Welcome
Welcome to the latest installment in my game development subset of entries. I’m officially commissioning you to help with input on the latest testable piece of my new game, yes you! Before you get all excited, there is pretty much nothing glamorous about this. I really have no artwork and the usability and visual design are in their first draft. In the interest of keeping this as concise as possible, I’ll get right to it.
Create Team
The latest testable piece for which I am soliciting feedback is the “Create Team” piece. This also happens to be the first really testable piece (other than the menu) as all other development up to this point has primarily been foundational.
I started with the Create Team screen as the first feature since the team is really at the heart of the game. Each player can create a single team (I upped the limit to 3 for this test). Each team consists of exactly 4 team members. Each team member has a class (only 4 are available in this demo), a look (I only have stand in art here now and only 3 models to choose from. Yes that means you’ll have to give more than one player the same look) and a name. And finally each team also has a name.
To get to the Create Team screen, first visit this url: http://apps.facebook.com/battleschool. Using the application requires a Facebook account and requires Microsoft Silverlight 3.0 which is free and a small install. This part is intended to be pretty seamless so I would appreciate it if you can report any issues you have on this step. Once the Silverlight application loads you should get a screen with 3 options: Play Game, Statistics and Exit Game. Click “Play Game”, on the subsequent menu click “Create Team”.
I’m intentionally not going to go into details on how to use the Create Team screen as this is intended to be a usability test as much as anything. I realize it is pretty rough around the edges right now and hope that with everyone’s help I can make it look better and make it easier to use.
Some specific feedback items I’m looking for:
- Did it take a long time for the application to load initially?
- How easy was it to use the Create Team screen?
- Any suggestions for different design or look of the Create Team screen?
- Was the application sluggish at all?
- Did you get any error messages or find any bugs?
Feel free to leave any feedback in a comment here.
