screen keeps darkening every few seconds

Anonymous

the screen darkens every few seconds, and it didn't used to do that

Sage

The cards seem to fade, if you don't move your mouse every couple of seconds... as if the game's trying to tell you to hurry up and play. It's rather disconcerting if you're trying to meditate while playing.

Anonymous

Hello Jim, hello David,

would You be so kind to trash Your "mystery screen".
Thank You.

pirx

jim

I see there is not much support for our new pause feature.

The games now "pause" after 10 seconds of no mouse movement, or if you switch to a different window or web page. It seemed unfair to stop the time of the game, but still allow the cards to be visible, so we faded them.

Are you seeing games pause all the time? I tried to make it so that as long as you are moving the mouse over the cards, that it wouldn't pause. Maybe it should work such that it won't pause as long as your mouse is over the cards at all?

-Jim

PS David thought that nobody would get the point of the pause feature if we didn't put "paused" in big letters on the cards, and I disagreed. I was wrong. So, now that you know the point if the feature, do you still dislike it?

Anonymous

jim wrote:

I see there is not much support for our new pause feature.

The games now "pause" after 10 seconds of no mouse movement, or if you switch to a different window or web page. It seemed unfair to stop the time of the game, but still allow the cards to be visible, so we faded them.

Are you seeing games pause all the time? I tried to make it so that as long as you are moving the mouse over the cards, that it wouldn't pause. Maybe it should work such that it won't pause as long as your mouse is over the cards at all?

-Jim

PS David thought that nobody would get the point of the pause feature if we didn't put "paused" in big letters on the cards, and I disagreed. I was wrong. So, now that you know the point if the feature, do you still dislike it?

How about letting the player choose when to pause the game? Or, at the very least, make it longer before the pause kicks in (say a minute?). When you're trying to plan your next move, having to constantly move the mouse to keep the screen from flickering just breaks your concentration and, to be honest, is very annoying.

jim

Anonymous wrote:

When you're trying to plan your next move, having to constantly move the mouse to keep the screen from flickering just breaks your concentration and, to be honest, is very annoying.

I tried to adjust the timeout (now 10 seconds) such that it never triggered for me unless I had stopped playing. I think it works for me because I move my mouse out of habit while I'm thinking.

David was adamant about wanting a button as well, so maybe that's what we'll do. I was really hoping to make it all automatic, but that seems to have failed.

-Jim

Anonymous

Hello Jim,

thank You for Your quick answers. But why do You think, this feature is better for the game (or for You)?

Pirx

david

pirx1 wrote:

thank You for Your quick answers. But why do You think, this feature is better for the game (or for You)?

Pause is for those times when you got a phone call or you have to go do something and you were right in the middle of a game. When you come back you finish the game and your time is an hour or more--not good for high scores. The auto pause was supposed to correct that automatically, but it appears to kick in too fast for many people.

Speaking for myself and not Jim, the 10 second time we have right now seemed to work for me in our testing. It only kicked in when I was distracted by the TV or by email or something and never when I was playing. But we can't expect everyone to have the same play style.

-David

buddha

I think it would be good to have it as user applied (button) rather than automatic. If you are called away by the phone or somethjing else, you should have ability to cancel or hold the game at your discretion.

jim

I was trying to avoid adding another button. We have too many as it is.

Instead of a button we adjusted the timeout (10 seconds) to be such that we never hit it, but still such that our games were always paused when we "came back" from whatever drew us away.

We are adding a little "paused..." text box to help the people who didn't know what was happening and we are going to be bumping the timeout 15 seconds, to see if it works out better. Sometimes it's hard to get feedback on changes like this after the first deluge, so give it a few games and let us know what you think.

-Jim

FWIW, You do have the ability to pause manually right now, it's just not a button. For example if you Alt-Tab to switch to a different application or switch to a different browser window or tab, your Green Felt game will pause. This was the main thing I personally wanted in a pause feature.

david

buddha wrote:

I think it would be good to have it as user applied (button) rather than automatic. If you are called away by the phone or somethjing else, you should have ability to cancel or hold the game at your discretion.

I tend to agree with you. The resistance to adding a button comes from our row of buttons already being too long for our tastes. We would like to slim down our interface--it feels kind of clunky to us. Also there's some annoying technical details that made it slightly more work that it should be.

The auto-pause was working well for me at 10 seconds and now I kind of like it. I've bumped it up to 15 seconds since 10 seems to be too quick for a lot of people. Please tell us if it is till annoying you guys at 15 seconds.

-David

Anonymous

It keeps pausing on me (I guess I must spend a lot of time staring at the screen) but more importantly, once the cards start fading, it seems slow to respond to my cursor twitch and I have to sit through several seconds of the cards gradually fading and gradually unfading.

Can you make the wakeup from pause more responsive?

jim

rjmason wrote:

Can you make the wakeup from pause more responsive?

Yea, that's a good idea. It's now instant on.

rjmason wrote:

It keeps pausing on me (I guess I must spend a lot of time staring at the screen)

Even with the 15 seconds? If so, then I think I'll just remove the timeout.

Anonymous

Ehm... as Seahaven Towers is a bit of a strategy game you need to think several moves ahead. And with a little bad luck a LOT of moves.

You know, when all the aces are right at the top

Now the Pause function might be great for those who want to race against the clock but for others - like me - who would just like to wind down with a game of cards and think out a strategy without constantly moving their mouse (hey, I have other things to do with my hands!) it is a pest.

So I would suggest an extra button to turn it off or leave it out altogether. SH is a game of patience... and I'm getting pretty impatient with these fading cards


Darius

jim

Darius wrote:

So I would suggest an extra button to turn it off or leave it out altogether. SH is a game of patience... and I'm getting pretty impatient with these fading cards

Touché! I've disabled the automatic pause after inactivity.

Thanks for the feeback,
-Jim

Anonymous

And thank you for listening to us!


Regards,



Darius