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Irog1 day ago

Hi Remi,

Thanks a lot for your detailed test report. You've made a lot of valid points. I will take the time to properly address them.

Before the start of the first map, the dialogue explains the controls to the player: mouse over a soldier (no need to click) and press the arrow key of the direction to go. There is no selected state nor cooldown. Clicking a soldier will be used later to swing an ax. I admit that this type control is unusual compared to main stream RTS.

Because there is a Windows and a Linux build I wasn't sure which one you ran. Your observation on the terminal mentions Windows. I think your test report header should indicate the build used Windows / Linux, and the OS + version / distro it was run on.

Your rigorous testing really helps :-)

Best regards,

Irog

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RemiQA1 day ago(+2)

Hey,

I gave it another try. Yes, you are right, the controls were explained at the beginning, however, I am very positive that many people do not read the full instructions and only catch a glimpse, just like I did. I never read full text, I just quickly skim what looks interesting and go. Once I knew how to control the soldiers, it was a lot easier and there were no input delays.

I still believe that selecting a unit and then controlling it with arrow keys might be a better user experience. You mentioned that clicking a soldier will make it swing an axe, but what about adding another key to do that instead? For example, Z. There is also an accessibility consideration here: not everyone may be able to constantly move the mouse to keep hovering over a soldier while simultaneously pressing arrow keys, whether due to motor difficulties or simply the physical awkwardness of the two-hand split. A click-to-select model would make the game more accessible to a wider range of players.

Another thing I noticed: after bringing 8 soldiers into the tent the level completes, but I still had 2 soldiers left and 60 seconds on the timer, and the game did not end. I had to wait it out because I had no more left/right moves available. I think the game should end when you complete the objective, unless you want to give some kind of bonus for the extra soldiers? But if the player doesn't want to go for that, there should be a way to skip it.

Sorry about the OS. I should have mentioned it. I ran it on Windows 11 build 25H2 26200.8457. Hope this helps. 🙂

Regards,

Remi

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Irog22 hours ago(+1)

Hi Remi,

Yes, you're right, people tend to skip over text. I should teach controls using more visuals. 

"I think the game should end when you complete the objective, unless you want to give some kind of bonus for the extra soldiers? But if the player doesn't want to go for that, there should be a way to skip it."

Actually, there is: Backspace empties the timer. You can use it to quickly retry a map if your soldiers are in a bad situation or you can use it to win early. A player who wants the extra challenge is not deprived of the opportunity to bring extra soldiers to camp but right now there is no bonus for accomplishing it. Displaying a reminder about the Backspace key when the minimum victory condition is met would definitely help.

I didn't realize the accessibility issues of the current type of controls. When designing the controls, I was afraid that select/deselect would create unnecessary burden on the player to issue orders in rapid successions and to several soldiers. Selecting multiple soldiers to give them an order is often not desirable because they occupy different locations. In RTS, the pathfinding algorithm leads the individual soldiers. Here the player needs fine control over the soldiers. But I will re-evaluate the benefits of a unit selection system as well as using extra keys like you suggest.

OS and build info is always useful for test coverage. My game builds also need a visible build info.

Thanks again for all your help.

Regards,

Irog

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