harshal chheda board game reviews v1.0

8/3/2019 Harshal Chheda Board Game Reviews v1.0

1/12

Boardgame Project | Review 1 4/29/2012

Sr Name +/- Topic Comment Date

0 Overall + Looks Interface is neat, with good ergonomics but is a bit dull

visually

11/05/09

+ Looks Music is nice but old fashioned 11/05/09

- Ergonomics 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:

11/05/09

Tutorial : Basics (skippable) > How to play (skippable) >

Strategy (skippable) > Practice

Play : Main game

- Ergonomics 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

11/05/09

- Looks Suggestion: maybe have an avatar that teaches the player

how to play and that the player can then play against - it

involves more resources but is sure to liven things up

11/05/09

- Ergonomics Maybe the helpicon should be a ? instead of a book -

more self-explanatory

11/05/09

- Ergonomics 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

1 Draughts - Gameplay When a player can take multiple enemy pieces, the game

waits for the player to do so, even if the player is actually

unaware of the possibility - a 'Move Available' message is

needed

11/05/09

2 Backgammon - Gameplay AI seems pretty poor game was easily beaten 11/05/09

3 Chess - Gameplay Weak AI: In normal mode, I beat it in 4-5 moves 11/05/09

- Bug Also, when the CPU king was in check, it just moved some

random pawn... this is not allowed

11/05/09

4 Makala + Gameplay Good game and well realized 11/05/09- Gameplay Maybe it would make life easier for the player if the tray

where the last ball is going to land is indicated when the

balls in any tray are mouseovered

11/05/09

5 Reversi - Gameplay Its not explained how pieces can only be placed in

positions that will capture enemy pieces

11/05/09

DS BOARDGAMES | Review

Classic Games

SupInfo Game / UBIsoft Harshal Chheda


2/12


- Gameplay After completing lv 15 of the strategy part, it keeps

repeating lv 15

11/05/09

+ Gameplay AI is challenging 11/05/09

6 Dominos - Gameplay Didnt display a success message after completing the

tutorial, just asked which tutorial I would like to play

11/05/09

- Ergonomics When dragging the board around, the help and option

menus pop up sometimes

11/05/09

7 Mastermind + Looks Good tutorial, AI and board graphics 11/05/09

+ Gameplay Smooth gameplay except turn indicator, as mentioned in

the 'Overall' section

11/05/09

- Bug Tutorial doesnt progress properly after completing step

1 , it asks to chose what step to play next instead of going

to step 2 automatically

11/05/09

- Ergonomics Shouldnt it display the code the player gives the CPU on

the top screen?

11/05/09

8 Connect5 - Gameplay Game is slow: time for the tray to slide out and the time

taken to acknowledge each move should be shorter + the

turn indicator is intrusive as mentioned before

11/05/09

- Gameplay Also, the pieces cant me taken out of the tray smoothly, I

misplaced a couple myself

11/05/09

- Looks Small AA cleanup needed on the topmost piece of your 11/05/09

- Ergonomics Camera should centre on the placed piece much faster 11/05/09

- Bug The 2 arrows indicating that the input needs to be made 11/05/09

- Gameplay Maybe an undo feature would be useful 11/05/09

9 Go - Bug Tutorial doesnt progress properly after completing step

1 , it asks to chose what step to play next instead of going

to step 2 automatically

11/05/09

- Bug Game just got stuck at step 10 in the capture strategy 11/05/09

+ Looks Exact same board and tray as Connect5 but much

smoother + no AA problem

11/05/09

- Ergonomics Animations should be skippable 11/05/09

10 Chinese

Checkers

+ Gameplay I like the game and think the gameplay is smooth enough 11/05/09

- Bug How to play gets stuck after completing 4/4 11/05/09

- Bug Got stuck after 1/15 of strategy 11/05/09

- Bug Game hung randomly @ 11/15 strategy 11/05/09



3/12

Boardgame Project | Review 3


0 Overall + Looks Title screen layout and graphics are nice 02/06/09

+ Looks The game selection scroller and its sound system is

SUBLIME

02/06/09

+ Ergonomy 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

02/06/09

+ Gameplay Some really interesting and innovative remixes of classic

games

02/06/09

- Looks The BoardGames branding seems a bit unsuitable since

there are card games, Sudoku, pool, etc as well

02/06/09

- Looks Overall graphics seem drab I wont repeat thiscomment in the individual games

02/06/09

- NYI No music in games 02/06/09

- Looks The excessively British-sounding 3, 2, 1, GO! voice

seems out of place

02/06/09

- Looks The text throughout the game needs editing for grammar

and polish, some examples:

