So, How is the Playtest Going?
Numbers and Charts and Graphs, Oh My!
Hello FFT fans! It’s been more than a month since the playtest went live and I have a lot of updates to share including some stats, design changes I’m making and some news on what’s next for Fantasy Football Tactics.
By The Numbers
If you’ve dipped into the playtest, you may remember being greeted by this dialogue box when you launched the game. Which you’ve no doubt seen before on other apps and websites! But thanks to your generosity in sharing your usage data, it’s really helped me understand what is working well, and what could use improvement. So, here’s a breakdown of what the playtest has looked like through data-colored glasses.
Top Line Stats
iOS - 15 new users, 41 sessions, 683 minutes played
Android - 2 new users, 8 sessions, 85 minutes played
Windows - 10 new users, 33 sessions, 1170 minutes played*
MacOS - 0 new users, 8 sessions, 13 minutes played
I know, right?! 1,170 minutes played!!! Except some of those are from when I accidentally left data collection enabled on some endless CPU vs. CPU matches on my Windows dev machine. Oops! There are a few other nuances here, like I’m the only MacOS tester that opted in to data collection. The iOS results are probably the most accurate and are the best reflection of ratios of players → sessions → time played.
Overall I’m really happy with these results, and a big thank you to everyone who spent so much time playing my game!
Adventure Funnel
My old co-workers will get a kick out of this. Yes, I built a user funnel for my game :) The level of detail is coarse, but it shows the progression from the tutorial mission all the way through the four main quest matches.
Some of my takeaways and open questions:
Generally players are able to figure out how to pick up the ball and score an unopposed goal in the tutorial mission (Step 1).
I am losing the majority of players within the first “real match” vs. Eastham Mount (Steps 2→3). It’s unclear at this point if it’s too hard, too confusing, or maybe just not fun/gripping enough. This will be a big focus of testing/iteration moving forward.
Players that make it through the first match tend to keep progressing through the story (Steps 4→9). I believe this small population is more familiar with turn-based tactics games, and shows me that there is at least some fun to be had with the game.
I have built something that is actually playable by complete strangers! WOOHOO!
Stability
I have also monitored for crashes, exceptions and bugs and I am happy to report that I don’t have a fun chart to show you for this as there were very few issues. I credit this to a lot of the pre-playtesting that did find some issues, the endless CPU match stress test mode I built (basically the game plays itself for hours on end, exercising the vast majority of the codebase), and I also have to give a shout out to Unity. I have found it quite stable and easy to work with. I also have Unity to thank for the free and easy to use analytics library responsible for the data you see above!
Your Feedback in Action
With the quantitative results out of the way, let’s move on to the proverbial suggestion box! It has been so helpful to hear from folks in the Playtest Google Form, and I also have very much appreciated the other casual chats and phone calls (yes millennials still have phone conversations sometimes!) to discuss my game. Here are a few major themes that stood out and the changes I am making to accommodate them.
Knock Outs
I heard from multiple people that a KO victory felt a little too obvious–and easy. Which made me reflect on my world and how it’s a place where games are played to resolve conflict in lieu of weapons. There was also feedback that the knock out animation looked funky, and it was unclear if your units would ever get revived.
So, knock outs are out! In their place I’ve implemented a concept called WALLOPED. Similar to the “Staggered” state in the Final Fantasy XIII games, when a unit’s health is drained to zero they become WALLOPED which results in the following:
No misses! All abilities and spells are guaranteed to hit. This means a WALLOPED player will always take damage and fumble the ball.
All fumbles become SUPER FUMBLES! More on that in a second…
It’s not all bad as their health will begin regenerating slowly with each successive turn.
Their next turn is delayed significantly, and they will remain WALLOPED until their next turn. You can even re-WALLOP someone to delay their recovery further, or pass them the ball to speed up the process!
I think this introduces some interesting strategies. While still incentivizing you to pummel your opponents, it ensures the focus of the game is to actually score goals instead of destroying your enemy.
Super Fumbles!
To give the game more “juice,” I’m adding in little flourishes, like camera shakes, particles, and this new mechanic!
Multiple elements of Fantasy Football Tactics have been directly or indirectly inspired by fighting games like Street Fighter II, Soul Calibur and Smash Bros. One such example that was inspired by Smash Bros. is that the more you damage an opponent, the more likely they become to fumble the ball. I wanted to take this a little further, though, and thus we have the Super Fumble!
A normal fumble has an equal chance of landing on any adjacent tile, but a Super Fumble can go flying far across the field, and is guaranteed to improve your field position. There is some not-so-straightforward logic behind this I won’t bore you with, but the important takeaway is that Super Fumbles are a game changer. If your opponent is one tile away from scoring, you can still force a Super Fumble and send the ball back across the field. With Super Fumbles, the game is truly never over until its over. It introduces a fun, chaotic energy and I’m excited for you all to try it out!
User Interface
One thing I’ve prided myself on was my clean and easy-to-use UI, so imagine my surprise when I received feedback that the UI felt so clean as to come across as sterile and lacking in personality. Multiple players even said the UI felt like a placeholder (it wasn’t!)—what a valuable learning experience this has been!
The other main line of feedback from PC players was that the UI felt “ported from mobile.” Which: fair! Because it literally was. Most notably, the touch screen friendly buttons were simply too big and annoying for PC players.
I dug a little deeper with a few of these folks and came to the conclusion that while the overall design and layout worked well for the game, it was missing a lot of personality present in fantasy games like textures, colors and interesting fonts.
So, I updated to a more fantasy inspired serif font, included some parchment-like textures, and have been iterating on general sizing and layout of the interactive controls. Here are a few before and after shots:
All three major updates outlined above are already deployed in the latest build on Steam! I hope you’ll check it out and let me know what you think.
The Positives
It’s important to focus on things that are working well in addition to the areas that need improvement. Not only for my psyche, but also to steer the game more in the direction of what’s successful.
Scoring goals feels rewarding and fun!
🧙🏻♂️ The Caster’s Flame ability is universally loved
Players enjoy changing team composition and trying out all the Positions
Movement is quick, and it’s fun reacting to the CPU
CPU vs. CPU mode provides enjoyable entertainment
80% of respondents are interested in playing the full game upon release!
Overall the game is fun, innovative and shines best with its underlying gameplay systems. What wonderful feedback!
Next Moves
The next big milestone I’m chasing is a public demo on Steam, so in addition to iterating on the feedback above, I’m also focusing on two major features demo players on Steam will expect: settings and controller support.
The initial settings feature is largely complete including volume controls for music and sound effects, resolution and frame rate settings, and even an accessibility option to disable screen shakes.
Controller support has proven to be a bigger bear than I anticipated (a common theme in my journey lol), mostly because I first designed the UI with touch screen/mouse support in mind. As such, it doesn’t always lend itself well to virtual navigation using a joystick. My early efforts are resulting in an overall improved UI that will hopefully work smoothly with a controller without sacrificing the touch-screen experience.
There’s a slew of other tweaks/improvements I want to make before launching the demo, which I should have a release date for soon! Until then, you can keep enjoying the Open Playtest on Steam. I’ll be updating it regularly, so be sure to check back! BTW, I hope your team fared as well in the draft as the Denver Broncos. Welcome to Denver Jahdae Barron!