Boardgame Project | Review

4/29/2012

DS BOARDGAMES | Review
Classic Games
Sr Name 0 Overall +/Topic + Looks + Looks - Ergonomics Comment Interface is neat, with good ergonomics but is a bit dull visually Music is nice but old fashioned The user has too many options in the menus (basics, learn to play, etc), maybe better if it were streamlined and made into 2 options: Tutorial : Basics (skippable) > How to play (skippable) > Strategy (skippable) > Practice - Ergonomics Play : Main game 11/05/09 The Your turn and CPUs turn messages in the middle of the screen are intrusive - maybe a passive icon on the side would be better Suggestion: maybe have an avatar that teaches the player 11/05/09 how to play and that the player can then play against - it involves more resources but is sure to liven things up Maybe the helpicon should be a ? instead of a book more self-explanatory Any tutorial/game where the number of moves are limited should have a tracker for the moves made on the top screen 11/05/09 11/05/09 Date 11/05/09 11/05/09 11/05/09

- Looks

- Ergonomics - Ergonomics

1 Draughts

- Gameplay

When a player can take multiple enemy pieces, the game 11/05/09 waits for the player to do so, even if the player is actually unaware of the possibility - a 'Move Available' message is needed AI seems pretty poor game was easily beaten 11/05/09

2 Backgammon

- Gameplay

3 Chess

- Gameplay - Bug

11/05/09 Weak AI: In normal mode, I beat it in 4-5 moves Also, when the CPU king was in check, it just moved some 11/05/09 random pawn... this is not allowed 11/05/09 Good game and well realized Maybe it would make life easier for the player if the tray 11/05/09 where the last ball is going to land is indicated when the balls in any tray are mouseovered

4 Makala

+ Gameplay - Gameplay

5 Reversi

- Gameplay

Its not explained how pieces can only be placed in positions that will capture enemy pieces

11/05/09

SupInfo Game / UBIsoft

Harshal Chheda

Boardgame Project | Review - Gameplay + Gameplay 6 Dominos - Gameplay

2 After completing lv 15 of the strategy part, it keeps repeating lv 15 AI is challenging Didnt display a success message after completing the tutorial, just asked which tutorial I would like to play When dragging the board around, the help and option menus pop up sometimes Good tutorial, AI and board graphics

4/29/2012 11/05/09 11/05/09 11/05/09

- Ergonomics

11/05/09

7 Mastermind

+ Looks + Gameplay - Bug

11/05/09

- Ergonomics

Smooth gameplay except turn indicator, as mentioned in 11/05/09 the 'Overall' section Tutorial doesnt progress properly after completing step 11/05/09 1 , it asks to chose what step to play next instead of going to step 2 automatically Shouldnt it display the code the player gives the CPU on 11/05/09 the top screen? Game is slow: time for the tray to slide out and the time 11/05/09 taken to acknowledge each move should be shorter + the turn indicator is intrusive as mentioned before Also, the pieces cant me taken out of the tray smoothly, I misplaced a couple myself Small AA cleanup needed on the topmost piece of your Camera should centre on the placed piece much faster The 2 arrows indicating that the input needs to be made Maybe an undo feature would be useful 11/05/09 11/05/09 11/05/09 11/05/09 11/05/09

8 Connect5

- Gameplay

- Gameplay 9 Go Looks Ergonomics Bug Gameplay

- Bug

- Bug + Looks - Ergonomics 10 Chinese Checkers + Gameplay - Bug - Bug - Bug

Tutorial doesnt progress properly after completing step 11/05/09 1 , it asks to chose what step to play next instead of going to step 2 automatically 11/05/09 Game just got stuck at step 10 in the capture strategy Exact same board and tray as Connect5 but much smoother + no AA problem Animations should be skippable I like the game and think the gameplay is smooth enough How to play gets stuck after completing 4/4 Got stuck after 1/15 of strategy Game hung randomly @ 11/15 strategy 11/05/09 11/05/09 11/05/09 11/05/09 11/05/09 11/05/09

SupInfo Game / UBIsoft

Harshal Chheda

Boardgame Project | Review

DS BOARDGAMES | Review
Fun Games
Sr Name 0 Overall +/Topic + Looks + Looks + Ergonomy Comment Title screen layout and graphics are nice The game selection scroller and its sound system is SUBLIME The game remembers the scroll wheel position when going to the main menu and back this is nice because there are so many games on the same wheel Some really interesting and innovative remixes of classic games The BoardGames branding seems a bit unsuitable since there are card games, Sudoku, pool, etc as well Overall graphics seem drab I wont repeat this comment in the individual games No music in games The excessively British-sounding 3, 2, 1, GO! voice seems out of place The text throughout the game needs editing for grammar and polish, some examples: The text Touch the touch screen to continue should be changed to Touch the screen to continue Date 02/06/09 02/06/09 02/06/09