02/06/09

The text Touch the touch screen to continue should be

changed to Touch the screen to continue

Inconsistency: The Play again and Try again messages

should be the same message

- Ergonomics The OK button: 02/06/09

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

03/06/09

- Ergonomics The Start button is not aligned in the centre in somegames

02/06/09

- Ergonomics The Play again button text is too big for the button 02/06/09

- Ergonomics Individual game explanation text: 02/06/09

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


Fun Games



4/12


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

- Gameplay For any time-limit game, the music should speed up when

there is less time remaining

02/06/09

- Gameplay Most of the games feel endless, maybe the gameplay is overused

02/06/09

- Gameplay 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

1 Three Throw - Gameplay Even after reading the explanation, it was notimmediately apparent what to do in the game

02/06/09

- Bug The explanation says to flickcards, whereas they actually

need to be tapped the flick doesnt work

02/06/09

2 Pip Shot - Bug 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

- Gameplay Spam-tapping the screen to shoot while also using the

stylus to move seems incompatible - perhaps using the D-

pad to move and the 'A' button to shoot would be better

02/06/09

3 Dicey + Gameplay Nice idea, but needs tuning IMO 02/06/09

- Gameplay 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?

02/06/09

- Gameplay The game can be played endlessly by just running the

stylus all over the grid

02/06/09

4 Tap Dance - Gameplay A bit too hard & difficulty rises WAY too fast 02/06/09

- Gameplay 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

02/06/09

5 Royal Rush + Gameplay Spammy but addictive, needs a little tuning 02/06/09



5/12


6 Dot Fall + Gameplay Could be called Domino Races and tuned accordingly 02/06/09

- Gameplay All the green dominoes on-screen turn red after

capturing a green one - this is disorienting

02/06/09

- Gameplay Player movement speed should scale with level - it's

sluggishness makes it unplayable at higher levels

02/06/09

7 Dot Link + Gameplay Awesome, innovative game 02/06/09

- Gameplay The direction that the snake takes after eating something

seems erratic

02/06/09

- Gameplay Speed increase on level-up is HUGE and needs to be

toned down a bit

02/06/09

- Gameplay The snake can't go through the side walls like in the

original Snake

02/06/09

8 Dish-Dash - Gameplay MY STYLUS BROKE!! - the game is seriously way too

spammy

02/06/09

- Gameplay Starts off too slow and takes off way too fast 02/06/09- Gameplay Seems a bit mindless, sorry 02/06/09

9 Beanstalk + Gameplay Good game 02/06/09

- Gameplay A bit hard 02/06/09

- Gameplay I found it hard to get used to the weight needed for the

flicking motion

02/06/09

- Gameplay Maybe the objective can be re-evaluated to improve

overall gameplay

02/06/09

10 Code Winder + Gameplay Sweet idea 02/06/09

- Gameplay The snake can't go through the side walls like in the

original Snake

02/06/09

- Gameplay Are there level increments? If so, they are too slow 02/06/09

11 Code Play + Gameplay Quality idea and realization 02/06/09

+ Gameplay I like the fact that it reveals the correct answer when you

die

02/06/09

+ Gameplay Well-tuned level increments 02/06/09

+ Gameplay Having more than 1 life makes.. life.. much easier ;) 02/06/09

12 Paddle Flip - Bug Wrong rules displayed (rules for Dot Fall) 02/06/09

- Gameplay Unclear about the significance of the black and whitedots and why the paddle turns black and white

02/06/09

- Gameplay Paddle movement speed should scale with level 02/06/09

- Gameplay The timer and the +/- time feature needs tuning - can

afford to make too many mistakes at the start

02/06/09

- Bug For some reason, the name 'Paddle Flip' become 'Paddle'

after I played it and went back to the game selection

menu

02/06/09



6/12


13 Tentacle - Gameplay SPAMMY SPAMMY SPAMMY 02/06/09

- Gameplay Can only put the pieces in 3 blocks at any given time, so

the only skill involved is how fast you can place pieces

02/06/09

- Gameplay Didn't like the game at all, personally 02/06/09

14 Spinner + Gameplay Pretty OK game, not that original though 02/06/09+ Gameplay Level increments are pretty well tuned 02/06/09

