Hi all,

We've finally gotten Puzzle Word to Beta and I'm after the usual feedback if i can?

Screenshots:

http://www.bigfizz.com/dexterity/PuzzleWord1.jpg
http://www.bigfizz.com/dexterity/PuzzleWord2.jpg
http://www.bigfizz.com/dexterity/PuzzleWord3.jpg
http://www.bigfizz.com/dexterity/PuzzleWord4.jpg

and a beta demo:

http://www.bigfizz.com/dexterity/PWBetaSetup.exe


Known problems:
- Missing graphic on the dialog box on 2000/XP
- Initialisation anim sometimes 'mis-fires'

Thanks in advance!

SC

Only judging by screenshots now.. but right now in main menu its hard/impossible to understand which features are locked in the demo - "Locked!blabla" text covers it almsot completely. Make it semitransparent or something, otherwise people might not understand why they need to buy the game at all :)

Nauris: The 'locked' text is not there right from the start. The idea is to show the player what's there, then show that it is not available because it is the trial version. Does it work?

Not much enthusiasm on this one. Has anyone actually tried the game? It's a pretty standard word game but with a much larger play area than normal. Feeback from friends and relatives has been good. Who knows, you might enjoy it. ;)

SC

I'll give it a try and report back (our current project is a word game too, so it doesn't hurt to take a look at the competition! =)

BTW, about the "Locked! Buy Now to Play" overlapping the game description. perhaps you could make the "Locked" text only appear when you mouse over the button?

Chaster

Do this kind of games just have a huge dictionary or what? I played Beesly's Buzzwords and noticed many words that I didn't know at all, mainly three letter words (but my native language is spanish).

I think this is a critical point for a word game - I'd find very disappointing to find a word that I know it exists, but the game doesn't recognize it. How do you handle this?

Okay, major bug - which made me not even try the game:

The cursor is displaying a fairly bizarre behavior. I started the game in Windowed mode (640x480), and that seemed to go fine. (BTW, the extra game modes got covered by the "Locked" text so quickly I couldn't read what they were).

The problem with the cursor quickly became apparent. When in the window, the cursor was *tiny* (like 1/10th the size it is when not in the window) AND more importantly, I could NOT select anything on the right side of the window (for example when I went to "Rules" I couldn't get back out because the cursor would skip over the buttons on the right).

When I say "could NOT select anything on the right side of the window" I mean, the cursor would suddenly stop being active at the right edge of the playing board (not the window) and suddenly my "regular" Windows cursor would be active. Moving the cursor over the window again made the game cursor active again, but still unable to reach the right side of the window. (most likely the game internally has the wrong setting for the window width, so it thinks the user has moved the mouse off the window before he /she actually has).

Because of this problem, I couldn't play the game really (couldn't reach any of the buttons on the right during regular game play).

Chaster

The game is very well done!

Very clean, neat, colorful and professional looking. I love all the animation and movement of screen items and text: keeps things very visually interesting (I think). Also, the play controls (once I discovered them, see below) are quick and intuitive.

A few of the items below pertain to technical issues, a few to game play/player interaction/game feedback issues, but most are just my opinions: hope they are helpful in some way.

Again, very nice job! :)
David


Mouse Cursor (while in windowed mode):
======================================
* The custom mouse cursor is too small (even in full screen mode): I have good eye-sight and it took me a few movements to locate it. Even when its moving, its hard to keep track. It should be made bigger and/or more distinct.

* The games custom mouse cursor should track the actual movement of the system mouse cursor, not just whether its moved in a certain direction.
Whats happening is the system mouse cursor is moving off the window (and thus reappearing) well before the game custom cursor reaches the window edge; the custom cursor is still about 1/5 of the window size from the window edge. This happens only when moving the mouse towards the right or bottom edges of the window.
This also prevents the "Next" and "Menu" buttons on the "Rules" screens from being pressed.

* The system mouse cursor should be turned back on when it leaves the client area of the window, not wait until it leaves the entire window area (frame and all).
The causes the system cursor to not appear in the windows title bar.

