I found some possible bugs, and questions on the abilities of certain special chips:
1.PSO Begone - Spelling error in description. Immediately is spelt incorrectly
2. I already have the Payer 5/9 chip, but it showed up in the store again. Did you want to allow duplicate special chips in play?
3. I think the description should explain sister pairs, for example the sister numbers of 5 and 9 are 4 and 10
4. When you try to sell a special chip, maybe say Sell for $2, and offer a cancel button? I had an issue where i clicked on the special chip, and it just said 2$, but i cannot get rid of this pop up. I continued to play this round all the way up to 15/10, and the 2$ persisted.
5. Is doubling the wager too powerful? When a special chip doubles the wager of a number, you can return the chips back to your bankroll. Was this intentional? I used this method to stay alive in the higher levels.
1) Thanks, fixed that typo. Im sure theres plenty more ahaha
2) Currently there's nothing prevent duplicate special chips, but it's something I should get around to adding
3) I always thought sister numbers meant the number with the same odds of rolling (4 -10, 5-9, 6-8), but I agree I should make that clear what it means.
4) If you click on the same same special chip it *should* go away, but I agree it could be clearer. Made a note to look at it more.
5) Yeah this is something I kind of just left in because my current implementation, there is no way for the game to know the difference between a player wagered chip, and a special chip wager.
My intention with the wager chips is something similar to a press in regular craps, a delayed reward, but a higher return if the number rolls again. I'll need to de some refactoring, and hopefully fix the return bets to only return player wagers, not special chip wagers.
Thanks again for the feedback, it's so helpful. I'm noting all of it down in my github project to keep track of it, so it can be addresses next update!
I will now thoroughly expose myself as a brainlet, and dare I say... a crapslet.
1. Tutorial kind of filtered me. I agree with what diabolodev said. "This thing wins on a 5, 7, or 9, but only on Tuesday. But THIS thing wins on seventeen, negative five, but if you roll frog you lose your bet". It would be way better to just have that information on screen, maybe when you scroll over the place you bet. I don't know how to visually display that, though.
2. Even though I was pretty much clicking random buttons, the feel of everything is really good, especially the sound effects. Neurons activated.
3. Obviously there's a wee bit of Balatro influence here, but aesthetically I feel it could be more distinct. I don't know why exactly, but something about the sounds make me expect a more skeuomorphic aesthetic--give me that nice velvet table or whatever. I don't know, maybe that's even more generic than Balatro though, but for some reason it feels like it calls for a more grounded and less dreamlike aesthetic. Sorry for schizoposting.
4. In the tutorial, the chip gets stuck to your mouse after you put it down. I understand there is a way to put it down, but it might make sense to just have it automatically dropped during the tutorial for the sake of the beginner.
You're not a brainlet, craps is just a super rule heavy game. Once you learn them they seem simple, but getting to that point is a challenge.
>It would be way better to just have that information on screen, maybe when you scroll over the place you bet.
Right now I'm thinking of adding a "help" mode, where it shows everywhere you can place a bet, and if you hover those places it tells you what they do. I think that would help out a lot.
>I don't know why exactly, but something about the sounds make me expect a more skeuomorphic aesthetic
My guess is the dice sounds, which are pretty close to realistic. I've for sure got some work to do on aesthetics.
>In the tutorial, the chip gets stuck to your mouse after you put it down.
Yeah, people found tons of ways to break the tutorial. I've got lots of fixes going in for that, and hopefully adding the previously mentioned in game one.
Whoops, didn't know there was this page here to leave comments as well. So I'm copying what I left on the other page here as well. This is coming from a person who knows how to play Craps more or less.
I'm quite impressed with the game so far. Just have a few questions, and possible improvements to the UI from the period of time of playing the demo.
1. Will you add Hardways, Single Bets, C&E, "Free Odds", and one time bets? Or are these excluded to reduce complexity? Could be exciting to break the game with some of these added, considering you can change the dice.
2. Will you ever implement a higher minimum bet as the game progresses, increase the stakes, and more challenging? Perhaps a hard mode?
3. Was it by design to not allow the player to change between the colored and non colored dice between rolls, and only via the shop? What if we wanted to reset back to regular white dice?
