Hi All. I have been thinking of releasing an update for Staunch Defense soon and while the full version has received fairly good reviews and ratings on iTunes, the lite version has receive quite a few poor ratings. However, due to the lack of any negative reviews or other negative feedback I am unsure as to what people's main dislikes about it are. So, in order to determine what things I should improve in the update, I am holding this contest: Download Staunch Defense Lite from the app store and play it. Then leave a critique of it here on this thread. Over the next several days 10 people who left good/helpful critiques will be selected to receive a promo code for the full version. Thank you all.
At my last check, the lite version is 5 stars. I really like the game, I think that it is better than most tower defense apps available. I like the retro feel and how this app is medieval. I like the setting and how this app is actually Earth instead of some space crap.
The retro art is a nice change from the usual TD genre. What I also like is the management of resources to upgrade and maintain your towers. If you want to build a tower you must first buy the land in order to place it. I like the strategy aspect that this brings as opposed to some of the others in this genre where you will do well by merely spamming the field with your towers/troops. This is a very deep game with so many different aspects to it.
i will try it out... one thing though... lites will always be rated lower than the full version. everyone tries the lite version, people who end up liking it and people who dont end up liking it. thus, the ratings are mixed. however, because you have a lite version, everyone is able to try the game before purchasing it. as a result, only the people who liked the lite version end up buying the full version. and since only people who liked the game bought it, it will get good reviews. almost all lite versions have a bad rating. i wouldnt worry about it too much. the highest rating for a lite version i have ever seen was four stars on modern combat sandstorm. 3.5 stars for a lite version is actually pretty good. im gonna go try the lite out now EDIT: ok I have tried the lite version and I have reached a consensus! The average IQ in america is just over 100. However, this game requires very much thinking and a lot of strategy! The 'slower' people of the app store can download this free lite version easily but cannot do the game easily for obvious reasons. Therefore, since they cannot figure out or enjoy the game, they simply rate it bad by selecting a 1 star rating when thet delete the game from their idevice. This doesn't mean the game is bad. In fact, the game is very well made and obviously a lot of time was put into the game. But, it's hard. It's very hard. And for the small-brained, it's not fun. There is my take on it.
Honestly I don't like that "rate before you delete" function. I was thinking the other day that would get a lot of emotional 1's as people download out of frustration or not giving an app a chance. I know they (apple) want to go for ratings and all, but come on, if you are deleting an app are you going to give it 5 stars right then? That very well could be case here as most people might download this thinking the game is something that it isn't, then when they get frustrated they delete and give it a one just to "show you." (heaven forbid it might be that they are in the wrong or didn't get the concept!) The solid ratings are going to come from the paid version since you will get more invested buyers that spent money as opposed to the freebie lite.
Just spent some time with the Lite version (and have enjoyed it quite a bit). Like a few others have pointed out, this game lacks much of the superficial polish that characterizes other games - tower defense and otherwise - available in the App Store. Additionally, it is not "pick up and play" friendly. Casual gamers looking for something free to keep occupied for a few minutes are not going to give this much of a chance. Personally I value depth and content more than these traits, but first impressions are important in achieving good reviews, at least to the average App Store gamer. Thus, there are some things that could be tweaked to make this more palatable to 4 and 5 star reviews. First, I think some of the buttons during gameplay need accompanying text. It is often difficult to remember what a symbol stands for, despite the ability to press a button to learn more. Also, perhaps an in-game FAQ could be included to remind players of strategies that may be pertinent to a particular map or wave, or to the game in general. Further, this version defaults to Normal mode. Maybe making the default difficulty Easy would encourage people to give it more of a look and improve the ratings. Finally, it would be great if there were a brief preview video or screen-shot click through of the additional features that the full version offers somewhere within this Lite version. I hope this helps and I hope your ratings and downloads go up. EDIT: Looks like "Staunch" is misspelled as "Stauch" at the title screen, as well.
Did a quick run through. here are some thoughts. 1. Staunch is misspelled on the first screen. 2. Graphics. if you were going for an 8 bit feel, you succeeded. But I'd say the majority of iPod gamers are looking to see how you can push the boundaries of it's capabilities. For my eyes, the graphics could have been cleaner. I'm not sure exactly what that means but it's the first word in my head. Everything sort of blended in to the point it was hard to differentiate things. 3. There's too much to know. Did the tutorial and didn't fare well. If I decided to put some time into it I might catch on, but for the most part a game on my iPod is something that can keep me occupied for a few minutes at a time. This game is definitely for someone willing to think about things and invest a bit of time in it. In all honesty, I have a PC and a PS3 for that. 4. Info isn't all that clear. Sure there's icons at the bottom of the screen, but if I haven't played in a bit (or have just started) how do I know what they do? It didn't seem like there was a pause to purchase land/towers so as i was figuring out how to do it all, I was losing lives. 5. I can listen to my own music during game play. Thank you. I'm not sure why some developers decide to mute my music and push the game sound track on me, but I can't stand it. It definitely seems like a good concept for a Tower Defense game. I realize this "review" is a bit short sighted and brief, but it's likely how someone who downloads a free version, tries it and deletes it thinks. Will definitely look to give it a more thorough play through when I grab time, but that is a commodity I've been short on of late.
