first impressions
Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 9:15 am
I really want to like the game but there are several items that interfere with my enjoyment.
1) The need to click the NEXT TURN button over fifty times before I was able to build my first fleet of two ships. This is simply poor design. Players should not have that much dead time before they can take a meaningful action.
2) Needing to click the NEXT TURN button over a hundred times before I had a fleet large enough that it was not immediately eliminated by neutral defenders. See number 1.
3) No documentation on how to actually capture another system.
4) No saves during battles. Some of us have lives. With combat taking upwards of an hour not being able to save in mid battle makes the game unplayable.
5) No SAVE GAME prompt upon exiting the game. Prompting to save data upon exiting an application is Programming 101.
6) Saving during a game does not register on the SAVED GAMES list.
7) No explanation of the game icons. What does the little alien head mean? Why are there half a dozen planets shown for a system but no method to access them?
Impossible starts. I began a game with NO systems within reach of my starting position. How many times was I going to need to click the NEXT TURN button before I had the technology to capture another system? Why should I bother?
9) Technology progress is way to slow and way to complex. At the very least there needs be an in game chart of technology relationships. I mean, for heaven's sake, I'm playing a game on a damned computer why should I have to develop a paper bookkeeping system just to track game technology when the application has all of that information already and the ability to display it in a comprehensible manner.
10) No undo move for the currently selected ship during combat. Since it is extremely easy to send a ship to the wrong location by an inadvertent click the failure to include an undo is at least in bad taste.
11) Weapon icons on ships should display both range & default power. Players have enough to do with needing to keep paper records of effects.
12) And the most important missing element: Documentation. You took my money and delivered a product without adequate instructions on how to use it. One thing I used to tell my students, "If you can't document it, it is criminal to charge for it." No matter how clever the graphics is the user doesn't have the information he needs to play the game then you are simply stealing his money.
Clean up these things and you might have a playable game.
...granpa sluggy who is no more disgruntled than usual.
1) The need to click the NEXT TURN button over fifty times before I was able to build my first fleet of two ships. This is simply poor design. Players should not have that much dead time before they can take a meaningful action.
2) Needing to click the NEXT TURN button over a hundred times before I had a fleet large enough that it was not immediately eliminated by neutral defenders. See number 1.
3) No documentation on how to actually capture another system.
4) No saves during battles. Some of us have lives. With combat taking upwards of an hour not being able to save in mid battle makes the game unplayable.
5) No SAVE GAME prompt upon exiting the game. Prompting to save data upon exiting an application is Programming 101.
6) Saving during a game does not register on the SAVED GAMES list.
7) No explanation of the game icons. What does the little alien head mean? Why are there half a dozen planets shown for a system but no method to access them?
Impossible starts. I began a game with NO systems within reach of my starting position. How many times was I going to need to click the NEXT TURN button before I had the technology to capture another system? Why should I bother?
9) Technology progress is way to slow and way to complex. At the very least there needs be an in game chart of technology relationships. I mean, for heaven's sake, I'm playing a game on a damned computer why should I have to develop a paper bookkeeping system just to track game technology when the application has all of that information already and the ability to display it in a comprehensible manner.
10) No undo move for the currently selected ship during combat. Since it is extremely easy to send a ship to the wrong location by an inadvertent click the failure to include an undo is at least in bad taste.
11) Weapon icons on ships should display both range & default power. Players have enough to do with needing to keep paper records of effects.
12) And the most important missing element: Documentation. You took my money and delivered a product without adequate instructions on how to use it. One thing I used to tell my students, "If you can't document it, it is criminal to charge for it." No matter how clever the graphics is the user doesn't have the information he needs to play the game then you are simply stealing his money.
Clean up these things and you might have a playable game.
...granpa sluggy who is no more disgruntled than usual.