4. Can you put an odds button on the table, so we can view how we modified the point numbers for our payouts?
5. I feel the "Fast Roll" doesn't feel faster since they are stationary in place, even though its a consistent 1.8 seconds roughly on my stopwatch. Sometimes my regular roll resolves as quickly as 1.4 seconds to 3.8 seconds. Even the "longer" rolls when animated feels faster. Is it possible to increase the animation speed of the regular roll?
6. Can you add a way to cancel the chip we are currently holding, by say Right Clicking or something to cancel? Having to drag the chip back to the bottom, clicking, before clicking something else got a little annoying.
7. During the shop phase for the "Cage" perhaps color code the "$1" -> 10 chips aspect to make it clearer that we are spending gold to buy more bankroll. Also, I noted that chip and bankroll are essentially the same thing, but it wasn't clear in the store that we were spending $1 gold to buy $10 of bankroll.
8. Add a restart button or a way to go back to the main menu, without needing to refresh the screen. (I was playing on the web browser"
9. Maybe while you are holding a chip, highlight all the locations that you can drop the chip itself. Unless you knew the rules, you might wonder why you can drop a chip under the point, but not above the point. (IE, that's for the come line)
10. You should explain in the tutorial that once you wager money on the "Pass Line" it cannot be refunded while the point is set.
Bugs found:
1. In the tutorial, if you try rolling the dice while the message "Now Press this to roll the dice and set the point!" hasn't finished rendering on the screen, we get a hard lock where the tutorial doesn't progress any further.
2. If you roll the dice while the message "Make a wager on the pass line, using the chips below", we also get a hard lock where the tutorial doesn't progress any further. I was unable to add any chips to the pass line.
Basically at any point of the tutorial if you "don't behave" and mess around and play chips, or roll the dice before it prompts you to, it goes to a state and hard locks the tutorial. Didn't want to list them all, but I found more than the two above in the tutorial. Possibly hard lock the player from doing any moves until prompted?
3. Even if the master volume is set all the way to the left, its not completely muted. I also set music and effects dial all the way to the left, I also could still hear sound. Maybe a setting to toggle the sound off.
4. When in the shop, if you click where the chips should be on the overlay, you can drag and drop them all over the shop screen. Possibly disable clicking on the bottom layer while in the shop? On that note, possibly do not allow random chip placement in non valid locations?
5. While the point is on, when you click on the chips on the pass line, it still has the "Return Bets" show up if you click on it. Possibly have a pop up show up "Cannot Return Bet while the point is on" instead of it just closing when you click on it.
I'll update my comments as I find more things. But awesome job!
Wow, this is great feedback. Thanks for putting so much time into playtesting, and writing everything is such a organized way. Hope I can respond to all of it.
1) I plan to add hardways, horn bets, taking odds, and lay bets. Hop bets are tough just because of the UI needed, so they probably won't be in for a while. The main issue is figuring out where to fit them on the game board, and presenting them in an easy to understand way for non-craps players.
2) Increasing the min bet is a really good idea, IDK why I hadn't thought of that. But yes, I plan to do a lot of tweaks to difficulty, I think I went a little to easy by about 40% with this first demo. Hard mode and other ways to challenge players are also something I'm working on adding.
3) Not intentional, more of an oversight. Letting player revert dice mid level is a good idea.
4) For sure, that's also a good idea. The entire "odds" screen needs some love anyhow.
5) I'll speed up the fast roll for sure. Both are speeds are picking a random float between two values (Which you deduced very close too). I could possibly even add a setting for them, and give players more freedom.
6) Yeah I have to make the control scheme a bit better. My goal was to avoid multiple clips when placing multiple bets (IE: 10$ on each number) but there's still issues. Currently the fastest way is to just drop the unwanted chip somewhere on the board, and they will be cleaned up on the next roll. But will work on improving it for sure.
7) Yes to the reword and color coding.
8) Others mentioned this as well, it's a high priority TODO.
9) This is a great idea, especially as the UI changes. Will look into it. Also want to add some "tooltip" mode so new players can check the rules of bet locations
10) Good point.
