Staying in touch - Just a few notes on ongoing development
SirKewberth
EdenForum Administrator, Forum Moderator, Game Developer
in General Chat
So by now many of you will have seen Gdog's Halloween preview. We're still testing a bit but that should be coming fairly soon. Also in the preview Gdog showed the new crafting interface for the Anvil. I wanted to talk a little bit about that and why we made that change and what we're working on behind the scenes.
So the hardest thing for a game like ours is to keep potential new players around. The most typical thing is someone plays a new game, decides it's not for them and never tries it again. And reaching new people is so difficult that you really have to make the best of it you can. Last summer google changed some play store algorithms and we get less downloads from tghe app store than we use to. So we have to make each new download count!
Cubic can be confusing for new players. There's a lot to see and do, but first impressions can be tough. We've tried a lot of different approaches over time of varying levels of success.
One of the issues in that respect is that to learn crafting you need to use a web page or the learning center. (or drag items in and get lucky) So the new interface is aimed at making crafting easier for someone who doesn't yet know the game. This is also why it affects the anvil 1st. In part to test this and see if people like it and in part because it's the first crafting station a new player will get. There's still a lot of work to do and crafting is not the only place where new players get confused. Other areas include...
- In game navigation - overworlds lobbies search bumpers etc... easy to get lost if you're new
- and mining - many players actually think they need to buy ALL the blocks in the game and this scares them away
The problem with doing this kind of work is that, since it is aimed a little more at new players, and since the work is typically very difficult (reworking old code that has built up over years is harder) it takes a lot of time that could be spent updating the game in other ways. So we're trying to find some balance.
But, for better or worse, the plan going forward is to focus a little more on these sort of core game things, which I do think still has some benefit for older players too.
Now, the new crafting interface is so different from the old one that we have to see still if there's issues/problems and how it's received by players. But, if people love it and there aren't too many problems then the plan is to do as Gdog suggested in his video, and start expanding this style of crafting to other crafting stations. So you can expect changes along those lines to come with the fall pack, and eventually some changes (hopefully before year end) to game navigation.
So the hardest thing for a game like ours is to keep potential new players around. The most typical thing is someone plays a new game, decides it's not for them and never tries it again. And reaching new people is so difficult that you really have to make the best of it you can. Last summer google changed some play store algorithms and we get less downloads from tghe app store than we use to. So we have to make each new download count!
Cubic can be confusing for new players. There's a lot to see and do, but first impressions can be tough. We've tried a lot of different approaches over time of varying levels of success.
One of the issues in that respect is that to learn crafting you need to use a web page or the learning center. (or drag items in and get lucky) So the new interface is aimed at making crafting easier for someone who doesn't yet know the game. This is also why it affects the anvil 1st. In part to test this and see if people like it and in part because it's the first crafting station a new player will get. There's still a lot of work to do and crafting is not the only place where new players get confused. Other areas include...
- In game navigation - overworlds lobbies search bumpers etc... easy to get lost if you're new
- and mining - many players actually think they need to buy ALL the blocks in the game and this scares them away
The problem with doing this kind of work is that, since it is aimed a little more at new players, and since the work is typically very difficult (reworking old code that has built up over years is harder) it takes a lot of time that could be spent updating the game in other ways. So we're trying to find some balance.
But, for better or worse, the plan going forward is to focus a little more on these sort of core game things, which I do think still has some benefit for older players too.
Now, the new crafting interface is so different from the old one that we have to see still if there's issues/problems and how it's received by players. But, if people love it and there aren't too many problems then the plan is to do as Gdog suggested in his video, and start expanding this style of crafting to other crafting stations. So you can expect changes along those lines to come with the fall pack, and eventually some changes (hopefully before year end) to game navigation.
Comments
Thanks for the Notes
The halloween event sounds fantastic, it’s a bit like the easter one right?
I love the door thing too. So will everyone be able to get candy from the one door? Or will it despawn?
I love da Nightshroom and wizard wand :D
I know this new system will be easier and more efficient, especially for new players, but I'm nostalgic and I don't like changes like this in games. That's just me. I'm still getting used to the new title screen, as great as it looks.
My advice is this: continue to improve the game, but don't change the fundamentals too much. That's how games have died in the past: when they implement something that, while it is new and cool, it changes the feel of the game so much that a lot of older players quit because it doesn't feel the same. (Looking at you, MineCraft.)
Good luck getting the game out to more people, and happy developing ^^
Edit: Another idea: For faster development, you could always find a few players to help you design and texture items. Some of us are quite adept with Blender, and others good at texturing and artwork. I know some people might whine about "favoritism", but people whining shouldn't hold you back from speeding up the dev process. Just a suggestion; it might work but it might also not work.
Good luck with further development. :)
Wish the recipes were more 'discovery'...ie, you can't make something automatically until you first discover it, but it might not be possible with the newest interface.
This will help with the basic recipes...though "craft max" will be all the more dangerous for those that carry a lot in their inventories - hopefully you include a 'do you really want to do that' screen for craft max now. Would love an option to designate how many of an item to make rather than having our only options being 1 or everything.
Thanks for discussion the way ahead! I think that always helps with expectation management for the players. I agree, some of the core things do need redesigning, so you can do even greater things for us in the future.
Looking forward to the halloween event as I loved the Easter event. Hoping I can get a shark head from one of my packs...cue my theme song..."Fins" by Jimmy Buffett. (bet you thought I was going to say Jaws...lol) :)
BTW, did you mean to call it "Tick or Treat" or is that a typo in the Halloween Bag menu window? I'm hoping we don't get Ticks...they carry all sorts of yucky diseases...lol...
I was hoping discovery as well, but we can't have everything :'(
boop them in the eye, make them blink in pain, and swipe their cubits.Would I have to drop all the sand blocks besides 25 sand for craft max to work? ( I'm pretty sure it takes 4 sand maybe 5 sorry XD)
But again, while I appreciate some people may prefer the old way, the goal here is really to make the game more accessible to new players and to grow the player base, not to add new mini games etc... So while it may not be directly targeted at you guys who've played a long time already, if it works/helps then more people will be playing in the long run, and I think that's good for everyone. It's probably also impossible to make core changes to a game without at least some people preferring how it "was before", but if we never make any changes to the core game, then there's not really much hope of improvement or change (positive or negative). There's always a risk with this kind of change... but as they say.. no risk no reward :-)