* When the system cursor moves out of the window client area, the custom mouse cursor should be turn off: looks neater I think.


Opening Screen:
===============
* The game mode buttons (Time Game, etc) look exactly like the game options buttons (Exit Game, High Scores Rules, Rules). Same size, color and font.
Should be a little more obvious which is which.

* The text ("Locked: Buy Now To Play") covering the two play modes buttons, is too big: I can't see what the other two play modes are. They can be seen briefly when the start screen first appears, but its too easy to miss it.
I would make the text smaller and/or a little transparent so the player can see the modes their missing out on: more of a tease that way.

* Pressing the 'Exit Game" buttons, should, IMHO, prompt the user for confirmation first. It COULD get pressed accidentally.

* Add a credits button! That's your chance to take a bow for all the hard work you've obviously put into the game :)


Game Config:
============
* Should have the ability to adjust music/sound effect volume from within the game.


Rules Screen:
=============
* Why automatically switch from the rules screen back to the start screen after 30 seconds? I'm not the fastest reader, but I'm not the slowest, and it switched back on me while I was trying to fully absorb the first rules screen.
The only times I've seen games automatically switch screens, is when, from the start screen, it enters some sort of demo mode after a long period of inactivity, but never from the instructions screen.

* Rules screens should also display the basic play mechanics.
Only through experimentation did I discover that:
Esc - Brings up the pause game/ "Quit Game?" dialog
Esc - Exits the game from the start screen
Right- Clicking cancels the current selection
2-letter words are not allowed (there goes my chances ;)


High Scores Screen:
===================
* The different high score list are automatically switched between far too quickly!
If a player has gotten the new high score on one of the list and wants to admire it, maybe compare it to the previous high score or another players best score, they will be unable to do so, because two seconds after the list is fully displayed, its removed and the next list starts appearing.
Don't auto-switch the list, you've provided the player with a "next" button, let them use it. Also, it take four seconds for the list of top scorers to fully display, and while I do like the way it display, I'd cut the display time down to two seconds; four seconds is too long.


Buttons:
========
* Since all the buttons on the start screen become highlighted when the cursor is moved over them, it would be nice, for the sake of uniformity, to have the buttons of the "Rules", "High Scores" and Play screen also become highlighted when they are cursored over.
This gives the player a consistent visual cue that "this can be clicked".


Play Screen:
============
* There should be "Quit" button on the player screen. Currently the user can only get to the "Quit Game?" dialog via the Esc key (and this is not documented anywhere in-game)

* There should be "Pause" button on the player screen. Currently the user can only get to the "Pause Game" dialog via the Esc key (and this is not documented anywhere in-game)

* There is about 1/2 inch of empty screen real-estate at the left edge of the play screen. Moving the tile grid over to the left about half that distance, then moving the buttons along the right edge of the screen over to the left about 1/4 that distance would make the play screen look a touch more balanced, and not so crowded on the right side.


Bugs ??:
========
* When I press the Esc keep to bring up the "Pause/ Quit Game?" dialog, after a few seconds, the back ground music stops playing. It remains silent until about 3-4 seconds after I return to play, at which point the music starts up again. The sound effects are not affected just the music.

Chaster: New version there now where the mouse should work properly. I had rushed the 640x480 mode in and missed changing a scaling factor. Thanks for the spot.

DGuy: Wow! That's some response. The length and detail of that report has to be some kind of record! :D I'll take me a time to fully read and absorb all that. Certainly you've spotted some overhang from the game's cabinet origins that we would just have missed completely because we're so used to it being that way. Thanks.

The mouse cursor is an interesting one. By default I scale everything but I can see now that's madness as far as the cursor is concerned.

Thanks again.

SC

I'd find very disappointing to find a word that I know it exists, but the game doesn't recognize it. How do you handle this?

We try to have as big a word-list as possible but without giving literally thousands of pounds on an 'official' dictionary, it's never going to be perfect. For example, Collins wanted royalty share with a minimum of £7,500 per year on a 3 year deal, with the 1st years royalites paid in advance. Close enough will just have to be good enough I guess. ;)

SC

Hi,

I've implemented a lot of the suggestions and I think I've got rid of any show-stoppers. What's there should be a pretty good representation of the downloadable demo version.