Thanks for all the bug reports. I thought I'd fixed that shop one! Will work on fixing them, most aren't hard to fix.
Thanks again for spending so much time playtesting, and reporting great feedback. I really appreciate the time you spent, and hope you had fun! Thanks for playing!
1. Hop bets definitely will be a pain in the butt UI wise and they are so intimidating to newer players. Perhaps as the game progresses, you can gradually add more bet types. Like first few levels, keep the current stuff, Pass Line, Come, etc. But after you progress add more and explain what they do. Also, you can automatically have these bets on by default in a hard mode.
One possible way to approach hop bets is by having a toggle open up a pop up window for all the different bets.
Alternatively, one thing to also address the concern of the gentleman who felt the game felt "sterile" and also to potentially up the spice + fix the complicated betting issue is to have progressively fancier looking boards at higher difficulties/complexity + maybe adding some animations for times when you make an absurd amount of bank (Image below as an example). For example with Balatro, the different decks have different boosts, abilities, etc, you can add variety with different tables. And to make it exciting, instead of having them all unlocked from the start, you need to beat certain modes with certain settings on to unlock more tables.
Table 1: (Regular Green and white stripe Craps board)
Pass Line, Come, Field, Don't Come, etc.
Table 2: (Maybe a red/burgandy color scheme)
All of the above + Hardways, Lay, Odds, etc.
Table 3: (Fancy galactic screen, etc)
All of the above + Horn + Hop Bets
And then, with my minimum bets idea:
Difficulty 1: No minimum bet
Difficulty 2: Progressively higher minimum bets. +5 per level or something
Difficulty 3: Some form of gimmick for the specific table, such as, start with a higher bankroll, but cannot add anymore with the cage, etc, etc, etc.
Reward the player for trying out different bets, or reward the player for having higher dice strategies, etc.
As for color scheme, I feel you can get inspiration from real life craps boards. Most of them do feel pretty "sterile" but look at this video hybrid craps board from Harrah's Las Vegas. Super bright and colorful. You can potentially do theming, like a cowboy western, Japanese Samurai, etc. Sky's the limit, but haha, sorry for introducing scope creep.
(This board lights up when you roll the point with all these crazy flames and effects haha)
2. The minimum bet thing came up when I was at around level 8/10, and I was down to the last $4 in bankroll. I was doing a $1 Passline, $1 6, 8, and 10. hahaha. It was a slow and painful death hahahaha.
Seriously man, this game helps me scratch my Craps itch without it being painful for my bankbook. I am such a fan of Balatro likes, that this game is perfectly up my alley. Sorry for potentially suggesting scope creep to your project, but, I'm genuinely excited, and want your game to succeed.
3. I just thought of this idea, what about an announcer that speaks what you rolled? Snake Eyes (1, 1), Yo we have yoh (11), Craps "Oh Crap" (7), etc. Could add a nice bit of flavor. and if you do some kind of theming, different accent for the announcer.
And the announcer can also say that you can go ahead and bet on numbers, etc. Include an option to turn off the announcer, etc.
4. Possibly make it more clear when the state changes, from having a point to not having a point on. One of the games I played earlier, I didn't realize I won the pass line. Then when I rolled a 7, i was like OMG! I lost, but then realized, oh wait a second, the point is off. haha. (My fire example above could solve this)
5. Las Vegas Style Casino sound effects could do the trick on telling the other person what the changes in state have as well, as well as let people know yay they won a ton of chips!
Adding new bets for different "tables" with different bets and minimums is a really good idea, and would be great for easing players into things... I'll have to see how hard it is to dev, but shouldn't be impossible.
I've never seen those tables before those are nuts! I usually play stadium or bubble craps when I have a chance to gamble. Those seem super advanced! Curious about how the dice bounce on them though. Flames are cool, just don't want to be *too* much balatro.
Seriously man, this game helps me scratch my Craps itch without it being painful for my bankbook. I am such a fan of Balatro likes, that this game is perfectly up my alley.
This is great to hear! It's exactly what I want this game to do, be the fun of craps without the expense.
No worries about suggesting more scope, I've got lots to add hahaha. So any ideas are always appreciated!
