Forums » Games » Travellers | alpha

Hi! We've been working on an impact game that's a little different... and would love to get some feedback.

You are working as a tour guide, in charge of a group of chaotic tourists. You have to keep an eye on everyone and make sure everyone has a great time!

* The game uses a path-drawing mechanic, and you are controlling multiple tourist characters at once.
* You can upgrade different buildings, and then create drinks and food to keep the tourists even happier :)
* There's a virtual economy with coins you get for meeting tourists goals, and then spend on building upgrades and making more goods.
* The game is integrated with facebook, but this alpha doesn't really have much chance to play with others yet. That will be coming soon...

http://trav.pikkle.jp/

This is mainly targeted at iphone/android with the touch+draw path mechanic. Tho it works on a PC of course.

We are planning a couple of other big new features, the artwork is often placeholder, but it would be great to get some feedback even at this stage, either in the forum here or to:
trav@biz.pikkle.com

Thanks!

hi yatayata,

i tested you game on htc desire hd device in the native android browser.

i like your graphics and the idea remindes me a bit to those airport games, where you have to land far too much planes :)

but i didnt want play more than the third tutorial, and here are the reasons why. please dont take it as offence, i try to give you productive feedback :-)

i controlled 3 different tourists, and everytime i tried to change the active tourist, the cursor jumps uncontrollable over the screen and the tourist began to walk in the completely wrong direction... and they move really too slow.

i think with this issue its not playable on my device, sorry :-(

OK, so I tried it out on my PC, on Chrome - so I'm using the mouse rather than touch. That part works well enough.

The first problem was that I was trying to drag the screen around but the game thought I'd clicked on a person and was setting their route, when I didn't think I was that close to them at the time. But that could easily be me getting it wrong.

The real problem was tutorial 3, though, with the upgrading of the place and people wanting melons - I upgraded all the buildings around the area (saw one textbox that said 'TODO'!) but no matter where I took them, they didn't seem that interested and that it seemed to be the wrong place so ended up with very unhappy people.

I also thought it quite interesting that people have to actually draw a route rather than simply the straight line between the person and what they're after, to navigate around obstacles. I don't think I've seen it done that elegantly before.

I think overall the game works well structurally but I think it's in need of a bit of polish.

thanks very much for taking the time to check it out, great feedback.

> htc desire hd
> tried to change the active tourist, the cursor jumps uncontrollable
i just tried on a few devices and was able to replicate this on an HTC Flyer. It seems an issue with their browser/touch sensing sending random events... ugh.


> game thought i clicked on a person
yes, we made the hit area bigger than the actual person, as people were having trouble selecting just on the graphic. more tuning needed i guess.

> people wanting melons ...
> no matter where I took them ... ended up with very unhappy people
ok so after you upgrade, you also have to "make drinks", and pick the melon. there are separate buttons for "upgrade" and "make". if you dont make anything then the cafe will serve default items = unhappy customers. basically the player "want" balloon and the building "made" balloon have to match.
was this "make" feature not clear? if so i need to rethink.

thanks again! its always interesting to see where people get stuck.

@drailing

i think we found that bug, its definitely an issue with HTC devices only.
from what i can see the second touch event gets sent with center of screen as the coordinates. someone got an index[0] wrong in the HTC Sense drivers i guess...

are you running Android>2.3.x ?
it seems 2.2 was ok, but 2.3 breaks. maybe HTC Sense or webkit too

| bug | android | HTC Sense | webkit | device |
| yes | 2.3.4 | 1.0 Tablet | 533.1 | htc flyer |
| yes | 2.3.5 | 2.3 | 533.1 | HTC Desire (S / HD) |
| no | 2.2 | ? | ? | HTC Desire |

basically the player "want" balloon and the building "made" balloon have to match.

See, that's the problem, IMHO - the balloon indicates what people want, which is friendly and obvious (and reminds me of Theme Park for some strange reason), but the first two tutorials show the people as wanting buildings, but the third shows people wanting something, rather than a building.

The problem to me is that you're changing the expectation on the user; you've been conditioning them to match balloon to building, then change that. What you might want to do is have the thought balloon indicate both the building and the item, which avoids the change of conditioning pattern, because you're not changing the way things are done between levels.

That approach allows you to indicate straight off the bat that a building might offer multiple resources, without having to explain it, and it avoids confusing users later on as to what building a person might be needing to go to.

Alternatively, given the intended rapid pacing of the game, perhaps simplifying it entirely might actually be better, such that while you might need to upgrade buildings, have each building only supply one thing that people want.

To put it in to context, in the case of the third tutorial, perhaps, instead of having the cafe that can be upgraded and serve two different kinds of product, have two distinct buildings that only serve one each. It'd probably require juggling some of the level designs but I think it might serve the game better: when people are put under pressure to carry out tasks, making the task more complicated by abstracting things doesn't help and raises frustration.

(Consider the likes of Diner Dash. While there's the fast pacing of assembling ingredients and so on, which is essentially the same dragging items around the place mechanic, you're not having to remember which place to go to get a given ingredient, you're just given the ingredients.)

hi yatayata,

im running android 2.3.3 with htc sense 2.1 and webkit 533.1

i try to get a xoom in office to give you feedback about android 3.2

do you have any idea how to fix this behavior?

@drailing >
tx for the info. i think we patched this tonite so I'll post results here later.

@arantor> awesome to get this kind of debate on game mechanics, thanks!

to be clear on the above, each building has "upgrade" and "make items" feature menus. but i guess this was not clear? eg you have to actually "make" melon when requested, not just guide to a building that has the potential to make it.

> the first two tutorials show the people as wanting buildings, but the third shows
> people wanting something, rather than a building.
> The problem to me is that you're changing the expectation on the user;
> you've been conditioning them to match balloon to building, then change that

good point. but limiting only to specific buildings i think may constrain depth in the game. perhaps from the outset we should set goals as "things" rather than any buildings.

thanks very much for the thoughtful comments!

The game looks great, I'll need to try it later this afternoon after work.

That said, HTC devices are awful for mobile development. The guys who make it have no regard for standards and have unaccessible options that the developers can do nothing about (including disabling HTC's fake pinch-zoom which really screws up games). I actively advise anyone who is looking to upgrade or get a new phone to avoid HTC for this reason - Or if you have to get HTC, get a new browser.