15 Tri Match + Gameplay Sweet idea 02/06/09

- Gameplay Rules could mention that you can only swap adjacent

pieces

02/06/09

- Gameplay 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

16 TrapSuit + Gameplay Neat idea, pretty well-realized 03/06/09

+ Looks Flawless animations, stylus-dragging, etc 03/06/09

- Gameplay This game is truly endless, since the level increments

seem to do absolutely nothing

03/06/09

+ Gameplay Good game, but the objective needs rethinking like many

games before this one

03/06/09

17 Dancefloor + Gameplay Interesting idea - using the stylus to simulate dance

games

03/06/09

- Gameplay Seems badly realized - A traditional, music-based game

would have been much better than the card idea

03/06/09

- Gameplay Picking the correct block doesnt add seconds to the

countdown

03/06/09

- Gameplay The way it is, it seems boring 03/06/09

18 Horse Shoot + Gameplay Cool idea 03/06/09

- Bug Sometimes, the 'Game Over' animation loops again and

again and the console has to be reset

03/06/09

- Gameplay Maybe the projectile should be slightly slower to

emphasize on prediction of the horse's final positionbased on chess rules

03/06/09

- Looks And the most unimaginative name award goes to 03/06/09

- Gameplay A bit endless again 03/06/09

19 Crownfall - Gameplay Seems like a less interesting version of Dot Fall 03/06/09

- Bug Sometimes, the 'Game Over' animation loops again and

again and the console has to be reset

03/06/09



7/12


- Gameplay Tuning seems pretty good - level increments are gradual 03/06/09

20 Hide n Seek - Gameplay Nice idea and realization, addictive game 03/06/09

- Ergonimics The symbol shown on the top screen needs to be much

bigger, as it is mainly viewed through peripheral vision

03/06/09

- Gameplay Good tuning 03/06/09

21 Trap Around + Gameplay Great concept, realization could be better 03/06/09

- Gameplay The circling-detection doesnt seem 100% precise 03/06/09

- Gameplay Gets impossible after the first few levels 03/06/09

- Gameplay 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

22 Off Centre - Gameplay Another overly-spammy game 03/06/09

+ Gameplay An ingenious balancing feature which I did not notice atthe 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 stylus-

flick-spamming one quadrant... impressive!!

03/06/09

- Gameplay Boring :( no strategy involved and very little else except

expertise in spamming

03/06/09

23 4+1 + Gameplay Cool idea 03/06/09

- Ergonomics The small size of the numbers makes them very hard to

drag

03/06/09

- Gameplay 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)

03/06/09

24 Pentagone - Ergonomics Rotation and tapping with the stylus is not intuitive - the

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

- Looks The animation for when a ball is accepted into the ring

shows the ball flying offscreen as well as appearing onthe ring with a puff of smoke - it should not show the ball

flying offscreesn

03/06/09

+ Gameplay Decent idea, needs better realization 03/06/09

25 Crackjack + Gameplay Very nice idea and well realized 03/06/09

- Looks The name 'CrackJack', while OK for Indian audiences, has

many negative implication for Westerners



8/12


- Gameplay Big endlesness problem - I am sure there are other

objectives you can give the player in this game

03/06/09

- Gameplay The game can be pretty much played forever by spam-

tapping the stylus on the screen without even looking at

it

03/06/09

+ Gameplay Played without exploiting, the game is challenging and

the timer system pretty well tuned - even though it's a bit

on th ehard side

03/06/09

26 Bet Set Go + Gameplay Nifty idea, well realized 03/06/09

- Gameplay The timer is harshly tuned, but I guess thats intentional,

so that the game is not too easy

03/06/09

- Gameplay A bit boring to play 03/06/09

27 Trick Track + Gameplay Nice adaptation of the classic roadside game 03/06/09

- Gameplay Too easy at the start, too hard at higher levels 03/06/09

- Bug In-game, the name is shown incorrectly as 'Fliop flop' 03/06/09

- Ergonomics The symbol shown on the top screen needs to be muchbigger, as it is mainly viewed through peripheral vision

03/06/09

28 Chip Smash - Gameplay The description of the game is incomplete and in the in-

game title, there is a small 'S' in the word Smash - lack of

uniformity

03/06/09

- Ergonomy Controls are far too clunky - aiming using the stylus in the

top-mid section of the screen and firing by tapping on the

chip, also using the stylus, is very inefficient - need D-pad

use

03/06/09

+ Gameplay Unoriginal - could have some maths, timing or RNG-based

modifications to work around this

03/06/09

29 Bi-Contract - Ergonomy Controls are inefficient again 03/06/09

Movement and rotation using the stylus is bad - needs D-

pad use

Tapping a piece to make it rotate should use the half that

has been tapped as the axis of rotation

- Gameplay I got the impression that the sideways movement is quite

erratic and hard to control

03/06/09

- Looks Weird name and it appears in ALL CAPS in-game - lack of

uniformity

03/06/09

- Gameplay Because of the controls, I couldnt succeed in or enjoy thegame too much