I've looked into number call outs, and sadly there's no audio packs that I could find. Could always record my own, but I'm not stickman lol
Thanks so much for the enthusiasm and ideas, it really makes me inspired to work more!
I'd recommend you get Steam Deck support, which mostly needs controller support. The Aesthetics are good and the tutorial was well made. It needs some something to make it stand out, and the chips to be less sticky when placing them, but it's alright.
From what I understand, many people who buy those kinds of devices like comfy like games that are calming while waiting for something irl. It's how I mostly use my switch all things considered. So they gravitate to roguelikes when outside and other types of games when inside.
you clearly have a solid plan for the gameplay loop itself, but i feel like the aesthetics themselves feel kind of... maybe sterile is too harsh of a word. like, the whole thing needs more spice, more identity, more charm.
the white characters on top of a light green background are readable enough thanks to the outline, but there's little contrast. they don't really pop as much as they could
also some of the special chips definitely feel OP, brim shouldn't be able to win so easily lol
i feel like the aesthetics themselves feel kind of... maybe sterile is too harsh of a word. like, the whole thing needs more spice
No I agree, it's something I've always struggled with. Maybe I'm just an NPC at heart, but adding character to my games seems really difficult.
also some of the special chips definitely feel OP, brim shouldn't be able to win so easily lol
I'm definitely nerfing that 10 gold to prevent a seven haha that made his super risky strategy almost risk free.. Also think I'm going to change the way seven's get saved in general, where it's just a no impact roll, not a totally new number.
The green waves, the chips stacking, the music, and sfx are really good. The dice clinking when you hover over the roll button was especially satisfying.
The chips you place felt too "sticky". Having to press right-click to drop it on the board because I can't click roll with it on the cursor really felt like "oh damn, I have to get rid of this chip on my hand".
Like the other guy, I basically didn't know anything about craps except you don't want a 7 and it took a bit to wrap my head around when you can place bets on what or when things paid out. You can also click on a bet and see "Return Bets?" when you aren't actually able to take them back.
I also didn't figure out you could bet on the numbers specifically until a few runs in.
This came up because I had the special chip that was the 6/8 split and had consecutive come bets on both 6 and 8 but the special chip never added to the other when they were rolled. I thought it was bugged until I was like "fuck it, let's try adding chips directly to them" and THEN it worked.
It wasn't clear how winnings paid into the bankroll, or how I got gold. I could see the chips moving but never knew how much to expect.
Speaking of bankroll and winnings, it was frustrating having a bunch of winnings and not being able to use them to bet, especially when the bankroll was running low. It felt like a death spiral where I had less than $5 to make 20 or more winnings and really couldn't do anything except roll until I lost.
Side-note: Let me surrender or restart, pls.
Overall, I enjoyed it and would gladly play it again.
"The chips you place felt too "sticky". Having to press right-click to drop it on the board because I can't click roll with it on the cursor really felt like" It's setup like this so you don't have to go back for a chip each bet, which adds a lot of clicking. But I definitely should make clicking the "roll" with a chip just get rid of the chip and work as expected.
"You can also click on a bet and see "Return Bets?" when you aren't actually able to take them back." Good catch, will fix.
"I also didn't figure out you could bet on the numbers specifically until a few runs in." This is a major hurdle, I need to figure out some way to "onboard" non-craps players without a wordy tutorial. The Tutorial does cover placing numbers, but most people won't use it. I also definitely need a good, concise keyword to differentiate between betting on a specific number, vs a come/don't come bet like you had.
"It wasn't clear how winnings paid into the bankroll, or how I got gold." Basically you get any extra winnings chips to your bankroll. So if you need to get 50, and get 75, you get +25 to your bankroll. Gold is just 5, and +1 per level. But it's good feedback to make this more clear.
Thanks for playing and the good feedback! Knowing about how the balance feels is really important. Will definitely be adding a reset button haha
The tutorial broke at the special chips section and I couldn't add a chip to the pass line, I think because i accidentally rolled while it was going on.
Sucks that theres no way to reset the game
The tutorial advances if you click the options button
The tutorial was too wordy and I was expected to remember too much about the craps-specific stuff (worse was that there's no way to check it ingame). I'm not familiar with craps so I retained none of it.
