American History Lux - Feedback Request

[Sillysoft]

American History Lux is a game that takes you through the wars that have shaped North American and US history. It's in beta now, should be released soon.

screenshot: Civil War (http://www.americanhistorylux.com/images/US_civil_war.jpg)
screenshot: Mexican American War (http://www.americanhistorylux.com/images/mexican_american_war.jpg)
screenshot: Iraq War (http://www.americanhistorylux.com/images/iraq_war.jpg)
screenshot: Campaign Menu (http://www.americanhistorylux.com/images/choose_war.jpg)

Windows Download (http://sillysoft.net/download/American_History_Lux_Demo.exe) - 17 MB
Macintosh Download (http://sillysoft.net/download/American_History_Lux_Demo.dmg)
Linux Download (http://sillysoft.net/download/American_History_Lux_Demo.jar)

American History Lux webpage (http://www.americanhistorylux.com/)

I am interested to hear what you think of the difficulty (there are 3 levels), and any other thoughts you have. Don't be shy with your feedback, please give me everything, I can take it. There are demo limitations in place, but I am happy to give out codes to any testers. Plus there is space in the game credits for some tester names.

If you have any problems then the Support/log.txt file inside where you install it might be helpful. You'll need Java to run it, but the installer should deal with it.

[bodgey]

Seems a bit too easy. I haven't played Lux before (or even Risk) and I managed to go through all the demo levels (first private then general -- I didn't even see the difficulty setting the first time, it's kind of hard to notice) really quickly by just putting all my soldiers in one group and taking over as much as I can with that group. The enemy doesn't attack so you can always beat it like this and there's no way to lose. If the enemy attacked then you might need to think about how you want to arrange soldiers but right now there's no need for strategy.

Bojan

[Sillysoft]

It seems like there was a problem with the version I first uploaded. Part of the AI was missing, which caused it to do nothing. I just uploaded a fixed version.

[svero]

I like the concept of this.... taking the game you already have and adding the historic themes. It's a nice idea.

[Nauris]

Can we get Edward Norton as avatar? ;)

[Ryan Clark]

It looks awesome, Dustin! I really enjoyed playing it, and I think it will do well. It has plenty of niche appeal, and general Risk-appeal too.

My feedback:

- The default difficulty setting was very easy. I didn't realize that I could change the settings (I didn't look for the option, really) until I re-read your post here. I suppose if I really wanted a challenge I would've looked around for that setting, so really, just ignore this comment :)

- Too much? The demo seems to let me play almost 50% of the scenarios. I wonder if you're giving away too much. I was quite engrossed after the first 2 scenarios... perhaps you could test a few different versions of the demo with different limitations and see which ones perform best?

- The "lock" icon used on the scenario selection screen looked really rough to me. At first I didn't know what it was. It doesn't seem to have a border on it, so it runs together with the words underneath. It confused me.

Anyway, as I said, I think it's a really great game. I enjoyed the demo!

[Stu]

I like the concept of this.... taking the game you already have and adding the historic themes. It's a nice idea.

I would agree except, unless I'm missing something, you took way too much out of the game you already have.

I'm not sure if it makes me a good tester or a bad one but it's worth noting that I bought Lux months ago and I've played the hell out of it ever since. At times I play it carefully and strategically and other times I just play to kill a few moments for whatever reason. The problem is that I'm so jaded with the original that I can only mourn the loss of critical features in this new one.

I do appreciate the problem that you have here. In order to be remotely authentic with these historic themes/maps, you can't very well allow the player to choose his territories (nor allow random placement), you can't allow the player to place his armies at the start of the game (although this one is a bit more arguable), and you can't allow the player to select the number of opponents. You could allow me to choose my side but it seems I can only play blue, at least in this version. What I'm left with is a few canned scenarios that dramatically lose their replayability to the options they are lacking.

Don't get me wrong, these a very nicely done scenarios. I just wouldn't get much mileage out of them without all my usual options, whether historically accurate or not. I could play literally hundreds of variations of the original and never play the same game twice. I doubt you expect to sell many of these to people who already own and play the original Lux as it seems most (or all?) of these maps are available to us already. That being the case, perhaps you will bring in some new fans with this strongly themed, although watered down, version. It certainly looks nice and initially draws me in with the simple yet engrossing gameplay of the original.

