I posted this in the Feedback Request / New release forum, but it seems pretty dead. Anyways, I deleted the old post and I'm posting it here now!

I'm just putting the pieces together now on Ultra Solitaire 1.0 and making sure everything functions smoothly. This is the first time I've released a product as shareware. A couple of years ago I started a small solitaire collection to learn the basics of MFC. Thinking maybe I could maybe one day turn it into a shareware game, I left the foundation code flexible and expandable. Around a year ago, when the project resurfaced, I began adding in many features, like a basic scripting language and a visual interface for editing games, statistic graphing, user profiles, and anything else that I thought would make the program a decent solitaire collection. Anyways, It's nearing it's release state.....but I need feedback before I release it to paying customers. I compiled it using MSVC++.NET for XP and it uses MFC 7.0. Will it run on earlier platforms such as 98/2000/ME with the MFC 7 redistributables included in the installer? Clearly, I need to know these kind of things before I even think about releasing a final version. Anyways, any feedback at all would be great. The website is here (http://www.ultsolitaire.com) . The demo is just over 3 megs. You should be able to find it with no problem. By the way, if any of the pages appear messed up, please let me know what browser you are using!

Originally posted by random
I posted this in the Feedback Request / New release forum, but it seems pretty dead. Anyways, I deleted the old post and I'm posting it here now!

I'm sorry but I moved it back. Please don't post threads into the wrong category.

The fact that you're not receiving a lot of feedback probably has more to do with when you posted the thread and the kind of game you're requesting feedback for. I think what you really need to do here is find people who are dedicated players of this sort of game and ask them to beta test it for you. Maybe in a solitaire forum or something of that nature. I could be wrong but from past posts, I don't think most of the people who regularly read this forum play solitaire so you'll probably get a limited response.

Well I didnt know that the moderators where so close minded. I'm sorry about posting my message in this forum, but I sure wasn't expecting anybody to suggest taking it to a whole different board all together....I mean, my post was about an indie game. No one paid me to make it. This is a forum for independant game developers isn't it? Anyways, if anyone still wants to offer any feedback about the site or the demo, then I would be happy to hear it.

Originally posted by random
Well I didnt know that the moderators where so close minded. I'm sorry about posting my message in this forum, but I sure wasn't expecting anybody to suggest taking it to a whole different board all together....I mean, my post was about an indie game. No one paid me to make it. This is a forum for independant game developers isn't it? Anyways, if anyone still wants to offer any feedback about the site or the demo, then I would be happy to hear it.

Your post wasn't inappropriate for this message board. It was fine. It was just posted to the wrong category so it was moved.

My suggestion to try a board of solitaire players was just that... a helpful suggestion. If you're going to sell a game to card players then I think that's really the kind of feedback that would be most useful to you. Feedback from people that regularly play card games. I might play your game and give you some feedback but being someone who rarely if ever plays solitaire I think my advice would be of limited value. You might get some good feedback here as well but it was you that said your thread wasn't getting much of a response and I was telling you why I think that is... not encouraging you to move onto another board because your thread didn't belong here.

The reason i posted the feedback request on the Dexterity boards is because I wanted feedback from indie game developers. Basically, I wanted to know if my program would run on various platforms, while maybe gaining some helpful feedback on how my site looked to other shareware developers who have had experience in marketing a succesfull shareware product. I feel that the "solitaire" part of my product is strong. I need feedback on the "shareware" part of it, know what I mean?

Some of the text on your site is overlapping when I view it. I am running XP Pro, IE 6 and I have the DPI display setting set to "Large" to make fonts larger (I'm guessing this is what's causing the problem...most people rarely test with this setting).

I've made a screen shot available for you at:
http://www.micromanx.com/misc/site.jpg

Also, I was unable to download the free demo, I got the following error msg:
http://www.micromanx.com/misc/site2.jpg

Maybe it's because you have spaces in the installer filename? ...or something about the syntax of "file://" that you are using?

Hope this helps...good luck!
-Scorpio

Originally posted by random
I need feedback on the "shareware" part of it, know what I mean?

