Hey Guys, I created a dice app called "Dice Arena" on iOS to use for my campaigns and I would love feedback (it sucks, it's great, whatever..). I want to make it as good as possible. Also I want to share it because I really think it's very simple and is a great replacement for actual dice.
Anyway check it out here: https://appsto.re/us/OT5-6.i
I downloaded this on both my iphone and ipad. Obviously, you designed this for the iphone.
ipad
-The images are pixelated, because the resolution is made for a smaller screen. Your nice looking dice look like an old school video game.
-The top and bottom of the app screen is cut off because the screens are different shapes. This cuts off the menu and total from the top, and you can only see the tips of the dice.
iphone
-Finally, everythiong looks the way its supposed to!
-I like that you can swipe the screen to re-roll whatever dice are currently on deck. Definitely my favorite feature. Any chance you could get a shake to do the same thing?
-It would be nice if the dice took less time to stop rolling.
-When a die finally comes to rest, it looks like its cocked. I think you're going for a bird's eye view instead of top down, but if I can pop in a personal preference, I think I would actually prefer a bird's eye that is closer to top down. Not a big deal though.
-The dice rack at the bottom of the screen is close enough to the bottom that sometimes when I select a die the little tab for the control center pops up. You might want to move the dice rack just a tiny bit further away from the bottom.
-Some dice apps have very elaborate ways to customize the dice colors. I don't think you need to do that, but some more choices would be nice. Sometimes I want dice that look like fire, sometimes I want the multi-colored toxic green slime ones. You get the idea. Dice selection can be very personal for gamers (as you know).
-As much as I like looking at the chic with great rack, I really hate advertisements. I see the little X, but its hard to close down. The ads are enough to make me choose a different program. I suggest realeasing a stripped-down free version (maybe with ads), and then charge a couple bucks for the full-blown version with all the bells and whistles (but no ads).
Once you have the dice in the tray, I like how you can reroll them with a single swipe.
Rolling a single die is a little anticlimactic, and often, it seemed like the die wasn't rolling randomly... Like overall they might roll random, but if I were to rol a d20, then delete the did and roll a new one, and repeat... well, I just did that, and it rolled 5 3's in a row, before rolling a 2 (a number adjacent to 3 on the die). I tried switching to the small sized die, ran the test again, it resulted in 10 rolls in a row of 10, 11, or 12 (all adjacent to one another) before finally rolling a 14.
Do the rolls aren't feeling really random. This doesn't seem to happen if you finger swipe the dice to reroll instead of deleting and touching the desired die icon again.
The other thing I feel is odd, is that the number is displayed in the top right, well before the die stops rolling. Sometimes it will display a number there, only for the die to turn over a little further, and the number changes. I feel this will , at times, result in people thinking they've rolled a number that they haven't actually rolled
Interesting fact, if you roll 80 d20's the motion of some of them rolling seems to trigger the swipe to reroll and they keep activating one another so the rolling never ends.
All told, I really enjoy the feel and look of the app - it just has some bugs that need to be ironed out
Ciaran - Thank you so much for the feedback! This is a really thoughtful, helpful critique and means alot!! You are totally right about the ipad - I actually didnt design for iPad and need to make it so it's not available for iPad until I've actually provided support, so thank you for that.
I will definitely look into your first couple of bullets - that is great feedback and I can totally see what you mean.
Dice styles/colors - I think that's one of the next things I want to improve upon - good call.
As for the advertisements, maybe I can look into a better way to monetize.. Would banner ads be less annoying (little strip of ad at the bottom of the screen that is just always there)? Then, there could be a paid version with no ads.
Again, thanks for the input, you're awesome!
Ciaran Barnes wrote: I downloaded this on both my iphone and ipad. Obviously, you designed this for the iphone.
ipad
-The images are pixelated, because the resolution is made for a smaller screen. Your nice looking dice look like an old school video game.