03/06/09

30 Hunt Heart - Ergonomy 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

03/06/09

+ Gameplay Neat idea, addictive game 03/06/09



9/12


- 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

03/06/09

- Gameplay 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



10/12



0 Overall + Looks Neat interface with pleasing transparencies, clean layout,

smooth animations

01/06/09

- Ergonomics 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)

01/06/09

- Known Issue The left analog stick behaves erratically 01/06/09

- 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

01/06/09

- NYI No difficulty levels in most games 01/06/09

- Bug The text on the Play Online button in the main menu is

only visible after the button-dropping animation is

complete

01/06/09

- Looks Different graphic theme options would be a plus 01/06/09

- Looks The text throughout the game needs editing for grammar

and polish

01/06/09

- Ergonomics Skippable animations across the board (no pun intended)

would be nice, e.g. piece-moving animations, etc.

01/06/09

- Ergonomics 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

- Ergonomics Basics: Each slides text is slow-scrolling and pressing A

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

01/06/09

- Gameplay The 'Basics' section in each game is sorely laking in detail,

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, multiple-

line captures, etc

01/06/09

- Gameplay Cannot select which Learn level to jump to (even if that

bracket of levels i.e. easy, medium and hard has been

completed)

01/06/09


Fun Games



11/12


- Ergonomics Turn indicator could be more obvious, i.e. a

glow/highlight or marker

01/06/09

- Ergonomics Exit / hints on-off / etc buttons are inconsistent across

games and sometimes even absent

01/06/09

- Ergonomics 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)

01/06/09

- Ergonomics Some menu streamlining is evident compared to the

Alpha DS Boardgames I tested, however, there is still

room for improvement in my opinion

01/06/09

1 Reversi + Gameplay Strong AI couldnt beat it in Play mode but that may

just be me being crap ;)

01/06/09

+ Gameplay Hint mode seems useful and the toggle is a good idea 01/06/09

+ Looks The animation showing which pieces will be captured is

slick

01/06/09

+ Looks Overall looks and smoothness levels are good 01/06/09- Looks Wrong spelling of Reversi in the boardgame selection

menu

01/06/09

- Ergonomics No Exit or Menu button indicators ingame 01/06/09

2 Backgammon + Looks The board and pieces look excellent 01/06/09

- Gameplay In Basics, capturing pieces, bearing off and the

implications of a double-roll are not explained

01/06/09

- Ergonomics In Basics, dice are shown in the middle of the board,

whereas they are at the bottom of the left-side-panel

ingame

01/06/09

- Looks 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

01/06/09

- Ergonomics 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?

01/06/09

- Gameplay AI seems pretty poor, or maybe its just how the game is 01/06/09

- Gameplay In my personal opinion, it doesnt seem like a fun game,its based off the dice roll result too much

01/06/09

3 Mastermind + Looks Board and tokens look amazing, and the piece-picking

animation is a good touch

01/06/09

+ Gameplay Has difficulty levels! 01/06/09

+ Gameplay Good AI 01/06/09

+ Gameplay Challenging game, personally found it fun to play 01/06/09

+ Looks Good menu style 01/06/09



12/12


- Ergonomics The Dark Pegs are of a dark-orangish colour instead of

black this is a bit disorienting at first

01/06/09

- Looks Slight anti-aliasing issue with the holes on the Hint side

of the board (right half)

01/06/09

- Looks Wrong spelling for beginner in the difficulty modes

menu tooltip

01/06/09

- Gameplay No option to reset your guess after placing a piece 01/06/09

4 + Ergonimics No slow-scrolling text in Basic section 01/06/09

+ Looks Hints, board, tokens look good as usual 01/06/09

+ Looks No flying mushrooms in the background 01/06/09

- Gameplay In Basics, there is no explanation of how to capture

pieces etc

01/06/09

- Ergonimics 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

01/06/09

- Ergonimics There should be a Move Available indicator for when aplayer thinks his turn is over but there are still other

opponent pieces he/she can capture

01/06/09

- Ergonimics In case there is a move available, the movable piece (or

one of them) should be selected by default

01/06/09

- Gameplay AI seems erratic it didnt kill my king even when it had a

clear chance

01/06/09

- Gameplay No difficulty levels 01/06/09

- Ergonimics Turn indicator could be more obvious 01/06/09

- Looks 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

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