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Ratropolis DevDiary # 3-Improved Usability

Cassel
29 Jul 2019
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Watsup! It's me Cassel, the lead developer of Ratropolis.

How have you been? I just watched a movie called Moana.

There are a lot of messages that come to me that are related to developing indie game.

I recommend listening to "How far I'll go" sung by So-Hyang. It heals .



Then, I will introduce the contents developed this week.

I planned to post about the adviser system, which is a bonus element like the artifacts of 'Slay The Spire.'

So far it is only implemented as a dummy image.

 I will introduce it with additional resources next time.

Instead, I will show the usability features that has been recently added.



- Notification System –


The notification system is a system that came to my mind when I saw other users playing.

At the demonstration, some users were unaware of enemy waves, 

the appearance of loot chests, and the arrival of merchants.

I admit tutorial was poor to show what players needed to know.

I don't want users to feel troubled when they play the game.


To solve this, we added notification icons on the top left of the screen when any specific event occurs.

The notification message is displayed on the screen for 7 seconds

Click an icon, and the screen is automatically moved to the relevant position.


< New Notifications >


While developing, I thought about how the effect is triggered.

First of all, I implemented it by screen movement method. 

It scrolls when clicked.



Round Gauge Bar Improvements –


Effects that have a duration during the game are marked with a circular gauge at the top of the screen.

Earlier versions were inconvenient to see because the progress was not so noticeable

They were set monochromatic as a temporary measure.

We've improved this by adding effects at the end of the gauge.

The same applies to gauge bar that indicate enemy invasion.


< See from left to right>



Fog in Battlefield –


In the past, you could move the screen, but the range was limited.

Increasing the territory by building defensive wall was the only way to get wider scrolling range.

This was to hide the enemies invading the city.


Construct a line of defense at the rock to widen the camera range >


Players didn't seem to notice the increased scrolling range after building their defensive lines.

I wanted the players to expand further beyond initial screen range.

I felt I needed a separate tutorial or guide for this.


Also, if the extended line of defense breaks, the scroll range is reduced again.

At this point, if the player's screen is out of range, it is forcibly moved into the scrolling range.

It may be an unpleasant experience for users.


So we implemented the fog of war system to solve these problems.

There's no scroll limit anymore, but as you move away from the city, the background gets darker.

Building a defensive line will reveal darkened backgrounds.

Player can now explore the map naturally.


<What lies beyond over darkness?>



Improved construction –


One person gave me feedback on the development log I posted last time.

When the building is constructed, frame is raised for 4 seconds.

At this time, only the skeleton appears and the progress is not displayed to users.

It seemed that I missed that element! We added few changes under construction.


< A flying hammer! >



Bug recording system –


At beta test, there are often bugs that are hard to solve.

During last test, I noticed that the enemies stopped in place in the middle of the game.

The enemy system has never been fixed, and the bug was not reproducible.

Making it difficult to determine the cause.


<Weasels going strike in the build version>


It turns out that before weasels bug, invisible bugs were building up on other systems,

It was the result of a chain reaction that crashed into an enemy system..

Players won't know if the bug occurred, if it doesn't appear on the screen like this.

 Later, when a chain action causes a problem, it's not easy looking for the cause.

To solve the bug detection issue, we added a bug recording system.


Now, when an error occurs, the bug is displayed on the screen.

So that the player can recognize it immediately.,

The error screen is automatically saved to the game folder so that the event can be recorded.

We hope to reduce the time spent fixing bugs in the future.


< The bug is logged this way >



To sum up, I can see a lot of things that I lacked in the initial design.

I'm working on getting feedback and fixing it as we find events.

We look forward to hearing from you in the comments and email.

See you next time. Squeak~


Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CasselGames/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CasselGames


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