SketchPort game feedback

Q: What do you guys think of the game?

If I can sum up this game in one word, it would be: FANTASTIC! I love how there and no winners, no losers, just and ongoing game. There aren't any LAMEGUESTS or annoying Ad's blasting in your earphones after every game is done. The color wheel is an awesome touch and the tools we have access to, make the game so much better and fun.

Q: What are your top feature requests?

When creating a drawing on Sketchport, I like how we have the color pallet separately on the bottom of the page as well as the color wheel. Although as I mentioned before how much I do enjoy the wheel, I find it hard to obtain the color I need, like a skin tone or a brown. Would it be possible to put the color pallet on the bottom as well?

Q:Do you have any problems playing?

There are tiny glitches in the game. I have experienced as well as others, sometimes as we're drawing, the game skips us while we are drawing.

All in all I enjoy drawing here and the new words that we have in the challenge is terrific. I like how refreshing these words can be. Draw My Thing is fun, but we all have seen the same words at least 40 times each. Thank you, Sean for creating this game. I have a new hang out spot!

Game is awesome! Particularly the mechanism of joining (and not having to wait for new round beginning and then drawing last) is much superiour to DMT.

Top feature requests:

• Remember last brush setting. I dont like the default size and it switches back to it every turn.(Or even better: provide some brush slots to "bookmark" and restore some brush properties (e. g. slots for some colors; sizes, alpha, blur))
• when changing alpha/blur/size through keyboard, show hint. Its a bit like driving a car by sounds
• ability to get emergency time (not sure how proper mechanism could look, maybe +10 seconds charging every 10 rounds played or such)
• additionally streamline the gui. Its already quite nice, but could be even better (no scrollbar on the right, just one for chat), dont really need that footer in the game. Word hint, timer text and timer bar could be all one line. -> max space for drawing
• triange tool ;)
• add a gaming features. I like the game as it is, but maybe some kind of reward could attract more people. Not sure if there can be something more clever than points for guessing.

Problems playing:

• In some browser (firefox), I dont see the list of games. In Opera I see. Playing however is only possible in firefox with »&debug=true«.
• Chat bubbles stay above drawing area (and drawing there impossible).

If I'm the only one with these issues its safe to ignore, because I use rather old browser (and hopefully upgrade soon ;) plus can workaround).

• I noticed a player wondering where to see the word needing to draw (not sure how)
• Me (and some others too) have problems with some of the words to draw. Due to abstraction, lack of visual connotation or uncommonness. I dont mind abstract words, but for a word like "term" its hard. Like me many players are not native english. Its great that this is more challenging than DMT but maybe the frequency of "easier" words could be increased (also depending on your target audience of course).
• I'm fine with the interface (and I think its great), but also noticed some new users have issues with all the possibilities. Learning curve is rather steep for beginners.

Dont get all those items wrong: The game already is fun and awesome as it is. Just trying to provide ideas for possible improvements.

What do I think?

It's really fun! I always liked DMT, and with SketchPort's added tools and features it's much more flexible to draw.

Requests:

There are already some reincarnated lameguests here and more to come. Their tell-tale signs is writing the word, acting trollish, and drawing their favorite assorted wangs.

• Swearing should be censored from the chat, and something like the majority rule 'cheater button' would be nice too.

New Words: When drawing an unfamiliar word, it's not uncommon to look it up with google-images, especially for those who are not native english speakers.

• Why not add a shortcut link near the word that when clicked will look up the word in a tab on google-images.

Glitches:

Sometimes chat-messages get stuck next to the avatars during playing.

Generally, it's great, and I think we'll have great fun with it in the days to come. Your efforts are much appreciated.

Current issues:

• Being the first person: -- when you're the first person in a game, you should be able to choose between a practice mode, and a waiting mode. I feel silly sat there drawing with no-one, but if I leave it skipping turns in the background while I wait for someone, it's hard to tell from the audio when a new player arrives.

• 10s disconnect -- On my home network, it disconnects as soon as the timer passes 80s. It works fine on another network, and while tethered to my phone, and I can't find anything in the router settings that could be causing it. I presume it's some port issues with my ISP, but an option to switch to a different port could help too.

• Occasional "user is away" skips, even when actively drawing.

• Target audience --I'm aware that it's still early days, and collecting users is your current priority, but there seems to be mixed messages with what groups you're targeting. Until recently, the core of your audience has been the Draw My Thing regulars, who tend to have above average drawing ability (although I'm sure many, myself included, will claim not to) . I see you've catered to our group with an expanded and more difficult words list, but I think you risk putting off those with slightly less talent with the difficult words, which to be honest, can be a struggle for me, let alone those with just mice etc. You're clearly going after that expanded audience with advertising on the hamby splash page and on omgpopforever, so perhaps think about the words list in that context. Maybe a beginner and advanced mode would be the way to go?