The new version is in the same place:

www.bigfizz.com/dexterity/PWBetaSetup.exe

I've changed the time game to 3 minutes instead of 5 because once you get into the game 5 minutes is a lifetime. Good idea or a bad idea?

All comments/feedback appreciated but especially if you played the last version since you'll know what's changed.

Thanks in advance!

SC

Very Nice Update! :)

About the Changes:
==================
* MUCH better handling of the mouse and its cursor. Like the new cursor: nice, fat and easy to see.

* Like the blinking of the text covering the two locked play modes; better than my idea of smaller and/or transparent but static text. Blinking is more eye catching and actually gives more "life" to the start screen.

* Like that the rules screens don't auto-switch back to the start screen and that they give more details about game play.

* Nice that all the buttons that can be clicked highlight in some way when moused over. Interesting how that simple effect can give a screen more "life".

* Like the speed-up of the display of the high scorers list, and that the list don't auto-switch anymore.

* Like the exit game confirmation dialog, and that you use it as an opportunity to remind the player about the benefits of buying the full version.


About Previous Comments:
========================
* Still no mention of the right-click un-doing the current selection (a very useful feature). I know the basic rules screen is tight for space, but maybe you could squeeze it in there some where.

* Still no ability to adjust sound levels in-game. It's probably not easy to implement at this stage, but even just a simple speaker shaped button/graphic at the lower-left corner of the start screen and/or play screen that when clicked would toggle music on and off would be helpful.


New Comments:
=============
* Center the game window on the desktop when starting in windowed mode: looks neater.

* Music stutters and jumps during play. Sounds like the "play head" is jumping around randomly, and at random intervals, to different sections of the melody ( like a record needle skipping). Also sounds like different parts of the same melody are playing at the same time. Seems to be more noticeable during windowed mode.
This was not the case in the previous version: the music played fine. I noticed you fixed the problem of the music stopping during the display of the 'Pause' dialog: could one have something to do with the other?

* Program does not automatically regain keyboard focus, unless frame is clicked. To reproduce:
1) start game in windowed mode
2) click anywhere outside the game window; game has now lost keyboard focus as noted by dimming of frame color.
3) click anywhere inside the game window except its frame; notice frame color is still dimmed.
4) press 'Esc'. Nothing happens.
5) click on window frame; frame color is now highlighted.
6) press 'Esc', a dialog pops up.
I don't remember the exact command, but a "set focus" command should be issued whenever a mouse click event is signaled, just to make sure the game always has keyboard focus when player is interacting with it (I though this type of thing happened automatically but I guess not)


Again, very nicely done! :)
David

Time (and whole game I guess) ran too fast on my computer. I took time with timer and compared it to the game time and it was something like 1 minute in game 35 seconds in real time.

In windowed mode, the graphics output is scaled (like if the 640x480 picture was reduced to fit in a smaller window) and thus the display is veeerryyyy slow. In full screen it's nice and fast.
I get the music looping problem too, though it's not horrible. But the music is a bit too repetitive.
Windows 98 se, DirectX 8, Athlon 850, 480MB RAM, ProSavage 4 32MB.

Otherwise, nice game and GUI :-). I have trouble finding words longer than 3 letters in 3 minutes though.

Hi,

Thanks for the feedback guys. Been caught up finishing off some contract work but I'm back on it again.

@DGuy: Professional tester by any chance? Thanks for the feedback, it's been invaluable. Really.

@Alex_Code: A worrying bug that I can't recreate. Was it full screen or windowed mode or (worse) both? btw I've found your specs in another thread.

@StAn: You've found me out!! It was never supposed to have 640x480 but it seems that people still use 800x600 desktop (even on pretty good specs) so launching a 800x600 windowed app looks very untidy. I'll just default to full-screen and hope no-one notices! :D

Thanks again.

SC

escotia: I think it was fullscreen.