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Re:Show HN: Willow Patch Games - online games with friends a... by monsieurbanana on Sunday October 18, 2020 @02:41PM (#24820108)
Just played a game. Impressions in vrac:

- The website is very... monochrome. Seems like a very basic theme. The UI is not adapted to a desktop (vertical, hidden menu), I haven't visited the website on mobile. I wouldn't expect that from a game website.

- The rules need images!

- It's missing a rules button in the game interface that doesn't change page, but opens a popup or something similar.

- More colors!

- There's scrolling in the play area, remove them.

- Without the direct link for a game found in the HN comments, I would never have gotten to even play a game. It seems there's no way to create a game as a guest. I hate registering on websites, if you ask me to register before I even can see what the game looks like, I won't.

- Is there a chat? I might have missed it. It seems like an important feature if your goal is to have far away friends play together.

- Games? I see only one, and nowhere I can find mention of others in work.

About the pricing:

- For the free tier, I don't understand what you mean by "Freely given to all users; limit one."

- Subjectively, I dislike the "pay what you want". It's like tipping, I don't like feeling cheap by tipping too little, I don't like feeling like I'm wasting money tipping too much. Either way, I will feel bad.

- The pay for 10/20 games is... surprising. Seeing how fast the games are (2 minutes per game!), the minimum price of $2 for 10 games is exorbitant. Specially for something that seems in alpha. I want a monthly subscription, not a "pay for X number of games".

- And most of all... this is very, very early access. There's only one very basic game. There's many free online multiplayers games out there, more complexe and polished. What do you do (will do) to differentiate from them?

- The game itself is fun.

Re:Show HN: Willow Patch Games - online games with friends a... by cipherboy on Sunday October 18, 2020 @02:50PM (#24820169)
Yeah, pricing is a little up in the air. And yes, very early on in the grand scheme of things. :)

> (2 minutes per game!)

Sorry, I was creating short games so we could get people in and they could try it out. About 20 tiles per player. You can go up to 75 or 100 tiles per player, and those games tend to go on for a lot longer. Playing with friends for an hour or so usually places us around 10 games, we usually do about 50 per player. YMMV of course, depending on your host, your group of friends, and what letter distribution you use. :D

Thanks for playing and the feedback though!

> - Is there a chat? I might have missed it. It seems like an important feature if your goal is to have far away friends play together.

Not yet, working on that :) Figuring out how to integrate Jitsi into another site is a fun challenge that spans multiple weekends.

Re:Show HN: Willow Patch Games - online games with friends a... by tweetle_beetle on Monday October 19, 2020 @08:46AM (#24825799)
On the pricing side, it's worth noting that Board Game Arena offers dozens of popular licensed games with a load of features for €24/year/user, which is a pretty aggresive pricepoint. Maybe something to aim for?
Re:Show HN: Willow Patch Games - online games with friends a... by jimmydorry on Sunday October 18, 2020 @11:11PM (#24823009)
I didn't have any luck getting a game started. For some reason the "number of players" keeps getting set to 0.

https://i.imgur.com/8Q4bdC1.png

Re:Show HN: Willow Patch Games - online games with friends a... by cipherboy on Sunday October 18, 2020 @11:41PM (#24823139)
\o hey there; sorry to hear.

The little secret is that "Number of players" in the configuration doesn't actually matter. When people join the room/game, they start as spectator and you (the host) flip it on and they become players. (I wish I could figure out how to put the "off" label on the other side of the switch so it is more obvious, but when I can, I have the label describe the current state of the switch).

I always create a game and then realize afterwards that more people than I expected joined. :-) I've found it best leave to the calculations (tiles per player in particular) until I actually press the start button.

So, as long as you have two players or more in the game, should be good to go.

Feel free to email me if you're still having issues; [email protected].

Re:Show HN: Willow Patch Games - online games with friends a... by jimmydorry on Tuesday October 20, 2020 @04:45AM (#24835153)
Ah, I see!