[FEEDBACK REQ.] Major Overhaul to The Witch's Yarn

[Musenik]

The Witch's Yarn has been available for a few months, but the conversion rate has not been terribly exciting. I looked into improving the experience and decided to make the following changes.

1. Completely redesign chapter 1 by raising it's maturity level to match the rest of the story and by adding significant but introductory gameplay.

2. Provide more save-game functionality.

3. Re-label the cues functionally instead of using Wednesday's 'in-story' point of view.

4. Supply a quick, UNDO button for easier, alternate navigation of scenes.

I hope the members here will try out this new version and offer their opinions of these changes. Even if you've played The Witch's Yarn before, please try it again and let me know if Chapter 1 provides a more compelling experience.

Your feedback will greatly improve the product. To those who like to flame about game quality, this is your moment!


Here are the download links:

(beta testing has ended.)

These are BETA builds, if you find a bug, just let me know. I can turn around builds pretty quickly.

[soniCron]

Your feedback will greatly improve the product. To those who like to flame about game quality, this is your moment! I guess I'll take this as my cue... I'm not going to do my usual bulleted list. Instead, I'll just say a few words:

The game seems to be marketed as a "game", which it clearly is not. It took me a good 30 minutes before I realized there was no "game" element involved at all. In fact, it's simply a somewhat-interactive story, much akin to the Choose Your Own Adventures of days past. On a computer.

The concept is unique, at least for the computer medium. The method of introduction into this "game" is, however, completely off the mark. At absolutely no point during gameplay did I realize this was not a game. I had to read the "How to play" under the "Preferences" menu before I even understood what was going on. Until that revalation, I was waiting and waiting for some form of real interaction. I don't know if "directing" the story in a different way would change the overall outcome, but I felt like I was totally out of control, having to click to make the story advance.

You're getting a low CR because people are expecting a game, and this simply isn't one. Target bookstores, interactive fiction sites, and the like, but even your website doesn't make the distinction between this "interactive story" and a game. False expectations + no clear resolution = don't like / don't buy.

That said, I very much enjoyed it, once I understood what was happening. But as long as a person downloads this expecting a game, they're going to, for the most part, quit after < 3 minutes. It feels like sitting through a really, really, really long cutscene that can't be skiped (when you don't understand that is the game).

EDIT: Removed bit about the patent.

Bug: sound clicks during music. using sb live! 5.1

[Musenik]

At absolutely no point during gameplay did I realize this was not a game. You might want to re-calculate your negatives... :-)

Thank you for what you said about, 'if the audience doesn't understand what they are doing is the game, they'll chuck it.' I think that's fixable in the marketing/choice of channels.

I would like to address the specific point of lack of gameplay. As the Req. said, chapter 1 contains INTRODUCTORY gameplay. These are the items of play:

1. Help Wednesday regain her memory of Hubert.
2. Help Wednesday negotiate her daughter's business advice without her tossing the girl out on her ear.
3. Help Alec get out of of her spinning wheel.
4. Spin a skein of yarn.

In chapter 2, the ongoing gameplay is to keep Wednesday calm and content.

The continuing purpose of The Witch's Yarn is to introduce adventure games to people who've never played one. One of the goals of this rewrite was to add more uncertainty to the choice of cues. It sounds like you felt your choices didn't matter.

Here isn't the place to discuss what is and isn't gameplay, but those are the elements of gameplay I chose to put into this section. Complexity of gameplay increases as new chapters are explored.


Thanks for the sound bug. Code from the Mac version overwrote the pc version, AGAIN. I need to add that into my build instructions.

[StormcloudCreations]

Interesting concept, but a so-so actual game experience really. It does take a bit to understand what's going on, and that may turn people off. I had the sound clicking too, BTW. The music and graphics are fairly decent.

It's strange; I tried the "interactive story" route, in a bit of a Fighting Fantasy, Choose-Your-Own-Adventure, story-based execution in my last game PathQuest (http://www.stormcloudcreations.com/pquest.html), and the conversion rate has been rather uninspiring as well, even with some pretty nice graphics and production values, I think.

Maybe this sort of thing doesn't generally sell well, despite the relative lack of real, story-based adventure games (with decent production values) in the shareware market. Maybe my demo is the problem. Who knows. :)

[Musenik]

It looks like I'll be radically changing the way I present the game in future press-releases and upon my web-site. I think by emphasizing narrative over gameplay, I may draw the right kind of customer to the product.

I just posted a new version to the same link. It should fix the pc sound bug. It has other fixes as well.

[mahlzeit]

Just played the new beta and here are various comments:

I am very interested in interactive storytelling myself, and I like your approach to it. I have been looking for another way to do adventure games because, while I like to be immersed in a story, I loathe the endless walking around (and the pick up item X, combine it with object Y puzzles). Just give me the story and the choices to make. Your game takes an interesting approach to that.

