Forbidden Island

[LordGek]

Originally Posted by ButtonMashGames

We definitely agree that communication is key for a co-operative game like Forbidden Island. We're still very early in development for online multiplayer, but we really like the idea of voice chat in the game. It might be a bit of a battery hog, but you can't beat it for intuitiveness. We'll have to see where the development takes us, though.

Best Regards,
- Sean

Curious, as just a consumer here. If at some point your game does enable voice chat and say it is a bit of a battery drain, would that even effect those solo players not utilizing that chat? Or in other words, is that potential battery draining aspect from use of the feature or simply by playing the game once is an enabled feature?

[Jools75]

Personally, I like text chat... I'm a hard of hearing person... Not joking!

By the way, iAP now seems properly working, so the extra 10 island set... INSTABUY!

[VeganTnT]

Originally Posted by Jools75

Personally, I like text chat... I'm a hard of hearing person... Not joking!

By the way, iAP now seems properly working, so the extra 10 island set... INSTABUY!

I agree, if only because voice chat isn't useful in async matches.

The reason I love async board games on iOS is because I'm playing with people on the other side of the country (or in some cases, other parts of the world) where a live game just won't work very often due to the time difference.

Text chat will be useful to more people than voice chat, in my opinion.

[ButtonMashGames]

Originally Posted by LordGek

Curious, as just a consumer here. If at some point your game does enable voice chat and say it is a bit of a battery drain, would that even effect those solo players not utilizing that chat? Or in other words, is that potential battery draining aspect from use of the feature or simply by playing the game once is an enabled feature?

We haven't implemented it yet, so I can't say for sure. However, if you are sending or receiving voice signals with others, it would have a similar effect on the battery as using Skype - since the wifi or cellular radio would be transmitting more data. However, if none of the users used the feature (or you could opt out of receiving signals), then the data transmission would be reduced.

We've also discussed enabling a-sync play and text chat, but we are still in very early stages of investigation. The development of those two features is more difficult, though we realize it's a desirable way to play as well.

- Sean

[crunc]

Yeah, voice chat is only useful for live play. Asynch and text chat would be good too, obviously.

And I finally played and, yes, this is fun. I lost twice, both times losing the landing point. The first game I would have won except I drew a water rises and it put all the cards back after only 5 cards, and with 5 cards to be drawn, one of which was the landing point which was already flooded. Doh! Fun, and a bit nerve wracking game.

[crunc]

Finally won a game last night. On easy. It was my 4th or 5th game. Good stuff. One thing I wish is that the pawns, or whatever they're called, were easier to see. I feel like they blend in a bit. Not a big deal, but it would be nice if they stood out better.