Testers Invited

[JonO]

There was music?! I totally missed that.. my speakers were on. Herm. I'm using Chrome.

Chrome is my browser of choice (though the app is tested for IE and FF as well) I guarantee that there's music throughout out the opening sequence. And that it plays in all major browsers.

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My initial reactions

• The intro font, while very cool and futuristic, is very difficult to read. I had a hard time reading the blurbs before they changed.
  
• The starry background makes it very, very difficult to read. See this image for an example: http://i.imgur.com/tXILv.png and http://i.imgur.com/qvKqV.png
  
• What if during the course of the process I decide to change my mind? How can I go back to a previous section? I tried clicking on the top icons, but it didn't do anything.
  
• When assigning talent points, there should be an indicator that says how many I have left to assign. I'm not good at addition.
  

Interesting. Until now I have never had negative feedback about the Starcraft font. Can I ask about your screen-size and resolution?

You may not have noticed but I do actually have filters behind the frames that dim out the background - obviously not dim enough for you. Maybe I should put in a slider that lets the player decide how much he was to darken it. What do you think?

When going back, did you try clicking the back button on your browser? . . .Maybe I should have a button, too.

Best catch of the day was the talent counter. That was originally there, but I implemented it on the server and the app slowed way down (duh). I cut it out and intended to put the same logic on the client but was distracted for a couple of days and. . . That's the worst part about working alone on this big a project.

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Nice interface! Here's my feedback:

1 - please let people skip the intro/music

2 - some pages have a down-button to view a second section. this was not immediately obvious

3 - there is no way to go back to earlier pages. i might want to change earlier choices if i know what options i pick in the later pages.

4 - even though you are assuming people are educated on game play, I would still add popups for all in-game terminology. A blurb on "affiliation", for example, with 1-2 sentences on each choice.

1. Okay. (the code is actually there as a back door; clicking on the logo up left jumps to the first screen.)

2. I'd love to make them more apparent. But here's what is there now: The buttons are mentioned on both help pages, they blink when the player first arrives and again if he tries to leave before clicking them, and they're tool-tipped. Any thoughts on something else I can do? Maybe play a recorded ("Press the frackin button before you leave the page, buster!") ?

3. Hmmm, Looks like I definitely should add the back button instead of depending on the browser. (A long time ago I was told in no uncertain terms never to have a back button because that was the browser's job, but if two relatively sophisticated folks never considered that, I'd say there's a new paradigm.

4. On the help page for that screen, I note that if the player isn't clear on affiliation or species he-she needs to jump back to the wiki and read up on 'em. They are too important a choice to be handled any other way.

Thanks very much for the feedback. You are a prince!