Words are powerful..

[balti knights]

Hello people, I ve just been looking at the ground pounders page on the Google play site. It's good to see its had 10000+ downloads. The reviews it has are kinda average (it comes in at about 3.6). That got me thinking a huge number of folks base their decision to buy based on those reviews. As true believers in Kerberos I think its really important to spread the word and give it a full blown, worthwhile review of the game (If you like it). A few choice words in the right place can have a huge impact.

Just sayin'

[Mecron]

good call balti, thanks!

[Space Voyager]

Well, I bought GP for Android, too. So far I've only played through the tutorials and have seen that the game is pretty complex and will, as most Kerberos' games, demand some time before I'll get the hang of. I'm certain this is the reason for not stellar reviews - most people still expect very simple games on Android, which is not at all true any more.

The thing that bugs me the most so far is technical; I can't move the game to the SD card, which is a problem with phones and an application this big.

[Mecron]

sadly, in terms of wargaming, it is dead simple.

[Space Voyager]

I would not say so, comparing it to other games for the platform. Simpler than SotS, but far more complex than say Wargames of 1939, which is an excellent game for Android and used to be one of the more complex strategy games. Definitely something to do in a toilet or a waiting room...

[BlueTemplar]

I see a issue here :
http://justpressstart.net/sword-of-the- ... iscussion/
And that's for the Steam version, Android players are going to find it even more complicated by comparison. If I, who is used to complicated 4X interfaces, had to make quite a lot of effort to understand the game, how it is for your average tablet user!? (IMHO, having an even more step-by-step tutorial, with explanation text that is showing in parallel as the player can take actions, would help a lot. Also, having access to this information from anytime in the campaign or scenarios - you cannot send every player (especially tablet player) a manual he could read at the same time, but something has to replace it.)

I feel that (I'm assuming) the lack of success of GP is due to trying to make a complex, touchscreen compatible game for wargaming fans : things that (at least in my mind) don't go well together (resulting in an extremely small target demographic).

I feel that the complexity of GP is a bit too much for touchscreens (and I feel it can't really be played properly on screens smaller than 13 cm (5.1 inches), unless using a stylus and having excellent sight) ... and makes for a lot more annoying to use UI on PC than it could be since right & middle click and keyboard shortcuts did not have any real focus put on them.

P.S.:
One thing that might also put off new players is the sheer number of units in some scenarios. I think that emphasizing "easier" scenarios for new players with a few starting units (and all in the same spot) like "Firelands" would help. The (human) campaign has less starting units, but might be off-putting for a starting player because he has to choose which units to buy before even the first mission, and a chance to try these units out.
There's another issue when first starting the campaign : first you start by clicking on continue multiple times, on the right side of the screen, but once you've bought your first units, instead of continuing clicking on the right side of the screen, you now need to click "Back" on the left side of the screen - which is confusing because you might think that would cancel all the purchases you made, so the player feels that he's stuck. This pretty much what happened here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecL2gQgXsqg&t=600 (first video when you search for ground pounders on youtube), though the upgrade freeze certainly didn't help.

[Mecron]

Perhaps a few rounds of Battle of the Bulge on Ipad?

[Space Voyager]

I can confirm what BT wrote. I tried playing the game on my Samsung S3, which is not the smallest of phones. Tutorials are bearable due to their small scale, but as soon as you hit a scenario, things become barely playable. I can't read the cards (when I manage to hit that "i" at all), scope is out of hand, and the game freezes.

I'll just stick to the PC version for now.

[Mecron]

Good feedback guys! Of course earlier is always better.

[BlueTemplar]

Well, before that I was always complaining that Android doesn't have enough "real", complex games... but it looks like that with touchscreens (plus eventually gyroscopes), you're much more limited in things you can do with the game still remaining playable (you could develop stylus/mouse & keyboard/gamepad only Android games, but don't expect them to be used by any significant amount of people).

[Space Voyager]

True. And this is also why touch screen may never be as popular on a PC. And why most Win 8.0 users shifted to start menu asap.