Ok fair enough.

the demo download doesn't work. This should almost be a FAQ for this forum, if you want feedback, please test your download links before posting.

Scorpio.....thanks for the info and especially the screenshots. See this is the exact kind of feedback I was hoping for when I posted here. The site looks fine to me when I change my font size in the display properties to any size. What is the DPI setting you are talking about? Anyways....Sorry about the funky DL URL. I'm still new to website creation. The URL is fixed now, and the demo should be available for download.

Site seems to be working ok, except for 'Custom' which 404s.

Edit: The button at the top 404s, while the link at the bottom does not. Can't see why. Only difference I can see is a case change on the A of archive...

Generally speaking, it's quite bright and pleasant.

Font's a little small for my tastes, and I use 6pt terminal in dev studio! Your buttons at the top are also a little unclear because you are using a white font with white strips across the buttons on a blue and white background.

Quite like your features section. I was a little daunted by the thought of a scripting language as the first thing the game offered though. In my experience, people want things to be as simple as possible and are generally non-technical. I'd guess most people wouldn't know what the hell a scripting language was. I would probably put the simpler options to the top of the list so you don't scare them off before they get a chance to read all of them.

I installed your demo. Bit annoyed I had to restart my machine afterwards (actually I didn't restart). I've installed stacks of shareware demos and most (all maybe?) so far have NOT required that.

Anyway, it hasn't worked without the restart. It's looking for 'Plain Red Tint.bmp' in C:\Documents and Settings\Jason\My Documents\Visual Studio Projects\Ultra Solitaire Release Launch\DropTargets\'. and 'mosaic3.bmp' in a similar location.

I'm quite interested by the offer to have new content available every day. I notice there was no new content yesterday or the day before. I'm not trying to be funny, but if you say every day then people are going to expect it, and they will check that part of the site to see if you're delivering on that promise.

When I eventually restart my machine I'll give the game a play and let you know how it goes.

Good luck!

SC

Originally posted by random
Scorpio.....What is the DPI setting you are talking about?

To get to the DPI setting, do the following:

Right-click on Desktop
Properties
Settings Tab
Advanced

The General tab will have a DPI setting in the Display area. I have mine set to "Large size (120 DPI)" to make things a little bigger.
-Scorpio

Hi,

Restarted my machine as promised and got the old...

'Failed to load Explorer.exe. You must reinstall windows'

It looks like your install copies a newer version of msvcrt.dll into c:\windows\system and I'm afraid Win98 doesn't like that at all.

Fortunately I have a dual boot machine so no reinstall necessary but if i hadn't then I guess you'd be watching your back by now! ;)

The whole episode also seems to have killed my SS database (which resides on my machine and not the server) stone dead.

Let's hope that's not too serious.

SC

random - I agree that since the forum split a few weeks ago, the New Release/Feedback section seems much less frequented. I recieved about 4 pieces of feedback total. I remember when this forum used to get dozens of feedback for a game. I think my game is fitting genre to the Dexterity audience too, so I doubt thats the reason for it. Maybe my screenshots just didn't compel anyone to download... i don't know. It was just a little disappointing thats all, so I know where you are coming from Random.

</rant>

-Bruno

And the lesson is: never install dll's into the windows directory. If you must install a dll, put it in the application directory and avoid dll hell and the customer complaints that you screwed up their machine.

Bruno - yeah, sorry, your screenshots are keeping me from being enthralled. :) it's not just the look, it's the look plus the character plus the genre. Whereas in random's case, it's just that I hate solitaire. :)

Wow, thanks everybody. This is exactly the kind of feedback that I needed - Feedback from developers who actually know whats up. First of all....

escotia: I am so sorry ....I had no clue Win98 couldn't handle a newer version of the MSVC runtime.....This is the first time I have actually "deployed" (to use Microsoft's term for it) an application to other computers. The documentation that came with VS.NET, while comprehensive, is vague in some areas - especially redistributing vital files to different windows platforms. Anyone agree? I guess I have to link to an older version of the dll to support Win98. Am I correct? I use MFC version 7...Anyone got any ideas on whether I can use MFC 7 with an older version of msvcrt.dll? Also - thanks for the info about the website. I'll be sure to fix those things. I don't know about the mis-sized text with the custom DPI settings tho.....I'm very new to using style sheets, and so far I see no way around that. About the content - Contrary to what the site says I haven't actually released the game yet, so all of the little time I have allocated for the project is going into fixing the things that you people have found by generously testing Ultra Solitaire. As soon as I release the final build, I will shift my time into creating (lots) of new games and art, and building up a nice little archive.

