Mother Lode (Board Game by Order of Magnitude Games)

[cranker]

I will pick this up but please update the game with an option with no zooming. It drives me crazy in pinball games and I know it will be the same with this.

[Oscar Streaker]

Originally Posted by scartier

@Oscar It shouldn't be too hard to browse your miner values. The intention is that you hold a touch in the bubble with one finger. Then you use another finger to tap on any of your miners to make them show up in the bubble. I hope I described that properly.

That makes sense for pass & play, but if the ipad is on a tabletop with players on either side, and I'm holding the bubble open with one finger and not attempting to obscure it, wouldn't everyone be privy to the displayed info? Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of hiding miner capacity in the first place? Again, I'm probably missing something (I'm lame that way)...

[Misguided]

Originally Posted by cranker

I will pick this up but please update the game with an option with no zooming. It drives me crazy in pinball games and I know it will be the same with this.

It isn't too bad, because you can control the speed of the zoom (by controlling the speed you move your finger) but I will also appreciate that change.

[Royce]

Originally Posted by Oscar Streaker

That makes sense for pass & play, but if the ipad is on a tabletop with players on either side, and I'm holding the bubble open with one finger and not attempting to obscure it, wouldn't everyone be privy to the displayed info? Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of hiding miner capacity in the first place? Again, I'm probably missing something (I'm lame that way)...

You can use just one hand to hold the bubble and obscure its contents, then use the other to select miners. I have no problem doing that, but I've only played with two human, two computer. Maybe it's harder with someone right next to you but it seems like it should still be pretty doable. Just use two or three curved fingers on the bubble.

[Cromwell]

Will the game gets multiplayer over GC in the future? ^^
Would be nice...

[scartier]

There is lots of stuff that I would like to add to the game. Game Center achievements. Online play (real-time or async). Better AI. Stat tracking. Not to mention extensions to the gameplay itself.

To be honest, whether I can do all that depends on how well the game performs. I'm a one man show and this is my first/only game. If this game doesn't make enough to support itself then I'll need to move on. I'm burning through savings right now so I need to do whatever will keep my company afloat. That's just the nature of being an indie!

While I'm posting I'll let everyone know that I just submitted the retina update. It also has a bunch of usability fixes that you all have suggested.

http://oomgames.com/2012/03/29/retina-update-submitted/

In summary:
o Toggle off auto-zoom
o Enable faster animations
o Add option to tap instead of hold when opening the player bubble
o Make the help bar stay facing the human player
o Let the device go to sleep when idle

Thanks everybody for your feedback.

I've also lowered the price back down to $0.99 for a while.

[AlteaineDranix]

I just purchased this game and I'm relived to hear that we can toggle the auto-zoom on and off in the future. It was making me somewhat dizzy during the placement of miners, so I've held of playing for now. As with the game speed; it's a tad too slow for my liking.
It sounds like the kind of board game I'd love, however. And it's lovely to see a dev working closely with their userbase.

[crunc]

For a $1 I'll definitely give this a shot. I also appreciate your honesty about updates - I can completely appreciate that it would only make sense to do major improvements like online play if the app is making you money. It's great to see a dev be straight forward about that. Having said that, obviously I hope it does work out and we get those updates.

EDIT: and purchased. I look forward to trying this out tonight or this weekend.

[Cromwell]

Maybe not everyone wants/needs online MP.
So, why not add it as IAP?
I would pay an additional €.79/$.99 or €1.59/$1.99, if that means the game gets future updates including Online MP. A lot of BoardGames on IOS costs more than the €.79/$.99 you want for your game.
For the IAP "haters", see it as some kind of kickstarter contribution or simple way of supporting an indie Dev.
Not all IAPs are evil

[scartier]

Oh I agree about IAP. I don't find it inherently evil. It's the way some devs use it that makes it scuzzy.

I appreciate your idea, but the problem is the time it would take to implement. If it takes me a month then that's another month I'm not earning enough to pay the bills, with no guarantee that it will make up for it at the end. I've only sold around 900 copies of Mother Lode so far. Even if every one of those people bought the IAP it wouldn't be enough to justify the time spent.

It's also a month I could be spending working on another, potentially more lucrative game.