A little while ago I played an earlier version of The Witch's Yarn and I must say: this one is a lot more fun because right from the beginning there are a lot more things to do. (I believe the earlier version only had a handful of cues.)

The only annoying thing about the game is that the controls aren't immediately obvous. I kept clicking on the stage to advance the text but kept getting an error message that this was an advanced feature to be enabled at a later time. So I click away that message without even seeing that you can enable clicking on the stage right from the message box.

My advice: Enable clicking on the stage to advance the dialog by default. Then simply add an option in the preferences screen for people who feel the need to change that behavior.

Something that slows the game down and that results in too many mouse miles is the pulsing cue button. Why not simply list the cues at the top of the screen as soon as they become available. It saves an annoying click on the cue button. There seems to be room for it.

The Preferences screen also contains several "how to play" options. Maybe you can move these out of the Preferences menu and give How to Play its own button on the main screen. That would make it more obvious for new players where to find this info.

Small bug: If you alt-tab the game away, the sound doesn't stop.

Is it necessary to use 100% CPU time ? (It fries my laptop.) There isn't a whole lot of animation going on, so you could probably change the game loop from busy waiting to event waiting (and use a timer event for the animations). Alternatively, make the game loop sleep a few milliseconds each loop.

Overall, I think the game is great. It really draws you in. Have you considered voice acting for the text? That would make it even more immersive. (Although it's not really a trivial thing to do.)

Are you planning to publish a "game maker" for this, as I suppose you are running this on some kind of engine that can be re-used?

[Musenik]

mahlzeit,

Thank you for your in-depth report. I'll address the items, one at a time.

My advice: Enable clicking on the stage to advance the dialog by default. Then simply add an option in the preferences screen for people who feel the need to change that behavior.
During testing, this caused immense confusion. (Now, only experienced gamers get confused :-)

Something that slows the game down and that results in too many mouse miles is the pulsing cue button. Why not simply list the cues at the top of the screen as soon as they become available. It saves an annoying click on the cue button. There seems to be room for it. It's a good point, and in the next game I'll probably do that.Until then, press the C key instead (best if you mouse with your right hand).

The Preferences screen also contains several "how to play" options. Maybe you can move these out of the Preferences menu and give How to Play its own button on the main screen. That would make it more obvious for new players where to find this info. I like this idea. I'm not sure if I can add it right away, but maybe in a later release. (tight deadline to make a retail CD)

Small bug: If you alt-tab the game away, the sound doesn't stop. Will be fixed in next build.

Is it necessary to use 100% CPU time ? (It fries my laptop.) There isn't a whole lot of animation going on, so you could probably change the game loop from busy waiting to event waiting (and use a timer event for the animations). Alternatively, make the game loop sleep a few milliseconds each loop.My bad. To do the right thing in Python would endanger this old code-base. My current games all do the right thing.

Overall, I think the game is great. It really draws you in. Have you considered voice acting for the text? That would make it even more immersive. (Although it's not really a trivial thing to do.) Would LOVE to do voice acting, but it doesn't fit in 10MB. I will probably add some voice work to my next CineProse game.

Are you planning to publish a "game maker" for this, as I suppose you are running this on some kind of engine that can be re-used?Yes, sorta, later, when the engine is more mature. You do NOT want to go through what I do to make these games.

I'm totally with you on the, sick-of driving a character around empty worlds, hauling 'keys' around, thang. I think this system has a lot of potential, especially as I build more autonomous/intellegent and less scripted characters.

[mahlzeit]

During testing, this caused immense confusion.
That is interesting. Do you know what these players expected to happen when they clicked on the stage? I.e. why were they confused? I'd be interested to know that. Or didn't they click there at all?

[Musenik]

What I observed, if I remember correctly, was when a new user clicked on the stage, the next balloon would cycle. What they thought they were doing was exploring the environment, like good point-n-clickers. Without reading the balloon, they clicked again. Every time they clicked, a different balloon would appear, and before you know it they had clicked right through the tutorial, utterly clueless about the game's 'simple' mechanic.

[soniCron]

What I observed, if I remember correctly, was when a new user clicked on the stage, the next balloon would cycle. What they thought they were doing was exploring the environment, like good point-n-clickers. Without reading the balloon, they clicked again. Every time they clicked, a different balloon would appear, and before you know it they had clicked right through the tutorial, utterly clueless about the game's 'simple' mechanic. There was a much simpler solution, I believe! ;) Perhaps a "warning" dialog the first time they clicked on the set would tell them what was actually happening. In my opinion, the popup we get now is too confusing (not that it's "very" confusing, mind you).

[mahlzeit]

Ah, okay, that makes sense. That's why I was initially clicking on the stage too, just to explore the environment. It's just that for me the message popup was confusing, like I just did something wrong; I guess it would have been less confusing if simply nothing happened. Anyway, things like this show the value of user testing once again. :)

[Robert Cummings]

I don't know what planet sonicron came from but this is a typical adventure game. All adventure games are linear somewhat and are interactive stories.

