Hey everyone, just wondering if anyone has spotted some coverage or featured status we missed- anything that could be driving so much traffic to our game. We cannot figure out why player levels in Depict are 10x higher than normal today. I'm not arrogant enough to believe it's word of mouth Thanks!
Maybe it’s just the natural result of people going to work on Monday and playing more games Glad to see it’s really taking off for you! So you have thousands of players now instead of hundreds? Two UI suggestions for the purpose of avoiding misunderstandings: 1. Maybe don’t use a question mark for people who are guessing (maybe there doesn’t need to be a symbol at all)? I feel it’s likely to make new players (as I once was!) think those are all empty slots, or people who are disconnected. Also, the gray color of the default avatars give an impression of a “disabled” or “unavailable” player slot. A bold black face with no question mark might be clearer. 2. Add an option to the Whistle menu: something like “Not Drawing.” There are lots of good reasons not to draw for a moment—real life distraction in particular (since this is a mobile phone game). Or maybe (this has happened to me) your drawing is so simple you don’t see any need to keep adding more! So I think this is one problem the game should be forgiving about... even if individual players are not: people blow the whistle and call you a Cheater. So I say, give them a “Not Drawing” option so they can complain about the REAL issue (which is not cheating, just delay). And then—here’s the key--ignore “Not Drawing” complaints: don’t ban or kick or anything. This whistle option would be there just to absorb inappropriate cheat complaints.
Those are good suggestions. You can blow the whistle for "sleeping" and it does exactly what you said. BTW, we are featured in the UK, that's why we're getting all the traffic.
how come no one every plays lightning round online? is it just a 1 player game/game you can play with only friends?
It's not a single player game, but no one buys it so there's no one in there. It's kinda fun to play single player, but certainly more fun with others. Look for more players in there next week when the iPad version comes out. Lightning round comes built in with that one so maybe there will be more players. If not, we'll find some way to make it up to you.
A recent AppSlappy podcast highlighted the app. One of the hosts liked the game and encouraged listeners to join so that he could play with people that listen to the podcast. That could have had an impact.....
I’ve been enjoying the game—and the avatar creator, color or not! Congrats on the game’s success: I see over 3k people playing lately! But with that comes a dark side that has taken some of the fun away. I think the game needs a higher ban threshold, because griefers seem to be doing more banning than the reverse. I’m a model player: never cheat, good guesser, good drawer, good sport, and I paid. Yet I now often get reported and banned by the very people who are cheating. Three bannable offenses in my experience: 1. Having any custom avatar. Why this bothers people I don’t know. Do they think it means I have hacked the game or something? (I have never seen any custom avatar but mine so maybe that’s it.) Or are they habitual pirates objecting to the fact that I paid? People repeatedly report my icons as obscene when they’re nothing of the kind—they’re not even ambiguous. (This bans my avatar, not me from playing, though.) One is a simple shaded sphere and one is a monster face. Or maybe it’s just another way to punish someone who is scoring well this round? 2. Guessing right. People hate that when they guess wrong. Whistle-rage ensues. Guess right too much and you are a real target. 3. The big crime: reporting people who write the word. Usually you’re the only one reporting so it does no good anyway—but then the others (not just the cheater) will gang up on you and have you banned. And they know one report is not enough, so they keep reporting you in the next round, until you’re kicked and can’t login for a time. (If people just want to write words and read words, why play this game?) I should make it clear that this isn’t a response to me making multiple cheat reports—just one is enough. And I am lenient: when in doubt I let it slide. I’m not trigger-happy at all, I just want to guess drawings instead of reading words. Half the time they just start giving you 1-stars (which is harmless) or write an arrow to your icon and write nasty messages (which means they’re not playing—but nobody seems to blow the whistle on that). The other half of the time they blow the whistle. The key change I’m noticing yesterday and today is the ganging-up behavior: it won’t be just one player after you, it will be several. Since games are short and I play multiple games in one session, I can almost count on being banned in any given play session. There’s no real help for it other than to eventually gather a lot of friends and only play with them, which probably won’t happen. It’s human nature to lash out, and an inevitable result of any game’s success—you just have to accept that in multiplayer. But three proposed solutions that might help a little: 1. Set a much higher threshold (maybe 3x what is now?) for banning and for avatar ban. I know that helps cheaters get away with it longer, but in my experience the innocent are victims of the whistle more than the cheaters anyway. 2. I’d change the ratings to a different method. Stars are a cool idea, but have never really caught on as intended. They’re often used to lash out against good drawers, which sets a negative tone. Anything that can improve the friendly tone might be worth it, so my thought: change it to a one-function thumbs-up button that can ONLY compliment a drawing. Instead of hoping for more stars, a good drawer (if they cared) would hope for more thumbs-ups. 3. Give the drawer a button (unless I missed it?) that gives them a new word. That might remove the temptation to write a word they honestly don’t know. BUT people would simply always skip anything that needed creativity, and half the fun would be gone. People would go for something easy and boost their points. So: only let people do this once per 10 games, or some limit like that. Just thinking out loud! And maybe this trend will solve itself: it could settle down if the worst of the newcomers drift away.
