Thursday, November 21, 2013

Quoridor Board Game - Lessons and future improvement



Few months ago, I published the Quoridor Board Game, with the promise that, if the user rating exceeds the threshold of 30, I would further improve the game. Today, you guys really make it... (btw, is that a coincidence?). And I would spend more time and efforts into polishing this board game.

The truth is, before it reached 30, a number of enhancement has been made, from time to time, especially on the user interaction parts. Yet, I am aware that it still has room for improvement. Here, I would like to briefly summarize what it lacks of, and what should be possibly improved.

1. Computer AI (Artificial Intelligence) difficulty

Honestly, the current Quoridor computer is still too weak to be taken as a training. A number of players have complained for this. This is my first priority. And i see my competitor could make it as well. So, no excuse. Just a matter of time.

2. User's friendliness

In order to squeeze a 9 x 9 matrix board into mobile devices (plus walls and others), it is undoubtedly a challenging task. This is especially significant when the player is required to drag and place the walls. The existing version has been designed such that when the wall is moved around, the surrounding tiles are highlighted to make the movement clearer. Apart from that, some users request that it would be greater to add a 'confirm' button, to be able to 'revert' in case there is a typo made accidentally. Guys (and girls), i copy that!

3. Undo feature

This is another challenging feature which greatly tests the programming skills of the game creator. I am not sure if this is needed. But nothing to lose if it is getting integrated.

4. Challenge other players Online

Definitely, this is a very demanding feature. Playing with computer all the time would be too boring... However, i set no date for this feature to come true, yet. After all, without the sufficient amount of players, this feature could hardly impress anyone. Moreover, enabling the Online Challenge Mode would cost. (Maybe i should wait until the number of rating exceeds 100? :p)


Updated on 30th Nov 2013:
- A Hard Mode is added to the latest release.
- An Undo feature is added. This might help address the issue of 'wrong wall placement', while helping the players to have a better analysis of the computer AI's game play.
- You can choose which player to start first through the green Setting button.

6 comments:

  1. Hi Edward, thanks for the game. Its the only quoridor game i found for the ipad on the apple store. Just want to point out a missfunction in the game. At some point in the game if its the turn of second player, player one can move its wood first and the games doesnt count down the woods pieces of the first player and then the game change the turn tonplayer one who can repeat again the steps of moving its pieces, followed by moving one of its woods pieces until he alone finish the game. Hope to see in future versions this missbehavior fixed. Anyway is fun to have this game for playing on my ipad thanks for it. Felipe

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    1. Hi Felipe, it is great to hear that you have some fun in this game. And your precious feedback!

      I will come back to this as soon as i finish the one i am currently working on. Until then, sorry for the inconvenience (temporarily, i think the bug could be avoided if you only make the move when it is your turn). Your patience would be appreciated!

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  2. Hello Edward, thanks for your prompt feedback. One thing i forgot to mention is that the one who discover the bug was my 6 year younger son Luis, so for him is the credit of finding the bug :-)
    And for the game play you are rigth i told him that cheating is prohibited so till the fix is delivered we will play as its expected, each player one move at a time.

    Kind regards,

    Keep the good work...

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    1. Haha. Thanks to your son for the finding. :)

      Just... it might take up to 3 weeks to have the bug fixed (due to tight schedule).

      I will update you once again.

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    2. FYI, i have updated my app. It might take several days to be reflected on the app store. Also, the latest version has been made such that you can directly tap the shadow to place the pawn (instead of drag and drop)

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  3. Probably not! Presently is a lot of an opportunity to make sense of how the case worked out. Call Of Mini Infinity Apk

    ReplyDelete