However, this is no monkey island :) the target market is confused as well.

[soniCron]

I don't know what planet sonicron came from but this is a typical adventure game. Perhaps I just haven't played enough adventure games, despite the fact that I consider myself a fan. I suppose I'm so used to the "look at mirror" "take hairbrush" "fashon rope out of hair from hairbrush to rappel out the window and escape" that I didn't feel "at home" in The Witch's Yarn.

Something akin to removing the jumping and moving in a platformer. Just collect mushrooms and coins. And I'm supposed to recognize it? Bah. By your definiton, Doom 3 is an adventure. It's linear and has a somewhat interactive story. ;) Sorry, but targetting the game at adventure gamers without clearly explaining the differences in gameplay is a sure loss of attention. What are the similarities between an FPS and a third person shooter? Plenty, but nobody seems ripe to refer to them as equitable.

EDIT: That is not to say this game is anything less than brilliant! ;)

[Robert Cummings]

What have I done? I've elicted a Sonicron patented response :)

[Musenik]

I guess it would have been less confusing if simply nothing happened.I tried that too, but hard-core gamers got really frustrated when NOTHING seemed to do ANYTHING! They would hunt around like crazy for that 'hidden' click location.

I didn't have one, inexperienced player try to click on the stage. They followed the few directions and were off playing. The early prototypes caused them other problems...

[Cycle]

I think the main problem here is a lack of useability. I mean, you are trying to appeal to people who haven't played an adventure game before - likely people with little experience in games in general - yet hardcore gamers here can't even figure out what's going on! Here are my suggestions from what I've played so far (it hasn't been much, unfortunately, as I've been busy but I thought I'd drop in some feedback anyway).

- a clear and simple introduction message box that outlines what the game is about and how it is played. Make it clear it's not a traditional adventure game, and what it really involves

- pop-up help. For instance, when a scene ends, a box will pop up saying to click on a cue (explaining briefly what a cue is) and when you hit a dead end, pop up saying "Oops, you've hit a dead end! Hit the rewind button to try something different" or something along those lines. This should be optional and each pop-up should have a tick box offering to turn off help for those who are experienced with the game or don't need it anymore.

- I often couldn't tell who was talking or thinking. Each character should have their own text colour, or perhaps the text boxes should be shaped like speech bubbles, coming from the revelant character. Also, when a letter is read or it's a characters thoughts, the text should be in italics or bold or something to let people know it's different.

- just a little other note, some extra sounds would be good. Like, just get some of your friends together to do voices for the characters. Not read large quantities of text, just things like someone going GASP!!! for when Wednesday is surprised, and a really crazy "yahoo!!!" whenever her son enters... little details to give the games characters... more character.

- I think when you are asked to use a cue, little information boxes should appear when you mouse-over a cue, giving a little information about what/who it is that could hint at what will happen next, which would take some of the guesswork out of the game and justmake it more enjoyable over all, in my opinion.

- If you decide to do another game like this, I would recommend changing the format and instead of just hitting dead ends, the players choices just change the flow of the story and stuff, leading to different situations and stuff. Just an idea.

[Musenik]

I've played so far (it hasn't been much, unfortunately, as I've been busy but I thought I'd drop in some feedback anyway).You'll have better feedback after you play more of the beta.

- a clear and simple introduction message box that outlines what the game is about and how it is played. Make it clear it's not a traditional adventure game, and what it really involves.Like trying to prove a negative, trying to describe a game by what it isn't, is futile.

- pop-up help. For instance, when a scene ends, a box will pop up saying to click on a cue (explaining briefly what a cue is) and when you hit a dead end, pop up saying "Oops, you've hit a dead end! Hit the rewind button to try something different" or something along those lines. This should be optional and each pop-up should have a tick box offering to turn off help for those who are experienced with the game or don't need it anymore.This is built into the narrative. You'll notice it when it come up.


- just a little other note, some extra sounds would be good. Like, just get some of your friends together to do voices for the characters. Not read large quantities of text, just things like someone going GASP!!! for when Wednesday is surprised,... little details to give the games characters... more character.This is an excellent idea, and it was included in the original design. Early prototypes had me 'gaking' and 'eeking' into a mike. Unfortunately, I don't have the budget to implement them with sufficient quality.

- I think when you are asked to use a cue, little information boxes should appear when you mouse-over a cue, giving a little information about what/who it is that could hint at what will happen next, which would take some of the guesswork out of the game and just make it more enjoyable over all, in my opinion.Your opinion matters, but so do others who enjoy a little guess work. As you play further into the game, you'll get stronger ideas about what each cue can do.

[Musenik]

I'd like to thank everyone who posted and emailed. The beta has been turned into gold!

You can access the full game of version 1.2 at:

www.thewitchsyarn.com