-The top and bottom of the app screen is cut off because the screens are different shapes. This cuts off the menu and total from the top, and you can only see the tips of the dice.
iphone
-Finally, everythiong looks the way its supposed to!
-I like that you can swipe the screen to re-roll whatever dice are currently on deck. Definitely my favorite feature. Any chance you could get a shake to do the same thing?
-It would be nice if the dice took less time to stop rolling.
-When a die finally comes to rest, it looks like its cocked. I think you're going for a bird's eye view instead of top down, but if I can pop in a personal preference, I think I would actually prefer a bird's eye that is closer to top down. Not a big deal though.
-The dice rack at the bottom of the screen is close enough to the bottom that sometimes when I select a die the little tab for the control center pops up. You might want to move the dice rack just a tiny bit further away from the bottom.
-Some dice apps have very elaborate ways to customize the dice colors. I don't think you need to do that, but some more choices would be nice. Sometimes I want dice that look like fire, sometimes I want the multi-colored toxic green slime ones. You get the idea. Dice selection can be very personal for gamers (as you know).
-As much as I like looking at the chic with great rack, I really hate advertisements. I see the little X, but its hard to close down. The ads are enough to make me choose a different program. I suggest realeasing a stripped-down free version (maybe with ads), and then charge a couple bucks for the full-blown version with all the bells and whistles (but no ads).
Oddman - thanks so much! This is really helpful!! I'll definitely look into the randomness... Every time you roll, each die is reset to a starting position, then an impulse with a random direction and force is applied to each die, so I figured it should be a pretty random number. Maybe since the die always starts with it's number face up (like 6 is up for the D6), that is introducing some un-randomness. I'll take some samples and run a statistical analysis.
- The "Total" in the top right - I can make it wait until the die is a little more stationary before calculating the up-face.
- As for the 80 D20 scenario, I'm not too concerned with it unless there is actually a scenario where you would have to roll 80 D20 in the course of a normal quest.. I know there are ways you can break it, but as long as it doesn't break when you're doing standard stuff, I guess it's not super critical.
Thanks again - you rock!!!
Oddman80 wrote: Once you have the dice in the tray, I like how you can reroll them with a single swipe.
Rolling a single die is a little anticlimactic, and often, it seemed like the die wasn't rolling randomly... Like overall they might roll random, but if I were to rol a d20, then delete the did and roll a new one, and repeat... well, I just did that, and it rolled 5 3's in a row, before rolling a 2 (a number adjacent to 3 on the die). I tried switching to the small sized die, ran the test again, it resulted in 10 rolls in a row of 10, 11, or 12 (all adjacent to one another) before finally rolling a 14.
Do the rolls aren't feeling really random. This doesn't seem to happen if you finger swipe the dice to reroll instead of deleting and touching the desired die icon again.
The other thing I feel is odd, is that the number is displayed in the top right, well before the die stops rolling. Sometimes it will display a number there, only for the die to turn over a little further, and the number changes. I feel this will , at times, result in people thinking they've rolled a number that they haven't actually rolled
Interesting fact, if you roll 80 d20's the motion of some of them rolling seems to trigger the swipe to reroll and they keep activating one another so the rolling never ends.
All told, I really enjoy the feel and look of the app - it just has some bugs that need to be ironed out
I know what odd man means on his first point. When there are no dice in the field and you tap a die in the rack, the die seems like it just fell out of hand hand instead of being rolled. It does maybe half a turn and comes to rest.
Ohhhhh that makes sense. Yeah, it just drops with very little impulse when you add a die from the rack, it doesn't actually roll! So would it be better if the die actually rolled when you added it?
Ciaran Barnes wrote: I know what odd man means on his first point. When there are no dice in the field and you tap a die in the rack, the die seems like it just fell out of hand hand instead of being rolled. It does maybe half a turn and comes to rest.
Yes - that would likely solve the problem
Hmmm.... Is there any way to reduce the time the die are wobbling around between the initial roll and when the finally fully settle? The current time makes the die feel like they are on the moon, or you are rolling out in space.
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