Suggestion: add disenfranchisement notice for web client users who play duck racing

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Score: +8

1. Isaac5457,

Hello,
I would like to congratulate the developers on the new duck racing enhancements. This game has evolved a lot over the past 3 years.
Throughout my testing, it seems that a majority of challenges do not work on touchscreen devices. While it is probably for the best that time-based challenges remain keyboard only for the time being, other challenges can have touchscreen implementations. In the case of challenges such as Blackjackand Secret Code, the game can be completely blocked if a web client user on a touchscreen is at a table. To mitigate this problem while a solution is being debated and implemented, I propose adding a disclaimer to web client users who create duck racing tables. This disclaimer should warn users of possible disenfranchisement when playing with keyboard based challenges, as well as recommending users use a keyboard for the best experience. Further, this disclaimer should provide a list of challenges that work on touchscreen devices.

Finally, this disclaimer should be added to the rules page, so new players are made aware of possible disenfranchisement.
Thanks

Score: +0

2. Nikola,

Hello,
I am reviving this topic because I was thinking about how Duck racing duels could work on a touch screen only device, and while I have no solution (I believe this is quite a hard, if not an impossible task), I rather think that at least 10 more duels can absolutely work on a phone, since they are not based on speed at all.

Is it technically possible to make a difference in the interface on the web client VS the Windows client?
What I mean by this, is for example, when a duel starts, on the Windows client, change nothing, but on the web, give a small pad of buttons with numbers arranged from 1 to 0. This is similar to how Yahtzee works, for example, i.e. nothing appears on the Windows client when you roll a die, but the web client has a list of checkboxes to make the game playable.
If this was done, the following duels would be completely playable, with no issues as far as I know:

  • Mine or treasure: This may even be more efficient if this virtual pad contained only buttons from 1 to X, where X is the maximum amount of meters you are allowed to dig at a time.
  • Numbered balls. Here again, we need only buttons 1, 2 and 3.
  • Jingle memory. Since this is again not based on speed, it should be fine to just activate numbers as buttons on a touch screen.
  • Feather/light weights. This one has a small technical problem to solve, since we can't really do ctrl+a number. However, again if technically doable, double tapping and holding, or long pressing a number should be enough to take that feather.
  • First to fifteen. Again, speed is not important here, so just picking tokens should be simple enough.

In addition to this, we can make a few more duels accessible too, although in this case they do not use numbers:

  • Anagram/longest word: here this should be rather simple, it may even just be an oversight, we only don't have a button to perform the space key equivalent, i.e. open a box allowing us to type the answer.
  • Black jack/audacious dice: same as above, we should only need buttons to hit/stand.

Otherwise I agree with the original topic, there should definitely be information about this somewhere, but I personally don't know where would be a good place. The rules of this game are vastly outdated compared to all the new additions, even before the anniversary board, so that could perhaps be a good place to start.

Score: +1

3. ableman477,

I agree with the proposal above. Could a similar thing be done for secret code as well, or is that one also time based?

Score: +0

4. Isaac5457,

Hello,
I completely agree with the proposal outlined by Nikola. The Blackjack duel can be especially problematic if you're playing on the casino board, as this duel is required. This means there's a high probability of hanging the game if anyone lands on the Blackjack square.

Score: +1

5. Nikola,

Hello,
since today's update, the Duck racing duels are playable from a touch screen!

There is a virtual keypad, or rather a 3X3 grid similar to a telephone keypad, where in place of a star you have the backspace key abbreviated as bs, and in place of pound the space key abbreviated as sp. When you need to do the equivalent of ctrl+a number, you should double tap and hold that number, as I suggested above.
Thanks for working on this!

My personal comments:
Of course, as I expected, this is really hard to play, but at least you will no longer unintentionally make the game stuck if you are playing from the web. Some are perfectly doable like mine or treasure or black jack, while in some others you will probably never catch up.

In my personal opinion, the biggest disadvantage here is that the grid can't be full screen and occupies a small portion, so it's hard to explore and find elements quickly. An experiment I would try once is some kind of toggle full screen button. What this button would do is remove all the elements, actions, chat, history, basically everything except the game, and leave us only with the grid. This should make it much easier for the grid to occupy a larger part of the screen.

A few things I should try are possibly VoiceOver's vertical navigation, which allows you to swipe up and down to navigate to the item above or below, and possibly making an activity to prevent VoiceOver from speaking tables while on the web client, since the grid is treated like a table and row/column announcements occur. Of course, I never expect to defeat someone on the Windows client just like you never will in the fast Uno, but I hope to achieve at least a decent speed.

It's a real shame we can't have the old shake the device feature, at least it could help to simulate backspace here when needed, and needless to say it would be great in many other games. Too bad that the Playroom has to work around all these limitations...

Score: +1

Last edited by Nikola, Jun 3 2023 20:46:54

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