Classic RPG in Articulate

Hi Allan!

Thanks for the chance to play, and good for you for taking on such an ambitious project! That's the perfect way to learn.

I'm mobile at the moment so thought I'd do a mobile test for you. I can confirm it doesn't do much on iPhone, and as near as I can tell the behavior is the same on iPad.

Given that, my main suggestion would be to offer up some kind of intro/backstory/instructions that sort of explains what the game is and how to navigate and play it. It would give the user an idea of what to expect and would make it much easier for them to tell you what is and isn't working, too.

i hope that's helpful, Allan! I'm looking forward to seeing how it progresses as you continue to develop it. :)

Thanks for sharing, I think it is in very early state of development, I am not sure how to get started. I press the roll button but not much else is happening.

Agree with Jackie an intro would be helpful, split it across a number of slides to reduce loading.

Hi Phil and Jackie,

Thank you both for your feedback. Good and piratical point about the intro. I'll try to get something in over the weekend.

I hope the roll function is actually working.

In lieu of a help section (for the next few days), you will need to press it, wait while it loads :-( and repeat 3 more times to generate a character, then press next to get into the game.

I'm thinking of adding JavaScript for a random number generator, rather than using the native one, but first I'll put together an intro screen, then think about a way to put in a JavaScript function that has an automatic fallback to the native random question generator if JavaScript is non functional/disabled.

If you could give any further advice on how to reduce loading times, I would be extremely grateful. It works well enough in preview mode, but once I publish it, it slows to a crawl.     

Looks like a very ambitious project and I'd love to see this progress. A tutorial would be useful, as I seemed to progress by accident (then got stuck in a C/B loop with those pesky goblins until I died).

Have you tried Pexels for Royalty free resources? 

https://www.pexels.com/search/forest/

Despite watching my young son's play similar games I've never got the hang of it not played one. So you take the points for at least getting me to try!

I agree that a game explanation with objectives would be useful though I managed to get to the village and visit a couple of places. However, not all of the options appeared to be available and those that were made little sense to me. Then faced with the slide full of features and numbers I was confused as to the significance of each field or what to do with this information. So, in addition to an overall introduction, it might be useful to have a hints/help option especially in the early stages to encourage action.

Overall, I like the idea and can appreciate the work that has gone into this. I'll keep an eye on development .... you never know, I might even complete my first RPG! Thanks for sharing.

Piggybacking on what others have said, you should have an intro slide.  You could also use the resources section to show in-game instructions or level hints. I am getting some unusual behaviors.  Doesn't seem to be a loading problem, maybe some of the slide branching is set incorrectly.  I love the idea, and I think the finished product will look great.

Sorry I really couldnt figure out what i was to be looking at.  Agree with others on intro infirmation.  if the next previous submit buttons dont function do you know how to remove them from the slides in the bottom right "cog"?

I look firward to learning more what this is about.

I agree with others re: providing an explanation. In addition to the explanation, I think disabling the previous/next buttons and menu would be beneficial as they're more confusing than anything.

Very interesting stab at the RPG concept though!

Hi Allan:

I have never played a RPG before so honestly I wasn't sure what to do.  An up front section that explains the expectations for the user would be great and include objective of game as I wasn't sure what I was trying to achieve.  I loved the images and as I went through it I thought to myself, If I knew what I was doing this would be really fun.  There were some slides when nothing happened and all I could do was go to Next slide.  there were other places where I used the menu to get around because nothing happened.  It actually was not slow moving at all, when I clicked on something, the next thing happened quickly.  I am happy to test this for you again when I know what I am doing. Thanks for allowing us to look at this project and give feedback.  I am impressed just by the enormity of the task you have taken on putting this together when you are new to storyline.

Thanks All,

I wasn't sure anyone other than me would ever look at the project :-)

I've been working on your suggestions, and I'll upload an update as soon as I have a decent connection tonight.

@ Ben - You are a life saver - I will take a look at Pexels and use it to source resources from now on.

@ Sam - I'll try to go through and disable the functions that I haven't had time to activate yet. Thanks for giving it a go. I'm planning to tone down the slide full of numbers (so you have to look for it rather than popping up all the time), but not in the next update.

@ Scott - I'm planning to put in a help button on each of the first few slides. I've done a big debug for next release, so it should cut down on the random behaviours somewhat

@ Tim - thanks for the suggestion about the next/previous buttons. I'll make sure to disable them. I think I still need to do this slide by slide? I'm planning to leave the menu function active for now, as there may still be a few bugs that will need the menu to escape.

@ Ashley - agreed, they also disrupt the game mechanics, as a lot of variables rely on moving through the slides as intended. Will do this in next update.

@Rachel - thanks for taking the time to look through the project. I'm going to use your suggestion to model the help functions. I'm planning to try step by step help on the first 4-5 slides, plus hover over info on some of the features. It will take me a while to do this throughout the project though.

Watch this space in ~12 hours time, and thanks again for taking a look.

Hi All,

Done. New version uploaded. (Think it is the same link?)

https://360.articulate.com/review/content/784c8647-b6f6-45d9-9b14-186f19cc8ed0/review

Have removed next/previous buttons.

Have removed bugs that made it unusable

Have added instructions - (i) button on the bottom left of the first few screens.

Have added tutorial level help (not interactive sorry) -  (?) button in the bottom left. 

Have added full notes of instructions and tutorial as well basic item attributes sheet in the resources section. 

Turned down the pic quality to try to make things run smoother.

Have left the menu active, but please don't use it! it is only there in case you

1) get stuck in a loop, 

2) sit for more that the count of 12 waiting for things to happen but are obviously stuck

If you use the menu - off things will happen :-)

I've learnt a great deal from your help thus far (things I would never have thought of, thank you all A LOT! especially when I realised that no one had any idea what to do :-))

As previously, any feedback is super welcome. 

Also let me know if there is an etiquette for not hogging the main threads, and I should more this kind of discussion elsewhere. 

Thanks all.

I know I left comments on the 360 page but I will add them to here.  The more directions, instructions, and clearly laid out steps you provide, the easier it will be for others to navigate. I may falsely assume your audience will already understand the basics to your game.  I have no knowledge of any type of game that follows this storyline as I have never played one.  I need all the instructions you can provide.  Also, locking the navigation for the directions would be helpful.  I started clicking around and got very confused very quickly.

Hi Laura, 

Thanks for adding comments here. I've realised you are quite right. A lot of people have been struggling with the navigation. Lesson leaned on my behalf - just because it is clear to me, doesn't help anyone else :-)

I've updated now (I think the link above leads to the newest file?).

I've added both instructions for those familiar with the genre, and a tutorial for those not, the two pop ups in the bottom left corner. I've also put everything in a file in resources. It leads to quite a bit of reading... Do they do enough, or should I try a video/full guided chunk?

I've also removed all the next/previous buttons. I couldn't take them out of the results slides. Does anyone know a way to disable them for the whole project rather than just slide by slide?

Finally, think it mostly works on mobile now (not sure about the combat), and I removed a bug where you keep head butting a tree over and over forever :-(

As usual, have greatly appreciated feedback thus far and would appreciate any further feedback.

It was slow, but actually faster on my Ipad mini4. I would have appreciated more of an intro and some kind of info tab, like the resources tab on the player with a few more explanations. Otherwise it looks like challenging fun.