The little exam suggestions

5 messages, 1 pages:  1 ↖ Go back to topic list

Score: +7

1. Qais,

Hello,

The little exam game is very fun, thank you for the great work.
However, I have some suggestions:

  • In random judge mode, everyone and the player who will judge must be alerted. Currently, this is only known using "J", and the judge will see a yes/no list, which is sometimes confusing if we are playing and chatting at the same table instead of a call, for example. I don't know if it's worth a sound alert, but it might be a good idea. The most important thing is a text message alert.
  • The option of the number of rounds seems, in many cases, useless. If one round is chosen and it ends with 2 players obtaining the same scores, it will continue and say, for example
  • Round 3 out of 1.

But it remains optional, unless we can get an advantage where the game ends in a draw.

  • The game rules page is missing a lot of information. We were playing a game and exceeded the score limit, and the game did not end. I had to search the updates topic to find how the game ends if there is a judge for each round. Also, the newly added options should be explained on the rules page.
  • If it is possible to add a custom option for categories and allow typing custom categories, that would be great. When playing with players using a language that is not supported, we have to use things like the dictionary in NVDA to customize category names, which may not be easy to do with different screen readers and devices, especially if we are talking about the web client on phones.

Thank you again for your great work; my friends and I have a lot of fun playing this game.

Score: +0

Last edited by Qais, Aug 1 2024 12:20:41

2. Aminiel,

Hello,

Thank you for all your remarks and suggestions.

I don't understand well your first suggestion. Normally the word you are judging is read when it appears, at the same time as the yes/no menu, and the judge is already alerted with the same sound as the one telling it's your turn.

Your last suggestion has been already made several times. We need to discuss with admins and helpers how relevant and risky it is to accept such user content written and used on the fly. I can't definitely say yes or no alone.

For your remarks about scoring, this is common in all games where there's a score limit for victory. As long as there's a draw, the game normally keeps going.
Additionally for the little exam with a single judge for the round, scores are checked only at the end of a complete round of the table, i.e. when everybody has been judge the same number of times. Otherwise it would be unfair to stop in the middle as soon as the limit is reached (the first players to be judge would have a disadvantage compared to the last ones).
A similar behavior is also present in several other games, for example in farkle or shut the boxes, where everybody must have got the same number of turns. Or in jass, cribbage and other card games giving a special privilege to one player in turn, it isn't currently enforced, but when setting a number of rounds to play, it should be a multiple of the number of players for the same reasons.

You are right for the message, but fixing the text string is pretty minor.

Score: +3

3. Nikola,

Hello,

I don't understand well your first suggestion. Normally the word you are judging is read when it appears, at the same time as the yes/no menu, and the judge is already alerted with the same sound as the one telling it's your turn.

I think Qais would like a text alert in the form of the same thing you get when you press the J key, i.e. "The judge is Nikola." Then automatically read this alert whenever the judge changes for all players, a bit like reading whose turn it is. Of course feel free to clarify if I'm wrong.

@Qais I guess you already know this, but just in case, the judge can always press space to repeat the word they need to accept or refuse.

As for the sound, yes it's there, but it's worth noting this isn't enabled by default when you're in the window, you have to make the notifications channel play its sounds when active, even then the default experience is not something I would recommend, because you'll get two sounds playing at the same time, the your turn sound and the permanent message/friend request sound, which is quite loud and intrusive for every time it is your turn.
I mean, I understand why it's done the way it's done, since the main purpose is to alert a multi-tasking player, but for my part the ideal experience would be to play just the your turn sound when you're in the window, which is currently not easily achievable, and in fact I don't know how we would achieve it without causing unwanted behaviour for players who like the current one, probably introduce a completely new channel and put the your turn sound in there.

Anyway, that's for another topic, and probably for a client beta session...

Score: +2

4. Qais,

Hello,

Thank you @Aminiel and @Nikola.

I don't understand well your first suggestion. Normally the word you are judging is read when it appears, at the same time as the yes/no menu, and the judge is already alerted with the same sound as the one telling it's your turn.

I apologize for the confusion.
As Nikola mentioned, when the judge changes to another player, there isn't an automatic alert. You still need to press J to see who the judge is.
In other modes, the judge is announced at the beginning of each round, but this doesn't happen in Random Judge mode.
Note that in Random Judge mode, you have the option to pass the suggested word to someone else. In this case, the game won't automatically announce who the previous judge was or who the new judge is, so we need to automatically announce that, just like pressing J, as Nikola explained.
Regarding the notification sound in your turn, I actually know about the notifications channel, so I said it's just an idea to have another sound in your turn, Later I couldn't find one of the sounds used that might be suitable for this idea, and didn't find this happening in other games, so yes, we still need to be alerted by a text when changing the judge.
We could consider using a quieter sound if the notifications channel sound in the window is enabled. The current sound works well for multitasking but can be annoying during gameplay. We can discuss this further when the next client update is planned.
My idea was just that if you are playing and talking with 5 or 6 people at the table, when the judge changes, the player who is typing at the moment will not notice, and since the game does not announce automatically, other players will not notice too. What we are currently doing is pressing j to know who the judge is, and then tell them to see the list, I know that the game will automatically announce the suggested word to the player who will be the judge, but while they typing, the info may be missed, so I thought about the sound, but the sound of the notification channel is not a good option in the window.

@Qais I guess you already know this, but just in case, the judge can always press space to repeat the word they need to accept or refuse.

Thank you, Yes I know this, although it is one of the missing shortcuts on the rules page, but it is available when you press F1.
Speaking of the number of rounds, I understand the idea, but I was surprised that the option is missing in some games and available here, Although in 2 cases it will not work.
I mean in Judge Per Round mode and when 2 players get the same score.
So I talked about the draw feature or at least as you said, it is enough to edit the string.
I think the following information is missing on the rules page:

  • Everything related to stopping the round, note that the information when pressing the applications key is not enough for a new player.
  • When should the game ends, specifically, It should be explained that it will not end if more than a player has the same score or if not everyone plays and judges the same number of times in Judge Per Round mode.
  • How the Random Judge mode works, because the rules indicate 2 modes, while we have 3.
  • It may be useful to clarify the options that were added in the latest update, because there is no message when opening the options explaining how to know the description of each option.
  • Shortcut to repeat the suggested word.
  • Shortcut to add or remove points manually.

While the shortcuts Shift+P and Space are mentioned when pressing F1, I think the rules page should include everything a first-time player needs to know.
Finally, I have a question.

Press S or Shift+S to view scores.

At first, I thought that pressing S would announce the scores after each round, while Shift+S would announce the current scores during judging. However, both seem to announce the same scores. Is there something I'm missing, or do they serve the same purpose?
Thanks again and sorry for the long post.

Score: +0

5. Nikola,

Hello,
S and Shift+S do exactly the same thing, just like P and Shift+P.

I have no idea why they both exist and I'm also a little curious, but if I had to make a guess, it's probably because of quick letter selection.
When you are the judge, you can quickly press Y for Yes, N for no or G to give to another judge.
In English this doesn't really explain anything, but I guess if there is another language where S or P perform one of the mentioned functions, you wouldn't be able to read the scores, thus you have Shift+S and P, i.e. Sí for yes in Spanish.
I draw that conclusion from the same rationale as Monopoly, where you have Shift+C to read the cash so that you can read it while inside the properties menus where C would navigate to the first item starting with C.
At present this is sadly a little bit broken on the Windows client, Shift+letters still perform the letter navigation/selection shortcuts, but this is probably going to be resolved in the next client release.

Score: +2

Last edited by Nikola, Aug 10 2024 03:58:06

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