[BETA] Witchcraft

[cadin]

Hi guys,

I'm getting ready to release a Halloween themed game called Witchcraft. It's a Mastermind-style deduction puzzle.

I'm specifically interested in feedback regarding the rules and instructions. Does it make sense? Are you able to figure out how to play?

Any other general feedback is always appreciated as well.

Play Witchcraft

PS: Flash 9 is required. (My first complete AS3 game!)

[5TonsOfFlax]

It does not work for me. The preloader seems fine, and I get the splash page. When I click on the "Start Game" button, nothing happens. FF on linux, player 9.0, r31

[cadin]

Hmm, that's strange. It's working fine for me on OSX, player 9,0,45.
Is anyone else having problems?

[Son of Bryce]

This game is frustrating to understand how to play. I jumped into it without reading directions. Then I clicked stuff and saw some candles. And I didn't know what they did so I read the instructions.

Now that I understand the idea, I still can't even figure it out. The candles have the same order as the cards from left to right, correct? I don't understand why I got 2 green flames then when I changed the other positions the green flames turned yellow.

You might want to make the "help" bigger, or make it stand out some more because I didn't even notice it and reloaded the page to get back to the instructions.

Awesome presentation man! (as usual )

[cadin]

The position of the candles has no relation to the position of the cards. So, a green candle means one of your cards is right, but it gives no indication regarding which card.
This is one of the things I'm still trying to clarify.

I tried to disassociate the two by staggering the position of the candles, but I don't think it's enough...

[smith1302]

Took me 2 games to figure it out, but once I did i thought it was rlly fun. Good job and i like the artwork. But U should definently explain how to play better.

[Dragonusthei]

Took to long to figar out how to play.

[cadin]

Thanks for the feedback guys.
Any suggestions on making it clearer?
What exactly did you find confusing?
Did the position of the candles throw you like Son of Bryce, or was the concept in general not clear?

[smith1302]

hmm maybe try to get the point across that your supposed to geuss that correct pattern with the cards using trial and error, but i wouldnt know how to do that while sticking with the theme. Because when i first played it i was thinking in my head. "what am I supposed to do with these cards and what do they have to do with a spell." but then once i lost and saw that I was supposed to make a pattern I was like ooooohhh.

or maybe at the bottom of the help page you can have a small "more help" button where you can explain it thouroughly.

[BlinkOk]

cadin that position thing is REALLY confusing. i was just about to post the same as Bryce dude.
i would suggest you make the candles rotate in a circle;

other than that the graphics are spot on.

[cadin]

i would suggest you make the candles rotate in a circle;

Nice! I like that. I thought of putting them in some kind of pentagram candle holder. Maybe rotation is what they need.

I think the candle placement is the main problem, but also as Smith1302 notes, it's also difficult to communicate the basic concept without making the instructions too long and wordy.

The instructions are always the hardest part of making a game...

[Ray Beez]

NONE of the buttons work!
I click START GAME and nothing happens. I had to use the right-click "Play" to move on, but the game never starts this way.

FireFox, flash player 9,0,28,0

something's buggy about the browser. I can't copy paste either. Ill restart it.......

NOPE, still can't click the buttons

[Frag]

Everything worked fine for me. I updated my Flash Player a few days ago, so maybe that made the difference. But anyway, very well done, looks nice. I used to have a game like this on my phone called "Logic" so it wasn't hard to pick up, but I can understand others' confusion.

If I were to explain it, I'd say:

When the game starts a random group of 5 cards is assembled in a random order, each card can appear once or not at all. You have 10? chances to figure out the correct cards in the correct order by process of elimination. Once you try a spell, your clue as to which cards are right is shown by the candles. A yellow flame indicates that one of the cards you chose is one of the 5 cards in the spell, but it is in the wrong position. A green flame indicates that one of the cards you chose is the correct card in the correct position. When all 5 candles are lit with green flames, you win!

Maybe that'll help

[Son of Bryce]

Okay, I played through it once. It's a really fun game. I like how you have the little thumbnails of the cards on the shelves so you can refer to you previous turns to figure it out (instead of doing it all in my head like I did).

I think Blinks idea of the spinning candles might be the best way to make it clear about the order. The only other way I can imagine right now would be plain text (ie. "1 match").

Maybe you can have little "tips" fade in at the top. You could work it in with the story by having a witch giving you advice or complaining that you're doing it wrong.

[cadin]

That's a good description of the game Frag. The trick is to boil it down to a few small chunks of text that people might actually read.

I like the idea of having some text tips coming in, at least for the first couple of turns.

Thanks for all the suggestions.

[Thomas Aquinas]

I also have the buttons bug, start button no worky

no buttons work at all, even the pencil farm links wont work...

[ImprisonedPride]

Really fun, but I suck, because for the life of me, I can't figure it out.

[lightspeed10]

Cool, really liked it! It didn't work for me at first (buttons not working) Although I did already have FP9, I updated it and then it worked fine!

[Al Capwn]

Yeah, the buttons don't work for me either.

[scheletro]

Nothing happends, I click to play and nothing