Play-testing: Iced Oolong

StoryNexus
21

My first thoughts were - Wall of Text.

For a game that starts being about ‘amnesia’, there’s bucket loads of information thrown at you from the very start - and no idea how, or if, it’s going to become relevant. (The first few runs of Fallen London had that) and, like Evolve, you’re jumping PoV too much. Keep with one narrator who can tell you all you need to know - If you’ve ever played “Bastion”, then you know the Narrator that would work wonders in this game.

What’s really hurting it at the moment is the “HI, WE’RE THE DESIGNERS AND THIS IS WHAT THIS MEANS”. Shatters believability.

Edit: Seeing a Clicky with “You need a Stranger 2 and a Stranger no more than 2 (you have 2)” is just confusing. Especially when there’s no other way I could have got to this point.

A quality called Chapter: 3 would have done this far more efficiently - and looked much better.
edited by The Root Of All Evil on 8/9/2012

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@James Yakura:


Glad to hear it’s working for you.

I’d be really interested to hear if there’s anything about Iced Oolong that makes you think it’s science fiction other than the in-game date!

@The Root of All Evil


When do you think we’re “jumping PoV”?

Where do you think IO is currently too ‘explainy’?

I’m not sure what you mean by “a quality called Chapter: 3 would have done this far more efficiently.” How using a Quality called “Chapter: 3” different from using “A Stranger” if both of them are ticked up by 1 per relevant Storylet?

23

[quote=Gordon Levine]

When do you think we’re “jumping PoV”?[/quote]

There’s moments where you’re explaining from the character’s point of view, moments where you’re looking from the omniscient narrator and moments where it’s the game builders - will try and dig out a good mix.

Here’s a bit I could grab:

“ICED OOLONG (project name) is a single-player story-driven online game about identity and choice in a near-future American southwest. (Builder)
Nearly two decades after monsters from America’s pop mythology poured out of Corpus Christi and divided the Unites States between civilization and the Wyld West, (Narrator)
players assume the role of a gunslinger with no past and the responsibility of building a future in the great American desert.(Builder)
ICED OOLONG will ask players to explore what it means to choose – between justice and mercy, rules and results, searching for yesterday and discovering tomorrow.”(Builder)

Grabbing the player right from the start would be something like - and this is off the top of my head.

"It was twenty years ago they started.
Twenty long years since Corpus Christi became Nightmare Central; cities rallied and fell under terrible blows, but a few survived.
Survived like our early pioneers did. Off the Land. Digging that fine line between justice and mercy, rules and results, searching for yesterday and discovering tomorrow.

Then you came into town."

A major part of IO (and Fallen London) seems to be starting the RP from the very start - and as long as you involve glasses or something when Doc is first created, I think they’ll get it.

[quote]
Where do you think IO is currently too ‘explainy’?[/quote]
There’s a bit where you get your first point of Doc, which I can’t get back to, which juddered me. It explained perfectly what I was gaining and then went into detail about what Doc was in this game - I think it’s unnecessary with the deliberate nature of your writing.

[quote]
I’m not sure what you mean by “a quality called Chapter: 3 would have done this far more efficiently.” How using a Quality called “Chapter: 3” different from using “A Stranger” if both of them are ticked up by 1 per relevant Storylet?[/quote]
What they look like to the player - given the example I quoted - which looks unwieldy - simply having “Chapter: 3” or whatever, looks nicer to the player (You can call it Bob The Hairy Llama inside the program, but the little touches to the player really work wonders). The description seems to run away with itself at times - which is a shame, because the imagery is quite lovely.

New little fluke: heading for the Burrow and Briar - I stop to look at the rabbit, I become a seer - and then step back to coming into the Burrow and Briar. Time lapse.
edited by The Root Of All Evil on 8/9/2012

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@Root:

Now I see what you mean about the PoV switches. At this point, we think they’re necessary to set player expectations given that Iced Oolong is 1.) hopefully not just for hardcore gamers and 2.) a different game in small but crucial ways from Fallen London, which set genre expectations we’re trying to play around with. There are also narrative-structural reasons for the bolded-PoV switching down the line. Thanks for the feedback though!

Thanks also for the point about Quality naming schemes. I’m a fan of wordy, clunky Qualities – I think they went a long way for Fallen London and I hope they’ll go a long way for us. I appreciate the outsider view though!

Re: the Burrow and Briar recursion, see the point I made awhile back about abstracting those weird couple of Storylet choices into separate Opportunities.

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Glad to help. Will continue to follow and offer advice. Can be heeded or dismissed either way :)

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@Gordon Levine


I feel insufficiently praisey after that. Let me just say, again, that I’m really excited about what you’ve got and if I seemed a little minutia driven there, it’s because I liked it, and like talking mechanics with people.
Thanks for blazing a little trail for those of us waiting to get into the Beta, and for showing what else you can do with the SN approach.

27

Not yet. Until I looked at the year, I was guessing it was Western/Historical Fantasy (the fantasy bit in question being White Noise).

28

Have a quick look at how Lily has differentiated her voices in City of Phire - all the instructions to player are in blue, and all the descriptions to player are in black. This differentiates them nicely.

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@Erik:


Aw, thanks! Looking forward to seeing what you put out once the beta is in wider release.