+ Gameplay - Looks

02/06/09 02/06/09

- Looks - NYI - Looks - Looks

02/06/09 02/06/09 02/06/09 02/06/09

- Ergonomics

Inconsistency: The Play again and Try again messages should be the same message 02/06/09 The OK button: In my opinion, streamlining menu item selection so that the OK button is redundant would be a good move, as it reduces the number of clicks needed to go through menus Failing that, the OK button should glow/bounce/etc when the player selects a menu item and the next obvious step would be to press OK Note: This button is quite redundant anyway because of double-tapping The Start button is not aligned in the centre in some games The Play again button text is too big for the button 03/06/09 02/06/09 02/06/09

- Ergonomics - Ergonomics - Ergonomics

02/06/09 Individual game explanation text: Animation is a bit slow by default Touching the bottom screen only speeds up the animation (not by a great amount) instead of skipping the animation

SupInfo Game / UBIsoft

Harshal Chheda

Boardgame Project | Review Ideally, the animation should be skipped and the whole text displayed, waiting for the next input When using Play again, the explanation text animation should be skipped automatically and, ideally, the explanation itself may be skipped a ? (help button) would give access to the explanation at any time Also, it would be nice to have an example or two along with the text explanation For any time-limit game, the music should speed up when 02/06/09 there is less time remaining 02/06/09 Most of the games feel endless, maybe the <time-limit with + x sec> gameplay is overused 02/06/09 The New Record! message is shown even when the player fares miserably there should be some minimal threshold for this to give the emotional reward of this message some meaning 02/06/09 Even after reading the explanation, it was not immediately apparent what to do in the game The explanation says to flickcards, whereas they actually 02/06/09 need to be tapped the flick doesnt work 02/06/09 When you hit a red circle, it goes to the top left of the screen instead of the box on the top right and then it just dissapears, although it is still counted as a life lost. So the game can be over, for example, even when there is only 1 yellow circle in the 'life tracker' box 02/06/09 Spam-tapping the screen to shoot while also using the stylus to move seems incompatible - perhaps using the Dpad to move and the 'A' button to shoot would be better

- Gameplay - Gameplay - Gameplay

1 Three Throw

- Gameplay - Bug

2 Pip Shot

- Bug

- Gameplay

3 Dicey

+ Gameplay - Gameplay

Nice idea, but needs tuning IMO After a bunch of dice match and dissapear, it seems the whole grid is reset - this is very disorienting - why not replace the captured dice with new, random ones? The game can be played endlessly by just running the stylus all over the grid

02/06/09 02/06/09

- Gameplay

02/06/09

4 Tap Dance

- Gameplay - Gameplay

02/06/09 A bit too hard & difficulty rises WAY too fast 02/06/09 The dissapearing of pieces is disorienting and if a black piece spawns in the place of a white one while the player is in the motion of tapping it, he/she unfairly loses a point

5 Royal Rush

+ Gameplay

Spammy but addictive, needs a little tuning

02/06/09

SupInfo Game / UBIsoft

Harshal Chheda

Boardgame Project | Review 6 Dot Fall + Gameplay - Gameplay - Gameplay Could be called Domino Races and tuned accordingly All the green dominoes on-screen turn red after capturing a green one - this is disorienting Player movement speed should scale with level - it's sluggishness makes it unplayable at higher levels 02/06/09 02/06/09 02/06/09

7 Dot Link

+ Gameplay - Gameplay - Gameplay - Gameplay

Awesome, innovative game The direction that the snake takes after eating something seems erratic Speed increase on level-up is HUGE and needs to be toned down a bit The snake can't go through the side walls like in the original Snake MY STYLUS BROKE!! - the game is seriously way too spammy Starts off too slow and takes off way too fast Seems a bit mindless, sorry Good game A bit hard I found it hard to get used to the weight needed for the flicking motion Maybe the objective can be re-evaluated to improve overall gameplay Sweet idea The snake can't go through the side walls like in the original Snake Are there level increments? If so, they are too slow Quality idea and realization I like the fact that it reveals the correct answer when you die Well-tuned level increments Having more than 1 life makes.. life.. much easier ;) Wrong rules displayed (rules for Dot Fall) Unclear about the significance of the black and white dots and why the paddle turns black and white Paddle movement speed should scale with level The timer and the +/- time feature needs tuning - can afford to make too many mistakes at the start For some reason, the name 'Paddle Flip' become 'Paddle' after I played it and went back to the game selection menu