What do I think? I think its a great replacement for DMT. I like that there are no winners

Requests

• I do agree with some others above, that some people might like the idea of it being a game with winners. So maybe an option for both would be nice.
  • A simple color pallete at the bottom and some simple line widths at the bottom would be nice, and make it easier for new people to pick it up quicker.
  • The word at the top would make it easier to see, than in the chat box
  • A way to limit the size of your room. Some people like to draw more frequently and prefer a smaller room.
  • A choice of 3 words to draw is nice, especially when some of the words are so abstract and hard to come up with a visual idea for.

Overall its got a lot of potential and look for many great modifications to come as it develops

What do you guys think of the game? Amazing game. so fun to play with friends What are your top feature requests? Easier words, some are very abstract.also points would be cool. as well as an easier place to see the word to draw. Do you have any problems playing? Yes. Yesterday, on halloween, the game was working perfectly. but today it just says that everyone is away after like 10 seconds even if they are drawing. and no one else in the room can see what they are drawing

@SwagDaddy3000 The game was broken last night, it should be fixed now.

Thanks everybody for the feedback so far!

What do you think of the game? I think this game is extremely fun and creative. Being able to play this game with friends is where it really shines. It is so easy to make an account and log in.

What are your top feature requests? Ok, so I have a few requests. Personally, I like competition, especially when I play this game with friends, so I believe a point system would be greatly beneficial to the game. It would make the game a lot more interesting and generate lasting sustain. Just simply playing is fun, but I honestly think playing with a point system would create a competitive vibe and would help create more interest. Another request is being able to create a private room with a party leader. This would prevent unwanted people from joining the room. Alright so one more request. Disabling the "show me" and "what is" features. I don't think it should be permanently banned for everybody but I think if you created your own room it would be cool if you could disable because people spam this feature a lot now and it really takes away from the game.

Do you have any problems playing? I have not had any problems playing!

Thank you for your consideration! Keep up the good work!

Actually i think it would be really cool if the show me and what is features only showed the picture or definition to the people that typed it. its a good concept.

Ok to begin with, I think the game is absolutely brilliant. Here are a few roadblocks I encountered though:

• An only shortcuts interface is difficult to pick up for new players and not very comfortable for oldies either considering the time constraints. Others have mentioned this. Also, I feel like I am groping about in the dark when I use the colour picker tool with a small brush. You can’t see the colour picked until you try it out which again wastes time. I think the interface you used in SP Vector is absolutely brilliant (http://vvcap.net/db/nIIGwexsqkjOdKKnfZim.htm). It deals with the simple colour palette problem + brush size and alpha bar + a layers menu and a lot more awesomeness. AND its shortcut enabled too. I would love to see that interface here.
• Others have mentioned this; some words are too abstract. This is fine by me as I love challenges but I was playing with a bunch of new people who had just migrated from DMT and they had to skip almost every turn. I think if you introduced the 3 word choice thingy that DMT has with three words of differing difficulty level, it would go down better with the varying skillsets of your audience. The three word choice thingy could have one challenging word, one average word and an easy word. If you were to include a point system, you could build it around this too. It wouldn’t be based on guessing, as it was in DMT, but rather the difficulty of the word you choose to draw. Just a thought.
• The avatars that show on the left side of the draw space don’t have names attached. Hence, when playing with unknown people, I can see their names on the chat and I can see their avatars but I can’t connect the two unless they say something and I trace their chat bubbles and compare. If people’s names could be mentioned on the left side, along with their avatars, it would be helpful.
• The word that needs to be drawn is shown very unobtrusively in the chat. Same with if you guessed a word right. My eyes skip over them most of the time. If these notifications could be made a little more obvious and, well, obtrusive, it would help with the flow of the game for me. Usually when I am playing, my eyes are always on the draw screen. I draw and guess without looking at the chat. I would love it if the word I have to draw would flash on the draw screen or something.
• I face some lag when creating gradients. When I created gradients using hamby in omgpop, it was always very smooth and very fast; hence we could do the rapid strokes thingy. Doing that here gives me too much lag between strokes to create a smooth gradient. Maybe this has to do with the infinite canvas thing. It would be nice to find a way around the lag though.
• The game needs a name.

So yep. All in all, the game is awesomesauce and I love playing it and I love how many people have been joining up sketchport to play this :D

Great work Sean!