to notice if one of the unit types is depleted and not available from a newly.placed recruitment city.

the second one also makes sense ... so during the reveal unit phase, instead of just displaying one unit type at the top, display all the unit types at the top in 5 rows.

as for my own suggestions:

#3. when a new recruitment / monster comes on deck, indicate the city number in the game log. the updated piece works for the first few rounds, but then on my browser, it starts to bounce around the screen (even at one time appearing ON the board in its intended location, leading me to include it in my move before it had actually made it to the board).

#4. i saw another suggestion post about moving the individual order displays onto the player panels .... i'm not sure about that one. when i decreased the screen resolution, i see how the board is intended to be seen, with the sideboard showing up in portrait view alongside the main map, and the other player order displays appearing between them and the player panels on the far right.

but i usually have my screen resolution boosted up (older eyes) ... so the sideboard shows up in landscape view below, followed by the individual order displays farther below that. so, i have NOT been scrolling down to look at the individual order displays. keeping the 'sideboard' in portrait view with the other player order displays vertically to the right would decrease some of the scrolling.

but another thought was that the order 'paths' could be highlighted on the board in the individual player colour. then, as the pieces move, the player colour paths can be returned to 'normal' colour as the pieces reach each new city. you would just need to have an animated graphic for each path on the board (2 per path for each direction x 5 player colours x 28 paths). action orders could just have a player ring for the city (21 cities x 5 player colours) ... hmm .. maybe that's all a bit much ... but i know i would get the DOH moments more from seeing visually how my intentions would be thwarted by the future orders of other players

I got another one:

When census processing, and a player who doesn't have certain unit, just skip the "ready to show" step, and automatically shows 0, it will be much more convenient.

e1q3z9c7 wrote:I got another one:

When census processing, and a player who doesn't have certain unit, just skip the "ready to show" step, and automatically shows 0, it will be much more convenient.

yep, especially for turn.based. in real.time, you *might* want to keep the option just in case there are some expert counters out there (not me for sure lol).

I have a few visibility issues:
- It would be great if the non-playable elements (Xidit country landscape) were a bit fainter in colour/saturation, so that playable elements (roads, wheels, player pawns) would stand out more clearly
- In the log, please replace unit names with the icons, this would dramatically improve legibility as to who has taken what.

You guys made some very good suggestion, I'll apply them when some nasty bugs I can't seem to shake off are wiped of the game.
All suggestions won't make it though, as some would require too much work, or too drastic changes to the spirit of the real board game.

I'm just here to agree on these suggestions.

Color advice:

1. Using black background and white surface to show number.

2. Fading the bard token of blue, make it easier to tell apart with black.

Thank You Very Much

I would really like to see an option, at least for turn-based games, that would allow open information (that is, show how many units every player has and bard count in the bastion). This information is completely visible from the game log (or from watching what happens in a real-world game). If you play turn-based, especially if you play more than one game, this would be almost impossible to remember without taking notes. (This would also simplify the census, since everyone would "show all".)

I also agree that it is very hard to see what units are still available in a recruitment city. I like the idea of making the empty spaces darker, but including this information in the pop-up for the city would also help (whichever is easier to implement).

alexsim wrote:I also agree that it is very hard to see what units are still available in a recruitment city. I like the idea of making the empty spaces darker, but including this information in the pop-up for the city would also help (whichever is easier to implement).

I came by to post a similar suggestion. However, putting the information in a pop-up would be problematic as hovering really doesn't work that well for mobile users. I like the idea of just darkening the circle once the unit has been recruited.

Another concern I have seen is that it can be difficult to figure out what city your piece is in. Finding my pieces is an issue I have with other BGA games, but given the busy board I think it is more of a problem here. I don't have a good suggestion for fixing it, though.