02/06/09 02/06/09 02/06/09 02/06/09

8 Dish-Dash

- Gameplay - Gameplay - Gameplay

02/06/09 02/06/09 02/06/09 02/06/09 02/06/09 02/06/09 02/06/09

9 Beanstalk

+ Gameplay - Gameplay - Gameplay - Gameplay

10 Code Winder

+ Gameplay - Gameplay - Gameplay

02/06/09 02/06/09 02/06/09 02/06/09 02/06/09 02/06/09 02/06/09 02/06/09 02/06/09

11 Code Play

+ Gameplay + Gameplay + Gameplay + Gameplay

12 Paddle Flip

- Bug - Gameplay

- Gameplay - Gameplay - Bug

02/06/09 02/06/09 02/06/09

SupInfo Game / UBIsoft

Harshal Chheda

Boardgame Project | Review

13 Tentacle

- Gameplay - Gameplay

SPAMMY SPAMMY SPAMMY Can only put the pieces in 3 blocks at any given time, so the only skill involved is how fast you can place pieces Didn't like the game at all, personally Pretty OK game, not that original though Level increments are pretty well tuned Sweet idea Rules could mention that you can only swap adjacent pieces Maybe a time limit is not the best idea for this game, instead, captured pieces could go off the board and you can't move into the blank spaces. Score can be kept by the number of pieces remaining when you have no moves left - the lesser the better

02/06/09 02/06/09

- Gameplay 14 Spinner + Gameplay + Gameplay + Gameplay - Gameplay - Gameplay

02/06/09 02/06/09 02/06/09 02/06/09 02/06/09 02/06/09

15 Tri Match

16 TrapSuit

+ Gameplay + Looks - Gameplay + Gameplay

Neat idea, pretty well-realized Flawless animations, stylus-dragging, etc This game is truly endless, since the level increments seem to do absolutely nothing Good game, but the objective needs rethinking like many games before this one Interesting idea - using the stylus to simulate dance games Seems badly realized - A traditional, music-based game would have been much better than the card idea Picking the correct block doesnt add seconds to the countdown The way it is, it seems boring Cool idea Sometimes, the 'Game Over' animation loops again and again and the console has to be reset Maybe the projectile should be slightly slower to emphasize on prediction of the horse's final position based on chess rules And the most unimaginative name award goes to A bit endless again Seems like a less interesting version of Dot Fall Sometimes, the 'Game Over' animation loops again and again and the console has to be reset

03/06/09 03/06/09 03/06/09 03/06/09

17 Dancefloor

+ Gameplay - Gameplay

03/06/09 03/06/09

- Gameplay - Gameplay 18 Horse Shoot + Gameplay - Bug - Gameplay

03/06/09 03/06/09 03/06/09 03/06/09 03/06/09

- Looks - Gameplay 19 Crownfall - Gameplay - Bug

03/06/09 03/06/09 03/06/09 03/06/09

SupInfo Game / UBIsoft

Harshal Chheda

Boardgame Project | Review - Gameplay Tuning seems pretty good - level increments are gradual 03/06/09

20 Hide n Seek

- Gameplay - Ergonimics

Nice idea and realization, addictive game The symbol shown on the top screen needs to be much bigger, as it is mainly viewed through peripheral vision Good tuning Great concept, realization could be better The circling-detection doesnt seem 100% precise Gets impossible after the first few levels I realised that for circling porposes, the black ball has to be near the centre of the screen, however, here it always spawns from the same spot - this is so boring

03/06/09 03/06/09

- Gameplay 21 Trap Around + Gameplay Gameplay Gameplay Gameplay

03/06/09 03/06/09 03/06/09 03/06/09 03/06/09

22 Off Centre

- Gameplay + Gameplay

03/06/09 Another overly-spammy game 03/06/09 An ingenious balancing feature which I did not notice at the start is that if no balls are touching the centre, the first ball to touch it slows down all the balls on the screen for a limited time - this avoids the exploit of just stylusflick-spamming one quadrant... impressive!! Boring :( no strategy involved and very little else except expertise in spamming 03/06/09

- Gameplay

23 4+1

+ Gameplay - Ergonomics - Gameplay

03/06/09 Cool idea 03/06/09 The small size of the numbers makes them very hard to drag 03/06/09 The timer needs tuning - I personally found the start timer and the +sec too less and couldnt progress very far (this is also related to the previous point)

