Home > Final crunch…

Final crunch…

May 26,2009 11:28 am 2 comments

We are in final crunch mode.  Martin, Brad (designer) and I worked a long week of polishing and fixing.  It was a good week and we got the game looking and feeling nicely.  Everything is now in for version 1 of the game and we only have a few bugs to fix.  We went from 4 pages at the start of last week to 1 page at the end.  It’s even shorter now…taking up about 1/2 page.  Some of the issues to be addressed this week is a final revision of the AI.  To me, the Easy version is very easy, I don’t lose a guy when playing that version (and I typically only use the Banshee or Archer) but watching newcomers play the game, they have a hard time winning battles.  I think it’s a matter of getting used to the iPhone controls.  Most people I’ve watched are new to the iPhone and thus new to the control mechanisms.  My 8 year old nephew played and had a hard time winning a battle until he got used to the controls, then he did fine (he’s a gamer who regularly kicks my butt at many games.)  I hope I’m right and it’s just the iPhone itself.

One struggle we’re having is the selection of characters on the Strategy board.  They are small spaces, but slightly larger than the keyboard spaces on the iPhone when people are typing…so I’m hoping iPhone users will be used to that.  I notice the new-user is trying to use their fingernails to select the pieces (palm and other OS users) and I have to teach them that touching with the fleshy part of their finger works better on the iPhone (they are used to the stylus approach.)  We’ll probably incorporate a “controlled” zoom so people can zoom the board to the area they want.  Initial tests with the pinch zoom didn’t work as the iPhone constantly got confused between a touch to “zoom” and a touch to select a character.

All in all, the game is playing nicely…the interface is easy and the combat is fun.  Although there will be some features we won’t be able to add in the initial release, I think most Archon fans will be pleased.  I certainly am.