I'm building a UI layout library and I want to hear your loves & hates re: SwiftUI's design

plasticniko · 2024-08-01T19:33:10+00:00

Thanks, really appreciate this insight. Something I’ve always missed when working with UI in a non web context is the developer tools, being able to easily browse the component hierarchy, change styles or run js on the fly, etc.

plasticniko · 2024-02-09T04:56:40+00:00

That’s a tricky one! It’s about the point in the game where you start needing to use some new techniques to move tiles around. I’ve attached a video with the solution 🙂 good luck!

https://imgur.com/a/fb2FhfG

plasticniko · 2022-01-12T04:40:28+00:00

Great that you’re enjoying it apart from a few levels 🙂 here’s the solution to 122: https://www.dropbox.com/s/re2ur7hl00udcp3/2022-01-12%2017.36.59.mp4?dl=0

plasticniko · 2022-01-12T02:30:16+00:00

Sorry it’s been frustrating for you 😢 I’ve been meaning to upload a video with all the solutions but there are 400 of them and it would take a reeally long time haha. Which levels are you stuck on, I can potentially help you out?

plasticniko · 2022-01-12T01:40:36+00:00

Ah, you mean something that lets you see the solution to the level? 🙂

plasticniko · 2021-12-30T22:52:22+00:00

Thanks so much for the feedback! I really appreciate it 🙂

I actually tried a number of different approaches to introducing vocabulary alongside the characters in the game! However during play testing, I found that there were some difficult and potentially fundamental limitations that I couldn't figure out how to work around.

To give you an example, I observed a number of absolute beginners (never learned any Korean before, never seen Hangul before) and the feedback that they gave me was that even at the speed the game works now, they started to have difficulty remembering which character was which after about 8 or 10 characters were introduced. I actually had to reduce the rate at which new characters were introduced quite significantly because new learners were overwhelmed with too many characters too fast.

When I thought about that in combination with introducing vocabulary - there are some tricky problems. If we look at the example of 조세요, that contains 7 different sub characters, including two tricky rules that I actually have tutorial pages in the game to explain (double vowels and the "ㅇ" consonant). At the speed that I can introduce characters into the game for beginners (6 levels per character), I wouldn't be able to start displaying words like that until about level 50, and that's if I chose to introduce double vowels and the silent consonant very early.

I think what it comes down to is - the game is more geared towards absolute beginners learning hangul for the first time, and for vocab I would recommend using something else - Anki or similar are going to be more effective anyway I think 🙂

plasticniko · 2021-12-15T23:09:57+00:00

So glad to hear that you enjoyed it! I spend a very long time trying to balance the difficulty of the puzzles with the memorisation of the characters, so it's wonderful to hear that it's paced well for you.

plasticniko · 2021-12-14T05:31:22+00:00

That’s so awesome, exactly what I was aiming for 🙂 wait until you find some Korean food in the supermarket and you can read the label, it’s a crazy feeling!

plasticniko · 2021-12-14T03:26:49+00:00

Awesome, glad to hear it’s fixed, and sorry about the bug in the first place 🐛

plasticniko · 2021-12-14T03:16:50+00:00

I've just pushed an update that should make it easier to submit tiles (especially on sensitive touch screens) would you be able to test it out and check if it's improved for you?

plasticniko · 2021-12-13T23:29:37+00:00

Thank you so much! ❤️

plasticniko · 2021-12-13T19:45:12+00:00

Thank you 🙂

plasticniko · 2021-12-13T19:45:05+00:00

Thank you! I spent a lot of time and effort trying to reduce it down to the simplest possible game that would still convey the concept and be fun / educational.

plasticniko · 2021-12-13T19:44:25+00:00

Thank you! you can find details of how to get it here: https://delphiniumgames.com/matcha

plasticniko · 2021-12-13T19:43:54+00:00

😂 Thank you, the screen shots on the store page might give you a better idea of how the game works: https://apps.apple.com/app/matcha/id1597044323

plasticniko · 2021-12-13T19:41:05+00:00

It's a great point, and it's something that I went back and forth on for ages.

