Wow ... I'm tired.  This has taken several hours out of every week for the past few months.  But it was worth it.  I do believe I've created a useful and entertaining resource.

The Flash Example of Play shows how Capes plays, why it's fun, how it feels.  It does it in style, with pretty moving pictures and all those new-fangled bells and whistles the kids these days like so much.

Before I put it front-page, above the fold, and all that, I'd love to have understanding folks check it out and make sure it's ... y'know ... working on any computer other than mine.  A nice basic once-over for stupid mistakes wouldn't hurt either.

The animation goes a bit fast for me. I find that there's a bunch of zooming things up top that I can barely keep track of. It would be nice if they only moved once I got to them in my reading of the mechanics tab. (maybe with a button to click to advance the tokens, etc. for each action). There was also a typo in the beginning that I noticed "harms way" instead of "harm's way."

Otherwise, it looks very nice.

Hmmm... like some check boxes embedded straight in the text that say "Yeah, okay, I get it.  That ability is changing that die.  That's why they're both throbbing that way, right?  Understood.  Move on."  That's a good idea.  Then the speed of the explanation paces itself to the user.

Do you think that should be the default, or should it only occur when the Mechanics panel is the one that's being looked at?

And maybe there should be a button on the Mechanics panel which says (essentially) "Replay, step by step," so that if you zipped through the animation the first time you hit the page, you don't have to go "Back a page, Forward a page" to see it again.

Hi Tony,

Beutiful work, I love it! Could you add Player and Character Name to each character write-up, because I'm just four screens into this thing and already confused as to who plays which character. (Then again I'm worked to the bone and so tired I hurt.)

I would prefer that the three tabs staye in place horisontally, now I have to hunt for the In-Game, Mechanics, and Strategy tabs vertically. It's just not common behaviour among tabs.

Could you add little icons showing the changing turn order. Maybe I'm just too tired, since I can't even keep track of three imaginary players and their characters.

The animations are a bit fast for me as well, I keep clicking back and forward just to see them again. The suggested replay button would be very nice. The best thing would be "Speech Bubbles" that explained what was going on, and I like the suggestion of having to click through them if you're in the Mechanics view.

Oh, a round so-and-so of so-and-so-many would be nice. I keep wondering how long this thing is. Perhaps a page count would be fitting of the genre.

The gray, blue, and red tokens could use a letter to designate what they represent.

Very nice Tony, great work.

TTFN,

Yoki

Like to say thank you very much for this example of play.

I've tried to understand capes a number of times by reading through the rule book, and I just couldn't
get my head around it. (And I'm used to these types of games huge fan of Universalis).

The flash example cleared up a lot and reading through the rulebook now makes a lot more sense.

I would suggest a replay as a number of time I would read through the mechanics tab and rewatch the animation to see what was happening.

This is fantastic. This will be a great site to point noobs at, and it also taught me quite a bit about the finer points of Capes strategy.

Okay, help me make sure I've got this right, before I make the same effort on every page.  The first page (creation of Crimson Claw) now has step-by-step replay ability.  That new document is up at the same old place.

Is it what people needed?

It still seems crazy fast to me. My impression when the animation first happens is one of "whooosh! Barry Allen is playing Capes!" The step-by-step mode should go much slower and not repeat on an infinite loop. Now it looks like I've asked Quicksilver to slow down so I can follow him, but because he's Quicksilver (i.e. a jerk) he just keeps doing it over and over in front of me instead of doing it once, slowly.

Also, having the button to turn on step by step mode so far down seems odd. When I went to the mechanics page, I expected it to start over and do the first step slowly. Then wait for me to click the first button. As it was, it took me a minute to even figure out how to get step-by-step mode activated. (this might be more transparent to someone who's looking at it for the first time as opposed to someone going to it specifically to look at the step-by-step mode, but still, on the first page with a step-by-step button you should include a "Click here to see the animation over again, this time pausing at each step" sort of thing).

Just seen this, and it's very shiny. Nice job Tony, especially on the 'strategy' writeups.

I've got a some usability suggestions:

- Each time you advance a step, the bottom section should revert to 'Mechanics'. The  animations just make more sense with this section only. Also, it would be nice if each step of the animation was synched with highlights of the relevant text in the mechanics section. Or if the text was "revealed" in sections.
- Either the animations need to be slower, or there should be a slider to change the animation speed. It's actually quite hard to follow what's going on for the more complicated actions.
- Is there some way of making it clearer when the dice are being rolled? The glowy thing is good, but a spinning dice animation would be better. This makes it easier to distinguish rolling from splitting and/or Inspiration use (where the dice are being picked up and set.)
- Is there a reason why only one character sheet is visible at a time? The switching is slightly disorienting. Then again, I'm watching this in 1200 x 800 widescreen, so I've got extra room to the left and right.

These nitpicks aside, it's a fantastic demonstration, and not just for new players.

dunlaing wrote:
It still seems crazy fast to me. My impression when the animation first happens is one of "whooosh! Barry Allen is playing Capes!" The step-by-step mode should go much slower and not repeat on an infinite loop. Now it looks like I've asked Quicksilver to slow down so I can follow him, but because he's Quicksilver (i.e. a jerk) he just keeps doing it over and over in front of me instead of doing it once, slowly.