@James:


Well, let me know which genre(s) you decide IO is playing in once you’ve had a little longer with the game. I’d be interested to know!

@Root:


I’m not sure anyone else has given us the feedback that the text in bold is confusing. If we hear more of it, we’ll certainly look into alternatives, but right now I don’t want to fool around with text color. As a text-based game, I think the best approach is to make the experience of reading as easy as possible. That means sticking with good old black. Anything else opens up a can of worms that we can’t re-close.

Thanks for the suggestion though!

30

Just to let you know, Lily’s got blue text because she’s using [square brackets] around text she wants to be instructional, and that’s how it displays.

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@Emily: good to know – thanks!

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One issue with using bold as instructional text is that it can be… distracting. The human eye is naturally drawn to whatever is in bold, which can lead to paragraphs being read out of order and other such problems. For example:

There were no common work links, and no social connection. There was a moment of excited hope when he discovered that the serial numbers on the back of two of the cards showed identical mistakes in the printing, but neither of the other two cards showed any similar signs. So two of the patients had been diagnosed by the same machine—probably at roughly the same time—but that was the only connection we could find.
“Almost certainly a coincidence,” he told me sadly. “I mean, I’ll keep looking if you like, but don’t rely on me to turn up anything useful anytime soon.”
“Fine,” I said, and left him to it. I was grateful to him for trying, for giving me that moment of hope that we might find some way to cheat the machines (if only for today), but I couldn’t show it. That wasn’t the way it worked between us.

Did your eye just jump down here? That’s a shame, because this line spoils the last paragraph.

I’m not sure if coloured text is any better. Bold is so attention-grabbing is because human eyes are very sensitive to changes in brightness. Coloured text obviously makes things brighter rather than darker, but maybe the effect is similar? If it is, m e t a l a n g u a g e the previous word will probably attract your eye before you start reading properly. The proven solution is using italics. Generally, the eye will only notice italics while it’s actively reading.

Anyway, aside from this minor style quibble, I really enjoyed playing your game! I’m looking forward to the next chunk of content.

33

@Kadir:


Thanks for your input!

You make a compelling argument about Italics, but I’m still not persuaded about colored text. I think it’s both 1.) as distracting as bold and 2.) a lot less classy. You make the point that text ought to grab the user’s attention on its own. Our whole team agrees that colored text is fundamentally more intrusive and distracting than bold.

I’m glad you’re enjoying the game otherwise! Stay tuned – we expect to have a revamped Opening and new content on September 15.
edited by levineg85 on 8/11/2012

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In case anyone hasn’t seen this yet:

We’re currently soliciting second-round playtesters. Information can be found by clicking this handy link.
edited by levineg85 on 8/12/2012

35

I don’t know if you still want feedback on this round but I am slowly working my way through the tutorial and the requirement to click on a single pinned card after each bit is offputting. Even a little bit of choice would make that seem like a far less unnecessary(but toolset-required?) step. As it is, it keeps giving me opportunities to get distracted and really slows down an already kind of slow beginning. More later.

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@Chrysoula:

We are still taking feedback here!

If I understand properly, you’re making two points:

1.) Having to click a card every time you want to do something is annoying
2.) Having some choices between cards would make it seem less annoying

To point 1: that’s a function of the system; it’s designed to be played in bite-sized, clicky chunks.

To point 2: we agree! The Opening will be a little more varied and Opportunity card driven once we hit our first release. Thanks for your feedback!

37

So far. It seems interesting. I like the whole wild-west feel and the story is rather fun. I was surprised when the date read 2026… though I’d like to know, am I currently at a stopping point? No more cards have really popped up yet…

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@Jacob:

I would hope you’ve got to a card called “The Rules of the Game,” which has a comment about you reaching the end of current playable content on its last branch. If you haven’t, something’s gone wrong in a worrying way. Please let me know where you’ve ended up and I’ll try to troubleshoot. Glad you’re enjoying what we have so far; stay tuned for our first big content release and initial content revamp, due out c. Sept. 15. :)

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I just started playing the game because I was looking for something fun to do while bored at work and waiting for my actions in Fallen London to recharge. I have noticed a few places where there is a square that question or betabanner(something, I have forgotten the rest of it). I am guessing those will filled later with images or little level up progress bars? I can’t explain why, but becoming a Seer of Rabbits made me very happy ^__^

I have made myself a Google Doc just to save anything I think might be important later. I would keep it in a notebook but for some reason I don’t have any with me today… So far it holds the Jackrabbits.
[i]edited by Katbeth86 on 8/18/2012

[/i]It seems to me that the sentence "You suppress a shudder burn the images into your mind." is missing either an and or some sort of punctuation.
[i]edited by Katbeth86 on 8/18/2012

[/i]Sadly, I have finished the Rules of The Game cards, and there are no cards showing, which leads me to believe that that is all that is available at present. I look forward to seeing what comes next ^__^

edited by Katbeth86 on 8/18/2012

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@Katherine:

I’m glad you’re enjoying the game so far! It’s funny you mention the Seer of Rabbits Quality. Everyone on the ICED OOLONG team has a few quirky little Progress Qualities we’ve included off the cuff – for funsies, for flavor – and inevitably they’re the ones our testers shout out.

There are several word-drop typos in the Opening. They’ll be cleaned up going forward. Thanks for pointing that one out!