No biggie. That's why it needs tested after all.

If you do have to include dlls, then generally speaking you're much better leaving them next to the exe rather than installing them into system(32) or whatever.

You could also try just statically linking everything...

SC

Hmmm.....I posted a reply last night, but it never got posted.....Anyways....I fixed almost everything. The website links, the features page, the installer, etc. The appropriate DLLs are now installed beside the .exe itself. The demo was uploaded with my settings file by accident....I fixed that and a couple of minor graphics bugs and re-uploaded the demo late last night....I sharpened the buttons at the top of the website pages. It helped a little bit, but I will redo them soon when I redo the entire site. Thanks for all the helpful info escotia. Anyways, hopefully the demo runs without any hitches now....

Much better. Nice job! You even got rid of the restart. :D

One glitch when the game starts you have a splash screen with an ok button. Behind that was just junk because nothing had been rendered to that surface yet. Obviously it just needs once round the loop before you put up the splash.

Can I suggest you change your 'About' drop down to 'Help'? Have a 'Help Topics' command in there that launches the chm for the user, so that they don't have to go looking. I'd also put a link to the chm into the start menu.

Your chm seems to be missing its' images. I think this is because you have built it with absolute paths rather than relative and it's not actually looking into the chm for them.

Also have your 'About' portion in the Help drop down. That's just always where they are, so people should know to look there. Why not put a link to your website on the about info too?

I reckon you'd also benefit from having a 'Buy Now' button on the toolbar. At the moment there is no easy way to buy the game. In fact I can't even find out where I would buy the game while I'm playing, at all.

Web site wise, the text 'No new games have been released since Ultra Solitaire has. (It was released Sept 5)' seems totally out of place (and the english is bad too :p ).

I think I understand why it's there, but just wait until you've got another product to tell people about. Otherwise they might even realise why your trying to get them back to that page! ;)

One other thing to consider is nag screens. At the moment there is nothing reminding me that I've not paid you for the game. Why not stick the usual 'Unregistered Version' on the title bar and bring up a nag screen at the start and end of each game?

On the topic of the end of a game, I was a little confused by what to do next. How about a box that congratulates me on being great, tells me my score and asks me if I want to play again or start a new game or similar?

Nothing shows the score while you play either does it or am I just being dim?

Ok that's enough to be going on with. So jump to it! ;)

SC

P.S. The downloads on your custom content pages don't work.

Hi, game looks good, plays like I expected. I'm not a huge solitaire guy so I only play for a bit. One thing that bothered me was that the whole game didn't fit on the screen, even after I maximized the window. (the last stack of cards was halfway off the right side of my monitor)

I'm using 800x600 16bit res.

Good Luck with the new game!

-Bruno

Trials of Werlin beta (http://www.bantamcity.com/files/ToWBetaInstall.exe)

Ok thanks again for the help escotia....you are proving to be invaluable. Here are some things.

* About the junk behind the splash screen - That never showed up on my comp....ever, but right after I read your post, a strange glitch made itself known. As you move cards about, part of the screen will be 'erased' to the BK color. It almost looks like the background is being rendered offset on the backsurface, and then is slowly being exposed as cards are dragged over it.....I have no clue what is causing this problem, but it's awful that it all of a sudden came up days before I hope to release. I hope I have fixed it (I used a very ugly hack, and I am ashamed), along with the 'junk' escotia was seeing.

* BrewKnowC: Ultra Solitaire is meant to be run at a resolution of at least 1024x768. I have added a small disclaimer on the site, and I hereby dedicate it to you. Thanks for the feedback....glad the program didn't crash your computer ;)

* Help is now a menu bar option. Yay.

