Virtual Pool Mobile - Beta Release (devs only)

[donka]

A few comments after playing the beta and reading here:

The menu at the bottom does cause interference i.e. I tap the cue and stroke back and the screen sometimes jumps to move mode because I have dragged over the move icon. Moving this menu to the side may be a good idea.

The background colour - I personally prefer to play with the backgrounds off - it was the same with VP3, but quite like the black. I guess this is a personal thing so would it be possible to have a choice of background colours?

The sound settings - if I play with my device muted, the sound still plays for the movies even with the in game sound level at 0. I can hear the speaker's slight hiss which means sound is enabled and when I quit the game, the device is now un-muted albeit with sound volume at 0. Is it possible to have an in game setting of No Sound which will keep the speaker turned off?

The cue - it looks a bit blocky compared to the gorgeously rendered balls. Is it possible to have some degree of anti-aliasing on the cue?

Mapping of hardware buttons? I agree with the comment of the Aim and Overhead buttons not being in a good place but the option of mapping buttons would be good for this and also the whole up and down joy pad argument in landscape mode.

Portrait vs Landscape orientation. I'll always trust the developers judgement on this one and like the landscape view but if you have toyed with the portrait view - would it be possible to have the choice of either view in the game?

Cueing action. The stylus works great for stroking the cue but I did find it hard to have a medium power shot, it seems like a fine line between a soft or a very hard shot although perhaps I just need more practice with the beta? Anyway - perhaps toning down the power a bit on the standard shot and introducing the Amplify feature from the Desktop versions may help around this issue.


That's all for now but I am very impressed with this title - it is silky smooth to play and will no doubt be my most played game on Pocket PC now I can take it with me. I have clocked up a lot of hours with VP1/2/3.

[RedruM]

Great game, I can see myself playing this game for a long time unlike almost every other PPC game I've tried, as it seems to fit in perfectly with the PDA style of gaming you can pick up and play it very easily and enjoy, I've been waiting for this one for quite a while because not many games are taking full advantage of the stylus for game control, which is a shame. I too have an axim, its a 400mhz pxa250 upgraded to WM2003, and so far everything is almost bug free. Here is my experience so far, as most have mentioned the game somehow overrides the PPC's mute commands, I found this out today in the middle of class, as they heard the break loud and clear from the opening movie :(, and determining how hard you are going to hit the ball is sometimes challanging, I find myself every now and then barely tapping the ball, other times hitting it really hard (this cant be totally avoided but can hopefully can be minimized, or I might just need more practice :), the placement of the overview and angle buttons are small and kinda tough to reach because for right handed people they have to reach over to the bottom opposite corner. As for the gameplay, I love it, I like the way you setup the challanges in the area, the characters are interesting, oh and I love the nice car posters (an import! the NSX) on the background, nice attention to detail for the garage,

I would enjoy the game regardless, but here are some suggestions (some I've seen from other posts of course)

*Button mapping would cater to most gamers, hopefully you can allow every command or action mappable to the Dpad and buttons.
*if your going to use on screen buttons make them bigger and maybe transparent if possible for more viewing area. Also for example, the view button, it would be nice if you could just tap, and hold onto the button, then drag it forward/backwards or left/right to zoom without having to tap onscreen to switch buttons half as much.
*Add a guide when you are shooting, maybe tick marks or something, if possible use a specific starting point for controlling the cue (as of right now you have to tap on the cue itself which changes with the view), another possiblility is to allow for softer shots with short drags, and harder shots with longer drags for better control.
*The music might not appeal to some people (including me I'm afraid :), maybe add 2-3 diferent tracks and allow the player to pick or set to random, or as unlikely as it may be add an mp3/midi player.
*Have a picture of the player you are against in gameplay, maybe animated with there name underneath, maybe custom cues for players (so it makes it seem like there is an actual difference in players, ie. the cue design would represent the player), it would be a laugh if they also had random text comments ingame as interesting as their little descriptions.
*Add a short tutorial so that new players can get accustomed to controlling the cue, specifically the power.
*Maybe add some mini games, to add some randomness to the game, MMmmm.... mini games...
*Allow use of money to purchase attributes or cues and stuff. MMMmm... Virtual RPG Pool... :)

I'm sorry, I know some of these are just pipe dreams (especially the last couple ones :), but I'm always full of ideas, take anything you feel like from them, again I congradulate you on the game, and I hope to see this game rivalling Monopoly (I beleive currently the best seller) in popularity and sales (this game easily blows it out the window IMO), good luck, maybe some of these ideas can be used in a sequel hehe...

[rcp]

[RedruM]