24 Pentagone

- Ergonomics

- Looks

+ Gameplay 25 Crackjack + Gameplay - Looks

Rotation and tapping with the stylus is not intuitive - the 03/06/09 D-pad and 'A' button should be used instead, OR, even better, the ball should fire automatically each time you lift the stylus off the touchscreen after having rotated, etc 03/06/09 The animation for when a ball is accepted into the ring shows the ball flying offscreen as well as appearing on the ring with a puff of smoke - it should not show the ball flying offscreesn 03/06/09 Decent idea, needs better realization Very nice idea and well realized The name 'CrackJack', while OK for Indian audiences, has many negative implication for Westerners 03/06/09

SupInfo Game / UBIsoft

Harshal Chheda

Boardgame Project | Review - Gameplay - Gameplay Big endlesness problem - I am sure there are other objectives you can give the player in this game 03/06/09

+ Gameplay

03/06/09 The game can be pretty much played forever by spamtapping the stylus on the screen without even looking at it 03/06/09 Played without exploiting, the game is challenging and the timer system pretty well tuned - even though it's a bit on th ehard side Nifty idea, well realized The timer is harshly tuned, but I guess thats intentional, so that the game is not too easy A bit boring to play Nice adaptation of the classic roadside game Too easy at the start, too hard at higher levels In-game, the name is shown incorrectly as 'Fliop flop' The symbol shown on the top screen needs to be much bigger, as it is mainly viewed through peripheral vision 03/06/09 03/06/09 03/06/09 03/06/09 03/06/09 03/06/09 03/06/09

26 Bet Set Go

+ Gameplay - Gameplay - Gameplay

27 Trick Track

+ Gameplay - Gameplay - Bug - Ergonomics

28 Chip Smash

- Gameplay

- Ergonomy

+ Gameplay

03/06/09 The description of the game is incomplete and in the ingame title, there is a small 'S' in the word Smash - lack of uniformity Controls are far too clunky - aiming using the stylus in the 03/06/09 top-mid section of the screen and firing by tapping on the chip, also using the stylus, is very inefficient - need D-pad use Unoriginal - could have some maths, timing or RNG-based 03/06/09 modifications to work around this Controls are inefficient again Movement and rotation using the stylus is bad - needs Dpad use Tapping a piece to make it rotate should use the half that has been tapped as the axis of rotation I got the impression that the sideways movement is quite erratic and hard to control Weird name and it appears in ALL CAPS in-game - lack of uniformity Because of the controls, I couldnt succeed in or enjoy the game too much Because movement is with the stylus, some portions of the screen are blocked from view - kinda bad for a game like this - recommend D-pad usage again Neat idea, addictive game 03/06/09

29 Bi-Contract

- Ergonomy

- Gameplay - Looks - Gameplay

03/06/09 03/06/09 03/06/09

30 Hunt Heart

- Ergonomy

03/06/09

+ Gameplay

03/06/09

SupInfo Game / UBIsoft

Harshal Chheda

Boardgame Project | Review - Gameplay Needs tuning - I did reasonably well but the game still ended way too fast - the level increments came pretty quickly and sped things up quite a bit per level I suggest incorporating a 'trap' key - using the 'A' button in conjunction with the D-pad OR tapping the square to capture the heart if going the stylus-only route 03/06/09

- Gameplay

03/06/09

SupInfo Game / UBIsoft

Harshal Chheda

Boardgame Project | Review

10

4/29/2012

DS BOARDGAMES | Review
Fun Games
Sr Name 0 Overall +/Topic + Looks - Ergonomics Date Comment Neat interface with pleasing transparencies, clean layout, 01/06/09 smooth animations 01/06/09 The button-dropping animation upon changing menu screens is slow, and pressing A during the animation just presses the (invisible) currently selected button pressing A should just skip the animation while staying in the same menu screen 01/06/09

- Looks

Backgrounds have spinning game tokens like chess pieces, etc which, in my opinion, look out of place (flying mushrooms with AA bugs) - Known Issue The left analog stick behaves erratically - Known Issue Obvious discrepancies in menu styles for the individual games, e.g. the Reversi menu has gray buttons whereas the Backgammon menu has dark-blue, slightly differently shaped buttons - NYI - Bug No difficulty levels in most games The text on the Play Online button in the main menu is only visible after the button-dropping animation is complete Different graphic theme options would be a plus The text throughout the game needs editing for grammar and polish Skippable animations across the board (no pun intended) would be nice, e.g. piece-moving animations, etc. Exit button inconsistency: Sometimes, the button to exit a screen/game is B and sometimes its X this needs to be streamlined and made into one universal button

