UI feedback from darkshoxx's Lix stream, 2022-11-26

[Simon]

Hi,

darkshoxx joind our recent Lix session on Saturday, November 26th. I streamed the session to twitch, and darkshoxx also streamed the session to twitch. To familiarize himself with Lix, darkshoxx played Lix singleplayer for an hour before the multiplayer session.

darkshoxx's Lix stream from 2022-11-26
(twitch will delete this on Dec ~10th)

Thanks for the stream! Here's my feedback:

Button caption: darkshoxx played the first level Any Way You Want and reached the end-of-singleplayer screen. The button at the bottom says "Back to the browser". darkshoxx reads the button, and says: "What? It's not a browser. Whatever."

Indeed, the level browser is a level selection first and foremost, and it only happens to be also implemented as a file browser that can browse to every level. I'll recaption the button to "Back to Level Browser" or maybe "Back to Level Selection".



Feedback on winning/losing: darkshoxx played Let's Block and Blow?, which has a save requirement of 19/20. First attempt, he flings several lix to death. Obviously this is wrong, and he resets.

Second attempt, he carefully assigns the exploder to not fling any lix to death. And he succeeds in this goal. This second attempt saves 18/20, it doesn't save the exploder and the blocker. This comes short of the save requirement of 19/20. Since he didn't fling anybody to death, he believes that he's won, nukes the blocker, reaches the end-of-singleplayer screen, and happily moves to the next level.

The end-of-singleplayer screen always presents the next level, even if you've lost. I like this, but it makes winning and loosing look nearly alike on that screen. The only difference are the small numbers at the top left, and the caption "Congratulations! You solved:" vs. "Try again:" over the solved level in the top right. We're all conditioned to not look much at the solved level in the top right.

During play, I'd still like the nuke to exit regardless of winning/losing. I think it would be awkward to pause after nuking a losing attempt.

As annoying as it is to admit: Winning and losing is central to every game, and Lix fails to present it properly. We need better feedback about winning/losing, both during play and during the end-of-singleplayer screen. I have loose ideas, but nothing ready to discuss yet.



This third finding is feedback for darkshoxx, it's not for Lix.

You had us in Mumble. At first, your viewers considered us too quiet. You raised the audio output in Mumble, but that didn't affect the loudness of Mumble in your stream. I think you should lower the Mumble audio output back to 100 %, to reduce the chance of audio clipping.

Then you put gain on the Mumble output. We were pretty loud already then, at least as loud as yourself. Then you put gain on the Mumble output a second time. Now, we were very loud, far louder than yourself. When I spoke, we got audio clipping in your stream. Maybe it's the mix of more than 100 % on the audio output, maybe it was from my side, but it ended loud in the stream.

I think a good amount of gain was how much you put on us the first time, before you raised it for the second time, together with Mumble at 100 %.

Or perhaps even slightly less gain than the first time (but still more than nothing)? Then you're at least as loud as anybody on Mumble, and your viewers want to hear you after all.

-- Simon

[mobius]

haha. I get it but I never was the slightest confused by this.