I can't really comment on the difficulty settings in general because I've played so much of the original. I can imagine a need for the easiest level but just barely. The early scenarios can be won in two or three turns with little effort. The hardest level is about right but can also usually be won with only moderate effort. If your target customers are new to the game I wouldn't think you have too much tweaking to do.

[Sillysoft]

Thank you all for the feedback so far. You are right Stu, one of the main goals of American History Lux is to create a simpler form of Lux to expose more people to it. It targets non Lux players more then Lux players (who will be able to get it for cheap). Also, if this does well then it should not be too much work to make an 'Ancient History Lux' or 'European History Lux', etc.

- Too much? The demo seems to let me play almost 50% of the scenarios...
Yeah, I added an extra map to the demo for testing purposes when I released it here. My thoughts are to restrict the demo to the first 3 scenarios, and have the Civil War as the first non-demo map in the hopes that it will attract people to buy it.

[Ricardo C]

Not digging the "logos" for the Mexican-American and Civil Wars. Too modern and flashy, I'd much rather see something more period-appropriate, or at least less "loud".

Nice job on the Iraq one, though :)

[soniCron]

I like this. Great idea, mixing themed historical battles with Lux in an exclusive package. May just buy it... ;)

[Ryan Clark]

One other thing I noticed, Dustin, is that sometimes you call armies "armies", and sometimes you call them "guys". I know I call them "guys" sometimes when I play Risk, but it seemed a bit odd to read that in the game :)

[ErikH2000]

Oh, this is gonna be great. Can't wait for the final release!

The game crashed to desktop on me when I finished the first scenario and clicked "Next War" though. Is there a log file someplace I could grab and send you?

Wonderful music, BTW.

-Erik

[Ryan Clark]

Is there a log file someplace I could grab and send you?
On my machine, it creates the log.txt in the "Support" subfolder of the installation root.

[Sillysoft]

Is there a log file someplace I could grab and send you?
There is a log file stored in /Support/log.txt inside the folder where you installed it. (EDIT: Ryan beat me to the answer by 1 minute!!)

The music was done by Manuel Marino, who is on these boards.

[Leper]

I like the strong themed, watered down version better than the other, mainly because I love how thick everything is!! I really wish I could play the game but it is giving me fits.

The game is very slow, when I click on a state it takes a few seconds for me to visually see an update. Also, The fortify button is ontop of the menu button so I have to be careful to be able to actually click it!!

Another problem I'm having is that I'm done fortifying and I can't do anything else. The upper left corner of the screen is empty? Is there supposed to be an end turn button there or something? I can't seem to finish my turn, I'm stuck in fortifying mode and I dont want to fortify anymore. It also takes a very long to fortify because of the lag bug I'm experiencing.

This is a great game though, despite its bugs.
Here is a screenshot of my bug:
http://www.mattmcfarland.com/americanhistorylux.jpg

[bodgey]

This game is so addictive!

If you want feedback on difficulty:
I started on general, finished the first level easily enough but got slaughtered straight away on second level.

I played on major then and and I'm getting better at that second level but I still haven't beaten it.

I haven't played the easy setting yet, but I think the settings for major and general are perfect. It feels like the difficulty settings would really help make this game last long and provide a challenge for everyone.

As I said already I haven't played Lux or Risk before, and I only just figured out how fortify works, so you might want to take that into account, but I still don't think it's too easy.

Bojan

[ErikH2000]

"Major" difficulty for the second war seems too hard to me. American and British start out with equal troop income. British goes first and slaughters Americans leaving income at something like 31 / 6. I think the only American option at this point is to push out really hard to capture British bonus "continents" quickly. If I'm lucky it works, but usually I end up stretched too thin with my attacks. Playing more defensively doesn't work because the British will have that vastly superior income on the second turn.

I would make it harder for the British to capture so much territory on the first turn. Besides making the level less difficult, it would give the player an option to use a defensive strategy if that was his style.

I had no problems winning the first level on "Major". I'm probably a decent if not great Lux player to begin with. With normal Lux, I usually play maps with a combination of average and high difficulty bots.

-Erik

[Sillysoft]

...I really wish I could play the game but it is giving me fits....
That screenshot looks like there are bugs happening. There is a log file inside /Support/log.txt inside where you installed the game that might be helpful if you could post or send to me. The log restarts itself on each run, so grab it after the problem happens.

With the other Lux, doing a java update (http://www.java.com) often solves random problems. So you can try that to get it working.