* Stupid me! I can't believe I never compiled my help file images into my CHM manual. BTW, the HTML Help Workshop documentation was very unclear on how to do this properly....took me a few minutes.

*There should already be a link for the help file in the start menu........I don't know why escotia said there wasn't. (Or rather, accidently implied....)

*The website has been updated (Again)....yes, I knew the content page URLs were bad, but I hadn't time to fix them before I posted for feedback (I work at a fish processing plant 12hrs a day, starting at 6:30 AM). For some strange reason using 'file://' instead of 'http://' locked up my copy of IE.....

*No 'Buy Now' toolbar button for now........I'll put that in soon, I promise.

* escotia - About the lack of congratulations you felt upon finishing the game......when the HighScore list is empty, and you set a new highscore (which happens almost every game, when the list is empty), you are not congratulated unless you beat an existing score. Make sense? There is a pretty little congrats window with a nice link to the HS list however, you just need to start setting some good scores. ;) Also, I felt that the majority of users would become tired of the same little window always popping up and asking them what they want to do after their game is finished. I'll let them decide....choose a new game, or hit the restart button.

* Nag screens? No sorry, I'm gonna go for a while without them. The demo clearly says 'Demo version' on the splash screen an plugs the Full Version, and that's enough for now. We'll see what happens with that.

I've already gotten priceless feedback, and I feel that I should give something back to the forum....I'll start by introducing myself. I am an indie game developer in the bud. I live on a small island in British Columbia. That's in Canada. Like I said above, I work in a fish processing plant. I make 12.50 an hour stacking boxes and hauling farmed salmon around. I'd rather be coding. It's cleaner, and far more stimulating. I've lurked here for quite awhile and watching these forums expand from a small group of dedicated indies into a massive base for indie-info of all sorts has been awesome. There is so much valuable information here....and we have Steve to thank. Thanks, Steve!

Anyways, as I was saying, I'd like to give something back to the forums. I am willing to post all of my numbers for the Ultra Solitaire project, throughout it's entire lifespan, along with anything helpful or interesting that I learn along the way. I will post my sales from time to time (once I actually get some....), as well as expenses of all sorts. There will probably be many rants too. I think sharing numbers this way provides other developers a valuable look at what kind (and quality) of products generate a profit. An intimate view of a shareware solitaire collection may not be the most exciting thing in the world, but at least it will discourage, or encourage people to pursue their own Ultra Solitaires. Anyways, this post is over. I've re-uploaded the demo again, and fixed a few more things on the site. (Uploading anything at 26k takes forever......thats why this post is so big ):D

Junk has gone from the first screen, although there is still a single frame of strangeness when I hit ok. If it's a toughie then I wouldn't invest any time in it. Not serious enough.

Don't be ashamed of 'ugly hacks' either... Whatever it takes to get the job done!

1024x768 is quite a high res to insist on... I'll be interested to know if it affects your sales at all.

Good job on the Help menu. Is there no way to make your web link live on the 'About' though? Otherwse my ameoba like brain has to remember the address to type into IE and I might get it wong and go to some other guys solitaire and buy his instead! ;)

.chm working, and yes, you're correct. There is a link in the start menu. I swear I looked yesterday and it wasn't there. You haven't just stuck it in this one and told me it was already there to convince me I'm losing my mind and drive me slowly mad have you? eh, eh?

Middle background still has file://

If you're releasing without the 'Buy Now', it'd be interesting to know how if affects sales when you do put it in.

I want congratulated just for finishing a game! Hell, if I get a high score you should be round congratulating me personally!

I also want to know how I scored when I finish.

Make your splash screen more clear then. I barely noticed that because I saw ok and hit it without reading the text. Maybe even delay the ok button's appearance by a few seconds to force people to read it.

I've realised your install doesn't have a 'play now' option. I personally don't mind, but some people do...

Good Luck

SC

P.S. I don't eat fish, so if it was left to me you WOULD be programming! :D

Well, I think I still have issues with the site.