I gave this a try yesterday night, I was sleepy so I didn't understand a thing, even now I think I skipped a part (yes, just played through the tutorial a second time, and it had skipped the beggining about buying property, I don't know if this problem happens just to me but should be fixed, it seems to be an annoying bug). About the game itself, if you're not a top of the art graphic addict, and if you have a brain, you'll find a very enjoyable game in this one. Sadly, most people don't have the patience of getting into a deeper kind of game, giving up, getting bored by the graphical style, deleting and rating bad. This, added to what starmoney and NEG said, pretty much explain the "problem" with the lite. This game happens to merge resource management, both in the income and expenditure department like no other game, and there being annoying trees to deal with just adds to the strategy. It is great that you've managed to mix up an already over-used formula on the idevice (TD) and make it more interesting (thing that most TD devs forget to do, and what killed the TD genre, at least for me, in the idevice). You want it to get better rates on the lite version? Make it prettier, you don't have to as the game is great as it is, but the people that buy lites are more easily convinced by prettier graphics, giving them incentives to at least try to play it more (yes, people are shallow, big discovery) and give it more effort to like it before discarding it. If you want even more people interested, give an order to the maps, unlockables and etc. (people love the sense of progress when playing a game, feels like it's going somewhere), the way the game is now, you play in w/e order you want, a game that is always the same, so.. if you beat the hard map, you won't have incentives to try beat easy and medium, reducing potential replayibility. Those are my 2c, hope it is good feedback for you guys as it is a great game with great potential.
I'm going through the tutorial right now. "Each enemy that reaches the end of the path will take off a several lives." (you need to leave out the 'a') or you could state it as "Each enemy that reaches the end of the path will cost you several lives." The section under "Village" is a little confusing to me. It says, "Upgrade the buildings on the left to enable new towers. The ones on right to enable other abilities." -with the second sentence are you meaning to say that the buildings on the right allow you access to new abilities??? or... -that upgrading the buildings on the right allow you to upgrade the abilities those towers already have??? If it's the first, then it would be clearer to say, "Upgrade the buildings on the left to enable new towers. Upgrade the ones on the right to allow you to use other abilities." Stone Lab: "Allows you to buy stone towers and technologies." Buying Land: -For the purposes of the tutorial, I think you should handhold the new player a bit more and tell them exactly where to touch to buy a certain spot of land. The different broad blocks of color were confusing and I had no idea whether what I was doing was a good idea or not. -It's impossible to buy land at the top of the map as the "Buy Property" box sits right on there...also I have zero idea what all the different colored squares of numbers mean in that box. On building towers: I would capitalize "Buildings" button and "Arrow Towers" just to make them stand out from the other text. Where you say, "Tap a square of land once to see its range and a second time to build it there.": -this tells me that the land I'm going to place a tower on dictates the range of the tower to be built on it??? That doesn't make any sense to me as I would think each tower would have its own range and other inherit properties. -if you are meaning to say that you should tap where you want to place a tower and the tower's range will then be displayed then I would phrase that as, "Tap a build location and the tower's range will be shown. To confirm, tap on the tower to build it. The stats for a building: -there is a little box on the left showing the stats for a tower...it is waaaay too small -I can see it says "DMG" and "RNG" but the last one is "FR2", "FRZ", or ??? I can't tell what is says and I don't know what that represents. Sending monsters: -the tutorials seems to kind of leave you hanging as it just tells you to build your defenses "as you see fit" and press the Monster button to send the next wave -I wouldn't mind seeing bit more explanation... -I built one Wall tower and then was told that I had to place another one on the other side of the road...from the original description it said I had to place it on the road so I tried to literally build it on the road and would up finally putting it right by the road since no range was displayed for it...then I'm told I have to build a second one...which I can't do because I don't own the land on the other side of the road -I bought a gold tower and a resource tower because they were there Wave Complete: "Onto the second wave. This screen lets you see what enemies are coming next, and what resources you have earned." "The next wave has armored enemies who will resist towers with low damage like Arrow Towers. Upgrade the..." Okay, that's as far as I've gotten.
Thanks for the input guys. That is very helpful. I will PM you all with promo codes in a moment. @michaelmgio, one of my beta testers also mentioned it was hard to remember what the buttons did what and also said it might be nice if there was text. I guess I was foolish to ignore that I think that is going to one of the first things I add for the update. After fixing the rather embarrassing title screen spelling mistake of course. For an in game FAQ, do you mean like a little thing you would access from the title screen of just hints that come up when you start a map or encounter new enemies and stuff? @cocallahan, yeah, the graphics are not top notch, it seems people's opinions of them range from good to terrible. I think I may understand what you mean about them not being clean enough. I struggled with that especially on the forest looking terrain. Does it look cleaner on the orange badlands looking map? For #4, I think you are right, the icons can be ambiguous at first. I will add text to them. Normally the enemies don't come until you press the black button with the enemy on it, but I guess there is no way to know that initially. I think I might add a confirmation type box that comes up if you press to send the enemies with more than 20 gold remaining. @Khamous, right now, if you buy a property before building a stone lab in the village it just skips the buying property explanation. I might make it show the explanation anyways. Right now in the lite version, if it is working properly, when you beat one of the two maps in a given rung can play the next two, should I make it so you need to beat them both? Also, do you think it would be better if the market and tavern (two of the things you can upgrade in the village) were unlocked at after beating a certain number of levels? Also, a question to anyone, was it obvious that the buttons at the bottom of the screen could be scrolled along?