Yeah, I barely watched the animations. The text is where it's at.

I'm with Doug on the the bottom section reverting to Mechanics when you advance, though.

Bret wrote:
I'm with Doug on the the bottom section reverting to Mechanics when you advance, though.

This is really cool. It gives me a feel for how Capes would play. I was expecting it to be narrated. I checked the tabs on the first frame and then settled into In-Game for the rest. I sort of noticed the animation in passing, and while I made no effort to really understand, it did provide exposure and evoke feel. I got a strong impression that Capes play is a lot of melodramatic dialogue, and that sounds appropriate to a certain era of comics. A surface impression of the mechanics is a lot of maneuvering for moments pregnant with nuance.

You could spend the rest of your life making this better. I think any criticisms I have of the presentation would read as petty. I agree that this is a useful tool for demonstrating the game.

TonyLB wrote:
That would make it much harder to go through the whole demo one time for Mechanics, one time for In-Character and one time for Strategy, though.  That's the way I find myself reading it, but that certainly doesn't mean that it's the way most people want to read it.

You're mostly reading it one step at a time, absorbing, what ... Mechanics, then In-Character, then Strategy, all before moving on to the next step?  That makes a lot of sense too.

TonyLB wrote:

dunlaing wrote:
It still seems crazy fast to me. My impression when the animation first happens is one of "whooosh! Barry Allen is playing Capes!" The step-by-step mode should go much slower and not repeat on an infinite loop. Now it looks like I've asked Quicksilver to slow down so I can follow him, but because he's Quicksilver (i.e. a jerk) he just keeps doing it over and over in front of me instead of doing it once, slowly.

Okay, I'm confused about how slowing it down beyond the current (substantial) slow-down for step-by-step play is going to help.  I'm not saying it wouldn't, I just want some context for why, so I can figure out how much is needed.

Me, I figure that most people are going to be reading the text, get to a blinking button, and look up.  Since they already know what step they're on, I want to be able to get across to them "Yep, right here, you got it..." in a reasonable amount of time ... hence the tight looping.  Obviously, if they missed the "once slowly" version of the animation because they were reading the text then, by the time they look up, they're screwed.

Are you watching the animation and trying to read the text at the same time?  Or expecting the animation to substitute for the text?  Or ... what?

dunlaing wrote:
Is that the situation on your machine, or does it go slower for you? (it also doesn't seem like a substantial slowdown as it goes from roughly 1/4 of a second to roughly 1/2 of a second. I realize that that's twice the time, but it's still fast enough that it still registers as fast)

dunlaing wrote:
Have you considered having the animation start when they push the button? That way, they'll read the step, then have a way to start the animation that shows them what they just read.

Okay, Same old place, brand new approach to the Step-By-Steps.  Now you get the animation, once, after you click the button.  I think you were right, it is easier.  Does it work for you now?

TonyLB wrote:
Okay, Same old place, brand new approach to the Step-By-Steps.  Now you get the animation, once, after you click the button.  I think you were right, it is easier.  Does it work for you now?

I'll be adding some popup thought bubbles that fade in when things are looked at for the first time.  That should help to explain the function of the tabs, the back-and-forth toggles, the step-by-step button and the individual step buttons.

One more, the same link now has updated content.  The new version has (I'm pretty sure) more than a hundred individual steps of rules mechanics laid out to be stepped through at your own pace, or seen in their original animated sequence.

I could work on popups to introduce people to the UI, but I'm not sure that (a) I have the energy and (b) it's necessary.  I'm thinking of making this public pretty soon, for the start of the week.  Is it in good shape for public consumption?

I second the praise showered on this by others.  Just going through it taught me a number of things I had missed going through the rules and the non-flash example in the book (for example, we have been doing the turn order incorrectly).  The real gem, though, is the Strategy section.  It puts things into context, and is the most useful feature of this example for someone who has played a bit but not a lot.

I have only two suggestions for mechanical improvements:

* I recommend an opening and a closing animation/window/something.  The opening would set the scene (three people, Adam, Bob and Claire, sitting around a table, deciding to play Capes), and the closing would let you know the thing was definitely finished, and summarize what has happened and what could happen next.  To my mind, some kind of opening and closing thing is important for the final product out on the web site. 

* When I turned off the "Step-by-Step" indicator, it would still jump through several steps with each click of the green arrow.  After playing with it, I realized that the animated steps continue if you don't have the "Mechanics" window as the main window when you click the green arrow, regardless of whehter the "Step-by-Step" indicator is on or off.  If, mid way through the animation, you click the Mechanics window, the animation stops.  Was this an intended design feature? To me it seems counterintuitive, but if it was intended to work that way I can't call it a bug.

Otherwise, I think this is great, and as soon as it is available I will direct all of our group to it to give them more insight into the game.

I find this flash demo really good, watched it trough tonight and found only one small mistake, at the scene were the crimson claw modifies Mannelli gun at the mechanics-part

Adam: EVIL? Well of course MUAHAHAHA! And I roll ... err ... a two.

The die in question does show a 3, isn't a big problem because the following Improvise a gadget is also a 3.

Otherwise... great work, I would wish there would be more people who use flash for demos like this, makes explaining a game more easy.

Michael