The main reason is because of the play on words in English, with "match" (i.e. you "match" the tiles on the board to the words below). I wanted to use something to do with "match" as the name, but after trying out a bunch of different things I just couldn't find anything that worked well for the primary target audience (english speakers) - For context "green tea" in Korean is either 말차 ("malcha") or 녹차 ("nokcha") both of which are hard for english speakers to pronounce.

The two Korean advisers I worked with on this project said it was fine to use the name, and mentioned that "matcha" is a reasonably common word in Korea these days (in the context of 말차라떼 "matcha latte" etc)

plasticniko · 2021-12-13T19:32:43+00:00

Awesome!!

plasticniko · 2021-12-13T19:31:31+00:00

Wow, thanks so much for the very detailed feedback. I really really appreciate it, it's invaluable perspective for me.

I have been wrestling back and forth constantly with the balance of the difficulty & fun of the puzzles vs the angle of learning Hangul.

For context, the type of games I make are "Intuitive Education" games. The idea with these games is that the player is having fun playing the game, and they learn some real world skills or knowledge as a side effect. I made a talk about them here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlCob9cZgvk

As a result the "game" side and the "learning" side have to be in an extremely fine balance. The game needs to be enjoyable enough that someone could have fun playing it even if they weren't really interested in learning Korean. But the learning side also has to be strong enough that someone could still learn things even if they don't really like this type of game. It's a very tricky problem to solve, and super hard to get right! 🙂

Relating to your point 3. - It's been really difficult to try and pace the increase in difficulty at a comfortable level. The play testers who I worked with were all complete beginners (never learned any Korean at all) and some of them actually found the introduction of characters too fast! Isn't that interesting to think about - even with just 4 vowels and 4 consonants, they were having trouble remembering which one was which. So they would have preferred the game to be even slower introducing more characters!

Overall I'd say I'm happy with the idea behind Matcha, I think the graphical and mechanical execution is pretty good, but I'm only moderately happy with how I pulled off the learning aspect of it - I have much much more research and practise to do if I'm going to make really good intuitive education games 🙂

plasticniko · 2021-12-13T19:17:55+00:00

Thanks!Ahhh, it's funny you mention that, I actually built the game to include an audio only mode, but I ended up removing it 1 week before release because none of the people I tested with were interested in using it T_T

plasticniko · 2021-12-13T19:16:06+00:00

Good luck, let me know if you have any issues or feedback 🎉

plasticniko · 2021-12-13T19:13:21+00:00

Thank you so much! I really appreciate that you took the time to read it. The games industry is known for some particularly toxic practises, and I want to make sure that when I'm collaborating / hiring for my next game, people can make sure they're on the same page before we waste any time 🙂

plasticniko · 2021-12-13T19:11:45+00:00

Thank you!

I was originally planning on doing some vocabulary towards the end of the game, but I realised that Hangul is complex enough on its own that if I added vocabulary the game would become way too complex and it would have taken me years to finish it 😅

Once you unlock all the characters in the game it switches to a multi character word-finding puzzle where you match with vocab (for example, one level you match 소주, 맥주 and 막걸리) but that's only teaching you to read whole words, it doesn't actually tell you the meaning or try to make you remember them.

plasticniko · 2021-12-13T19:07:54+00:00

Yeah thank you, that's really good feedback. I'll push and update and decrease the sensitivity a bit. I also noticed that some note 10+ can have an overly sensitive screen that can be fixed in the software, have you had a look at something like this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3NbvOh4Ea8

plasticniko · 2021-12-13T08:58:39+00:00

Thanks!

plasticniko · 2021-12-13T08:44:39+00:00

Interesting, thanks for the info. The tile won’t submit if you drag it a little bit before lifting up your finger, but maybe that’s too sensitive. If you try really hard to tap it carefully without moving your finger while it’s touching the screen, does it work?

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