Hm, yes, probably you should make it to be neccesary to beat both, so that people don't skip half of the content just to rush it to the later lvls, making devs lose half the effort. If you make tavern and market unlockable after a few levels, that could easen up the difficulty curve for the players, since they don't have to get used to everything immediatly. I don't know if you've played it, but think like Toki Tori, the game breezes you through the lvls with 1 item, then introduces a 2nd one and starts working with them in combination, then 3, etc etc. That way people don't have the "how did this work again?" feeling to it, since every element had its "intro" time. Also, yes, is the tutorial so it's best to not be able to skip stuff by accident. And at your final questions... which buttons o.o?
Thanks Devilishly Good That is a lot of help. For the village I meant what you here: "Upgrade the ones on the right to allow you to use other abilities." I guess I could improve the buying land part of the tutorial a lot. I was a bit to afraid of the tutorial being to long, but I guess I should have been more worried about it being unclear instead. The Buy Property box can be removed by tapping it, but I should make that clear as well as what the numbers in the boxes mean. Numbers in the boxes are actually the prices of the properties, with the numbers being the color of their corresponding property. In retrospect, do you think it would be worth removing the Buy Property Box entirely and just putting the price of each property on the property itself? The little box at the side there when you are building a tower is actually a button you press to switch from a basic description of the tower in words to the actual stats of it. Unfortunately, while I realized that that button looked like it was displaying some actual numbers and made a new one, I forgot to add the new button to the game until it was already in review. I might make the new one even more clear though. It still might be a bit ambiguous.
The five+ buttons at the bottom of the screen. The ones to build the Village, Buy Land ect. For example, if you build a stone lab and a market then you will need to scroll them over just to see the Send Enemies button.
Yes...I like this idea. Right now the interface seems a bit convoluted and there are a lot of informational pop ups like the Buy Property box. It seems that there is a lot of in order to do X, you must do Y and perhaps Z first...but you might not know that you need to do Z until after you have spent the resources for X or Y first. (Like when I was able to build one Wall tower but then am told I have to have the other tower on the other side of the road but I don't even own that land yet. Other ideas: -When we purchase land, let us click on a resource and a dialogue for building the tower to harvest that resource appears and we can immediately place it instead of having to go back to the building tab. -There needs to be some sort of indicator when we upgrade a tower...I just went and tried to upgrade the lightning tower and kept pressing the upgrade button thinking nothing was happening, but then suddenly I got saw a "max upgrades" message...lol, I just thought nothing was happening and blew all my cash on those upgrades.
That might be good actually. I will consider it and maybe try it out a little. I just need to make sure it doesn't seem like it would lend to people building mines by mistake or anything. Do you mean when you are upgrading the Lightning Lab in the village or when you touch the Beaker looking button and go to the research interface?
Tried the lite today, here are my thoughts. I find myself liking the added angle of building housing for additional cash income, as well as mines, and purchasing land, does add a little more to the genre. I have mixed feelings about the pixel art, perhaps its the limited animation that's holding me back. I DO believe however that the color pallete in general is just too dark. I would brighten things up a little, perhaps at least the browns of the forests/lands/etc. I am also mixed about the progression of enemies, going from little ghost looking things one round, to tank looking things the next, seems to be a little jarring to me in progression. I have a feeling you're after creating something of a crossbreed of civilization (the game/genre) and tower defense, hence the faster progression and mixing of different technological eras all over the place. If that's what you're after, I think you've got that down. Also I found the lack of any kind of labels on buttons/etc somewhat confusing, and/or the icons themselves not being 'obvious' enough, for me. I think this can be (perhaps already is in the full version) great game though. I'd probably be willing to put down 0.99 for it with the hope that you do a lot of updates in the future (i.e. not abandon it from the start) and then play it again in a few months. I wish you luck, I know TD's aren't the easiest of projects to start with.
Ah, I was referring to the actual Lightning Tower...I had already researched and unlocked the Lightning Tower, but then I went to the tower itself and upgraded that.
Thank you for your critique Araczynski. I might actually tweak the forest and some of the other types of terrain's colors a little. They are a little dark and some towers do blend in a little too much with them. About the enemies, they aren't actually meant to progress as much as just have different types. The tank looking guys were mainly just meant to look like some kind of armored guy since that is their bonus. I might update their graphics to make them match the others better in a future patch. @Devlishly Good, I think my brain may be turned off today, but I am still not 100% sure which part you are talking about(sorry). I do plan on upgrading the village a bit to show more feedback when you upgrade the Stone Lab/Lightning Lab/Market/ect though.
