Facebook pages

I have created two pages to start communication on social networks. For now I am only using facebook, and depending on how it goes I may try going to G+ (which I use mainly to follow other game developers) or Twitter (which I don't use at all):

• The main page
  
• The dev page, whose goal is to provide frequent updates on how everything is progressing.
  

Feel free to like them if you want to get notified on updates :)

In the meantime, I'll keep the blog for more detailed posts or important updates.

New fighting interface

Two weeks ago, I sat with a couple of friends, and looked at them struggling to understand what on earth was happening in the fight view. Some things I knew were not really user-friendly (like having charges appearing from nowhere, without any notive), and others I was very far from it. The most striking example being the progress bar. It was not clear what this showed. Do I have a limited time to do something? Does my opponent have to do something? Is it something else?

We discussed about the general problems of the interface, and they provided me with very useful insights. I have spent most of my time since then to create a new interface, which is, hopefully, clearer.

It is still not totally finished (there are still some non-blocking bugs around, and I need to add the contextual help), but you can still play around with it.

I took the opportunity to undertake some refactoring of data structures that were overly complex, and separate my infrastructure into three different environments: a development server (which I use internally to validate that when I upload something to Google App Engine, it still works as it should), a test server (which is the equivalent of the previous site), and a production server, which will host the game after launch (not available yet).

Without further ado, I encourage you to check out the new interface at http://test.thefiveorbs.com
As mentioned, it is a new server, so you will need to recreate your accounts.

And more then ever, feedbacks are very welcome :)

Have fun!

Brainstorming new moves

The first release is getting well under way, and I am confident in having something publishable by the end of the year. Apart from the new UI, there are still some balance issues to solve, a new ranking system to put in place and some bugs to fix.

But it is time to think of the next release, which I would like to have around March - April. And the main content of this release will be the skill tree; in other words, quite a few new moves (I'd like them to be around 20 in all, depending on what can of moves I can come up with).

I have thus started A brainstorming forum, where I will write down new ideas as I have them. Some will probably be worthless, others will look good on paper but won't fit once in the real game, and a handful will be ok.

If you are interested to, you can participate to this forum, either by submitting new ideas, or commenting on the existing ones.

And as I'm aware that nothing beats playtest to sort out the crappy ideas from the good ones, I'll try and work on a way to easily implement new ideas and play with them once the code for the current release is done.

Have fun!

First tutorial

The first version of the tutorial on the basics for The Five Orbs fighting is now online! It is accessible directly from the chat page.

There are still a few things to be improved in the display, and is in English only, but it is fully functional. If you try it, I'd be glad to hear what you think of it, where it could be clearer, where it could go faster, and everything you would like to say about it. The more feedback I have, the more I will be able to tailor it to what new players need to know about the game.

For thoses interested in a try, the address is still the same: http://realtime.thefiveorbs.com