[ErikH2000]

I finished the 3rd and 4th wars on "Major" difficulty. They are much easier than the 2nd for me. I beat them both on my first try without too much trouble. The 2nd war kicks my ass though. To be consistent with the others, I'd definitely tone it down.

Will try the hardest difficulty a bit later.

-Erik

[Ryan Clark]

I've managed to beat all of the levels on General, and I can do it almost 100% of the time. However, I play a lot of Risk, so that helps :) I have a different strategy for each level, and the stategies seem to incapacitate the enemy quite quickly. If you're interested, Dustin, I can describe them to you. However, it's probably not important. Even though I win, it's still fun! I like winning :)

However, I have seen the AI do some strange things... it seems as though it gets scared if I have a large army sitting next to its army, and even if its army has a path around my large army, it will not take it. It will sit there until its army is sizeable enough to destroy mine. In some cases this makes no sense, as it is possible for the AI to run past my army and break up my bonus regions.

However, I'll admit that this seems to only happen when I'm "toying" with the enemy; if I were playing seriously, I would simply destroy the AI's army with my larger army.

[Sillysoft]

A second beta is now available. The AI was mixed up, an extra hard level was added, the second level is easier, and registrations should work.

The link is the same as before, but here it is again:
Windows Download (http://sillysoft.net/download/American_History_Lux_Demo.exe) - 17 MB
Macintosh Download (http://sillysoft.net/download/American_History_Lux_Demo.dmg)
Linux Download (http://sillysoft.net/download/American_History_Lux_Demo.jar)

[Rubs]

First of all, I liked your game lots (after figuring out how to play it :)). I guess I have a long way to learn to play this type of games.

Now my fly in the ointment:

1) Buttons in the main menu got stuck after I exited settings or credits. Seems like they were being redrawn only when I hovered mouse over them.

2) Two way navigation (both forth and back) in the instructions would be nice, tho this is a very minor thing.

3) I thing you need to add some tutorial or explain the rules more clearly in the game. I couldn't figure out how to play it properly until I read the rules paper. To genre fans this may be ok, but to newbies like me this can be a salekiller.

4) There was some bug with headers in the game (see the image attached)

5) Game hung when I switched app with Alt-Tab. I wanted to save the prtscn-ed image, switched to image editor and then I couldn't get back to the game. It was not responding. Had to kill it with task manager and then start over.

6) Oh, yeah, maybe change highlighting indicator for difficulty level buttons, so that it is more noticable. And painting the button frame over it looks a bit ugly as well.

Will try to continue playing the demo tonight! This is what I could find out in about 30 minutes.

[Sillysoft]

There's a new build of American History Lux available for anyone who wants to try it:
Windows Download (http://sillysoft.net/download/American_History_Lux_Demo.exe) - 25 MB
Macintosh Download (http://sillysoft.net/download/American_History_Lux_Demo.dmg) - 15 MB
Linux Download (http://sillysoft.net/download/American_History_Lux_Demo.jar) - 15 MB

This version bundles a java jre with the windows download which is why it is bigger. The tutorial text has been altered in places. Also, it has been changed from a registration code system to separate demo/full downloads. This was done since it can be hard to enter codes (i.e. while in fullscreen), and it works better to not distribute the map files that are not in the demo.

[Gnatinator]

I just wanted to say congrats to you justin!

Your game is being featured on the front page of the apple downloads (http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/) section :)

Great job. Heres to many sales and much success ;)

[Ryan Clark]

Wow, congrats Dustin! We got on the front of their "games" page and we saw tons of traffic. I hope that being on the main page like this will bring 10x more than we got :)

[Musenik]

Just played the first two maps. On the second, I cleared out those pesky British in about five turns! Woohoo! I really enjoyed it. Thanks for making a strategy game for the Mac!

[Sillysoft]

Thanks guys. Apple has always been very good to us, and I continue to love them :D. They also put us on this other strategy (http://www.apple.com/games/gettingstarted/strategy/) page of theirs. I thought it was interesting to see there are only 2 universal binary applications on there (yes, one is American History Lux), out of 56 titles total. Go fast moving indie power, right?

There's an arstechnica thread (http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2006/4/12/3570) kicking around with some discussion of the historical aspects of AHL, and I just posted an explanation from the map designer of why the war of 1812 (and your other favorite minor war) wasn't included.

A press release is going out after the weekend, so hopefully it will be popping up in some other places too.