Dissapointing iPhone version of SW.

[Chommie]

I am amazed that there wasnt a different design convention for the iPhone 4 version of Summoner Wars. Just like the iPhone version of Ascension which playdek also developed, it looks like they just essentially scaled everything down. This is as lazy as it gets. A scaled down version of the iPad design repurposed for a different device is bad design/lazy design. So much wasted space which makes most all of the games content not legible, or barely so. This forces the user to constantly check/zoom on cards to make sure whats whats. Subpar user experience. Once the initial ipad design was in place i dont understand why a little bit of extra time wasnt taken to adress the differences between the two devices. Its too bad because the ipad version is good.

Shame on you Playdek.

Having said that, i am running on about 2 hours of sleep because i played non stop through the night

[Ranior]

I'm super confused here.

What is playdek supposed to do? You have a screen no bigger than the size of ONE of the cards. The board is 48 cards big.

I don't even have the app, but I am astounded that you are complaining that you have to zoom in to read anything. How else would they have implemented it on the iphone? A device the size of a card is not a conducive surface to be playing a game that should be taking up over 50 times the space. The fact that you can at all should be amazing.

[Chommie]

Maybe you should check out the app and it would be easier to understand. There is a lot of wasted space. Un-used real estate that would have allowed for larger cards. You have the luxury of design with more open space on an ipad. You dont on an iPhone.

What does the physical size of a card have to do with legibility? Making a card 200x100 px is a lot harder to read the lets says a 300x175 px card. Make sense?


Regardless taking a design from a large device and just scaling everything down for a smaller device is a huge no no. Two different sized devices, two different use cases.

[XPD]

I am using the iPod Touch version right now and I don't know about the wasted space part. I think they did a very good job displaying the information. Could you give us some examples that caused you frustration. My only real complaint would be they tried to put too much information on the cards in your hand. Specifically the event cards, I wish they would have just put the event card name on it while it is in your hand. I find it impossible to see any of the explanation text without zooming and in this current set up the card name is like pt 1 font. I think Ranior has a good point that the board is quite big but it is very important to see all of it at a quick glance. Though I don't have the iPad to compare it to.

[Chommie]

Guys, no one said anything about not being able to see the whole game board. All i am saying is that there was enough room to make the cards bigger. They took the extra/wasted space from the ipad version, which wasn't a problem because the viewable real-estate is so much greater.

For example the game board has a padding of about 120 px on each side of the game board. So wasting 240 pixels on the width out 960 possible pixels with unused space is a very poor design decision. That extra padding looked great on iPad. Scaling it down and using the same user convention on iphone is a big no no.

[Corre]

I wish there was an option to zoom in on 4 rows of the gameboard that you could then swipescroll up and down to see the whole board, enemy units that have the same AV and similar art are rather hard to tell at a glance what they are without double tap zooming in. Your own units is doable but the enemy ones being upside down just makes it even harder.

[Chommie]

I like your idea, Its an actual Apple UI convention(zoom/swipe-scroll) so it would be a super sweet solution. Kind of my point in my initial post. There were a number of ways to make the user experience a lot better with problem solving specific to the iphone, as opposed to just scaling down the ipad version and being done with it.

*edit - Just realized that the game does let you zoom into 3.5 x 4 rectangles and scroll around. You can also scroll the game-board to the edges of the visible screen and see the entire board a lot better as well as read the cards better, especially the upside down opponent cards. Much less aggravating.

[Dapuma]

Playdek Tech Support: In the time it took you to type up the complaint, you could have gotten to the store and bought an ipad

Problem solved

[Happycat]

I like your idea, Its an actual Apple UI convention(zoom/swipe-scroll) so it would be a super sweet solution. Kind of my point in my initial post. There were a number of ways to make the user experience a lot better with problem solving specific to the iphone, as opposed to just scaling down the ipad version and being done with it.

*edit - Just realized that the game does let you zoom into 3.5 x 4 rectangles and scroll around. You can also scroll the game-board to the edges of the visible screen and see the entire board a lot better as well as read the cards better, especially the upside down opponent cards. Much less aggravating.

Chommie,

I'm definitely not saying that your criticisms ar invalid. Apples guidelines for iOS application design recommend different approaches to iPhone and iPad design. What I'm going to say isn't meant in a sarcastic way either.

I'm pleased that playdek gives us universal games. It sure beats the hell out of those companies that make iPad only titles. I have both, but there are many times I'd rather play the game on my phone than on my pad, because I don't want to pull my iPad out on a crowded train or something.

It may not be the most efficient version, but it is damn cool to be able to play it at all on this little device. Can't say as much for Magic, Puerto Rico and numerous other games.

All that being said... Have you seen Le Havre on the iPhone?! Talk about tiny screen elements!

[Chommie]

I am grateful for the game as well. I cant stop playing. Im at work, but im playing on my phone. Shhh... dont tell anyone.

I am a senior designer at a design and development house and i have been designing apps for ipad/iphone/android before there was even an app store for either. Again while grateful for the game in its current form on the iphone, i speak with some experience when i say it would not have taken that much more time to design away some of the stumbling blocks that plague SW on iphone. Engines like Unity or Torque-X allow for cross platform development, but i do see a trend of one design being applied to multiple use cases and unfortunately the user experience always suffers. I am more then likely making a lot of assumptions in-regards to the Playdeks dev process. I am sure it was a conscious decision on their part and it might have allowed them to tighten up a different part of the app.

I still enjoy the game on iphone on the go, and on the ipad at home(so good) So i guess thats really what most important. Keep in mind that constructive criticism is always a good.