01/06/09 01/06/09

01/06/09 01/06/09

- Looks - Looks - Ergonomics

01/06/09 01/06/09 01/06/09

- Ergonomics

01/06/09

- Ergonomics

- Gameplay

- Gameplay

Basics: Each slides text is slow-scrolling and pressing A 01/06/09 entirely skips the text and goes to the next slide pressing A should just skip the text animation, show the text and then, upon pressing A again, it should skip to the next slide The 'Basics' section in each game is sorely laking in detail, 01/06/09 e.g., Reversi: The Basics section only has 3 slides showing the board, player pieces and opponent pieces it should also explain how pieces are captured, multipleline captures, etc Cannot select which Learn level to jump to (even if that 01/06/09 bracket of levels i.e. easy, medium and hard has been completed)

SupInfo Game / UBIsoft

Harshal Chheda

Boardgame Project | Review - Ergonomics - Ergonomics - Ergonomics

11 Turn indicator could be more obvious, i.e. a glow/highlight or marker Exit / hints on-off / etc buttons are inconsistent across games and sometimes even absent After completing Basics, it should default to the mode selection screen not many people would want to see the basics section twice or more times in a row (at the moment it just restarts the Basics section) Some menu streamlining is evident compared to the Alpha DS Boardgames I tested, however, there is still room for improvement in my opinion Strong AI couldnt beat it in Play mode but that may just be me being crap ;) Hint mode seems useful and the toggle is a good idea The animation showing which pieces will be captured is slick Overall looks and smoothness levels are good Wrong spelling of Reversi in the boardgame selection menu No Exit or Menu button indicators ingame The board and pieces look excellent In Basics, capturing pieces, bearing off and the implications of a double-roll are not explained In Basics, dice are shown in the middle of the board, whereas they are at the bottom of the left-side-panel ingame The highlights showing available slots to move a piece to need better anti-aliasing and the throbbing animation needs better alignment to make it look seamless After completing a game in Play mode and leaving the Resultsscreen, the game automatically restarts in play mode maybe it would be better to ask the player what he/she wants to do? AI seems pretty poor, or maybe its just how the game is In my personal opinion, it doesnt seem like a fun game, its based off the dice roll result too much Board and tokens look amazing, and the piece-picking animation is a good touch Has difficulty levels! Good AI Challenging game, personally found it fun to play Good menu style

4/29/2012 01/06/09 01/06/09 01/06/09

- Ergonomics

01/06/09

1 Reversi

+ Gameplay + Gameplay + Looks + Looks - Looks - Ergonomics

01/06/09 01/06/09 01/06/09 01/06/09 01/06/09 01/06/09 01/06/09 01/06/09 01/06/09

2 Backgammon + Looks - Gameplay - Ergonomics

- Looks

01/06/09

- Ergonomics

01/06/09

- Gameplay - Gameplay

01/06/09 01/06/09

3 Mastermind

+ Looks + + + + Gameplay Gameplay Gameplay Looks

01/06/09 01/06/09 01/06/09 01/06/09 01/06/09

SupInfo Game / UBIsoft

Harshal Chheda

Boardgame Project | Review - Ergonomics - Looks - Looks - Gameplay

12 The Dark Pegs are of a dark-orangish colour instead of black this is a bit disorienting at first Slight anti-aliasing issue with the holes on the Hint side of the board (right half) Wrong spelling for beginner in the difficulty modes menu tooltip No option to reset your guess after placing a piece

4/29/2012 01/06/09 01/06/09 01/06/09 01/06/09

+ + + -

Ergonimics Looks Looks Gameplay

- Ergonimics

No slow-scrolling text in Basic section Hints, board, tokens look good as usual No flying mushrooms in the background In Basics, there is no explanation of how to capture pieces etc In Learn, there is a Hints Off button indicator but that disappears when activated with no replacement Hints On indicator this is not a problem in Play There should be a Move Available indicator for when a player thinks his turn is over but there are still other opponent pieces he/she can capture In case there is a move available, the movable piece (or one of them) should be selected by default AI seems erratic it didnt kill my king even when it had a clear chance No difficulty levels Turn indicator could be more obvious The CPU player is shown as Player x, x being 1,2, etc; whereas it could be simply be XBox, CPU or CPU 1, CPU 2, etc

01/06/09 01/06/09 01/06/09 01/06/09 01/06/09

- Ergonimics

01/06/09

- Ergonimics

01/06/09

- Gameplay - Gameplay - Ergonimics - Looks

01/06/09 01/06/09 01/06/09 01/06/09

SupInfo Game / UBIsoft

Harshal Chheda