New interface thoughts and comments.

[Matt McIrvin]

The aesthetic criticism is fair; this is the kind of thing that happens when you let a coder design the appearance, and I speak as a coder.

On my phone I have a hard time actually clicking on the elements in the carousel. And, in general, the display looks weird on small screens. I understand the desire to move to something that scales better to large numbers of tables, but I'm not sure this does, and I think it's a step back from what we had.

 

[night]

I think it's a step back from what we had.

This.

 

[Rudy]

Indeedy, I thought the huge flaw with the original menu system was that it made finding the table you want to play pretty difficult.

So they've made it easier to access the tables (without going through a separate menu once you're on the table screen) but still kept the scrolling. What's more, by adding a separate menu before you even look at the tables in the first place it's ended up being just as complicated to just go from startup to playing a table.

EDIT: However, I must add that the actual table select screen is much cleaner and a pretty good upgrade from the previous table select screen... it's just the screens before that >_>

 

[Fungi]

It finally occured to me why FS may have chosen this. I've been playing this on a tablet so long, I forgot it works on phones as well. For screens that small, I guess they wanted big simple graphics. Of course, the tables themselves are anything but big and simple.

 

[Matt McIrvin]

Actually, the previous version worked better on small screens. The buttons are all itty-bitty now with tiny text crammed into them.

 

[Extrema22]

I have to say I really don't like this new interface at all! Besides the fact that it looks very amateuristic (hall of fame score doesn't even fit inside the button graphic) it's become more of a pain to use, at least on my phone screen. It all seems very small and landscape mode is annoying (although it seems you guys are working on a portrait mode). On my Galaxy SII the 'back' button doesn't work anylonger, so to quit te game I have to use the home button and then force quit the app. I'm also having a hard time getting Star Trek to actually start in portrait mode, very annoying. I love you guys and bought every table but this is a big step down from the last interface. Perhaps give the users a choice to use the old one if preferred (perhaps call the old UI 'phone' mode)?

 

[Mark W**a]

Just tried out the new interface on my sisters android.

Good lord is it absolutely hideous and cumbersome. I don't usually care about this sort of thing but it was way better the way it was.

The whole "carosell" type thing whatever u want to call it doesn't work right. From a strictly design standpoint it's ugly as sin. Facebook users are ripping it to shreds as we speak.

Look I'm super happy with Farsight and I'm stoked at how fast we got Star Trek and I'm pumped as hell for the Xbox "announcement" but I'm not going to sugar coat how I feel this new interface is ass.

 

[canuck]

They need to hire an interface guru

 

[Mark W**a]

The "wheel" or "carousel" or whatever you want to call it is all janky and doesn't scroll right.

The game also runs like janky crap on both my sisters android devices but that's another topic. I mean her devices are only a year to 2 years old.. iPhone 4S is what, two years old easy and it runs like butter on here. I don't get it.

 

[Dutch Pinball ball]

Hmmmm..... I like it. Sorry.

 

[Mark W**a]

Tons of 1 star reviews over the interface on android.

Really? 1 star because the interface sucks? Like that makes the whole game bad cause of a bad ui. Gimme a break, childish... I did a 5 star review to try and counteract lol.

Finally got iOS version and Star Trek. The wheel works great on iOS guess its an android only problem. Just noticed the generic rock music and I could have really done without that.

Overall I give this new interface 1 star but Star Trek is 5 stars so I'm happy.

 

[MadScience2006]

The new interface itself is fine for me...yes, it could be better. The graphics are adequate and do the job although sadly with more screen taps than are needed to jump right into a table. Yes, like others here, I'd much rather have a screen of direct-access icons but if that would be a problem when it comes to the smaller iDevices, I can understand that. Bottom line for my dislike is the forced landscape perspective which now also affects the screen orientation of the tables themselves which now refuse to rotate in-game...even at the table's start screen, the orientation can be finicky. A user-interface should not be a challenge to figure out and orientation should be automatic, not something that's a struggle. Hoping for a fix/correction update soon...EDIT: a fix/correction please, NOT another "table for me to buy" update.

 

[Captain Caveman]

They need a focus group.. the UI is brutal.. polling the fan base on concepts is something they should do..

 

[DarkAkatosh]

Tons of 1 star reviews over the interface on android.

Really? 1 star because the interface sucks? Like that makes the whole game bad cause of a bad ui. Gimme a break, childish... I did a 5 star review to try and counteract lol.

Finally got iOS version and Star Trek. The wheel works great on iOS guess its an android only problem. Just noticed the generic rock music and I could have really done without that.

Overall I give this new interface 1 star but Star Trek is 5 stars so I'm happy.

People on the internet nitpick every little bloody thing. Nothing you can do about that.

I saw that new interface and I wonder why they even bothered. It makes little to no difference.

 

[Tony C]

They did say this was phase one of the menu revamp. I am most disappointed by the fact that they released it without the portrait mode. They would have been better off to have missed the target date and released the whole update at one time. What we have here is a good start, but that's all. How bad would it have been if the update got rejected because of some problem with the new UI and STTNG would have been help up because of that? That's quite a risky move to get a half baked UI out the door that should have waited until the next round of DLC.

 

[tripleplonq]

I think the new interface is a step in the right direction. But there is still much room for improvement.

 

[Sean]

I wanted to add one thing I really like about the new UI is showing the status of progress towards completing table goals in the selection menu rather than having to launch the table and navigate through additional menus. This will definitely "nudge" me into spending more time on certain machines I might not play as much otherwise.

 

[Kevlar]

I wanted to add one thing I really like about the new UI is showing the status of progress towards completing table goals in the selection menu rather than having to launch the table and navigate through additional menus. This will definitely "nudge" me into spending more time on certain machines I might not play as much otherwise.

Agreed, credit where credit is due, while I think the new UI is a mess it does have some plus points like the goals display and something I appreciate, proper access to hall of fame scores. Previously the only way to see the scores for individual tables was to finish a game first.

 

[BRZ]

Did we lose access to the Game Center PHOF scores from within the app now?
I can only seem to get to it thru the tournament menu and then it's incomplete scores.

Overall though, it's a very nice UI update. Yet like many I am puzzled why they chose not to go with a grid.
That's what we were all clamoring for. Easy view and access to tons of tables in one screen.

 

[Mark W**a]

Very nice update? It's about as polished as an Xbox indie games ui. The embarrassing rock music and amateurish look is shamed by 5 dollar Wii games that they sell in Walgreens next to the bubble gum in the checkout line.

Guys I love Farsight too but come on stop defending this.