I won my second run by all in'ing the first two rounds and then matching the win condition on field bets with some special chips that increased payout.
I think I should be punished for not understanding craps, but in a game that boils down to rolling a dice to win I don't think it's possible.
Terminology like "on [number]-roll" or "number bet" weren't clear while I was playing. In retrospect I can probably deduce their meanings, though.
The graphics and audio seem good, maybe a little generic, and the SFX was loud on default volume. I'm glad you didn't keep the background speeding up to an insane pace effect.
Thanks for trying it out, appreciate the feedback from a fellow skinnerbox dev.
"The tutorial broke at the special chips section" Luckily that is the last part. It was most likely your extra roll, which I thought about locking the button and clear should have.
"The tutorial was too wordy and I was expected to remember too much about the craps-specific stuff (worse was that there's no way to check it ingame)" Good to know. Definitely need to add a pop-up for the different places you can bet on.
"I think I should be punished for not understanding craps, but in a game that boils down to rolling a dice to win I don't think it's possible." Yep, this is my central problem with the difficulty. Technically a field be is a very sub-optional bet (House edge of 5.50%), but on such a small scale you can easily just win by getting a good roll. I'm thinking about adding a "lives" resource, that you lose one on 7, so can't win this easily.
"Terminology not clear" Yeah, I need to take a pass over and standardize everything, as well as highlight keywords.
Really appreciate the feedback, thanks for playing!
Comments
I found some possible bugs, and questions on the abilities of certain special chips:
1.PSO Begone - Spelling error in description. Immediately is spelt incorrectly
2. I already have the Payer 5/9 chip, but it showed up in the store again. Did you want to allow duplicate special chips in play?
3. I think the description should explain sister pairs, for example the sister numbers of 5 and 9 are 4 and 10
4. When you try to sell a special chip, maybe say Sell for $2, and offer a cancel button? I had an issue where i clicked on the special chip, and it just said 2$, but i cannot get rid of this pop up. I continued to play this round all the way up to 15/10, and the 2$ persisted.
5. Is doubling the wager too powerful? When a special chip doubles the wager of a number, you can return the chips back to your bankroll. Was this intentional? I used this method to stay alive in the higher levels.
1) Thanks, fixed that typo. Im sure theres plenty more ahaha
2) Currently there's nothing prevent duplicate special chips, but it's something I should get around to adding
3) I always thought sister numbers meant the number with the same odds of rolling (4 -10, 5-9, 6-8), but I agree I should make that clear what it means.
4) If you click on the same same special chip it *should* go away, but I agree it could be clearer. Made a note to look at it more.
5) Yeah this is something I kind of just left in because my current implementation, there is no way for the game to know the difference between a player wagered chip, and a special chip wager.
My intention with the wager chips is something similar to a press in regular craps, a delayed reward, but a higher return if the number rolls again. I'll need to de some refactoring, and hopefully fix the return bets to only return player wagers, not special chip wagers.
Thanks again for the feedback, it's so helpful. I'm noting all of it down in my github project to keep track of it, so it can be addresses next update!
I will now thoroughly expose myself as a brainlet, and dare I say... a crapslet.
1. Tutorial kind of filtered me. I agree with what diabolodev said. "This thing wins on a 5, 7, or 9, but only on Tuesday. But THIS thing wins on seventeen, negative five, but if you roll frog you lose your bet". It would be way better to just have that information on screen, maybe when you scroll over the place you bet. I don't know how to visually display that, though.
2. Even though I was pretty much clicking random buttons, the feel of everything is really good, especially the sound effects. Neurons activated.
3. Obviously there's a wee bit of Balatro influence here, but aesthetically I feel it could be more distinct. I don't know why exactly, but something about the sounds make me expect a more skeuomorphic aesthetic--give me that nice velvet table or whatever. I don't know, maybe that's even more generic than Balatro though, but for some reason it feels like it calls for a more grounded and less dreamlike aesthetic. Sorry for schizoposting.
4. In the tutorial, the chip gets stuck to your mouse after you put it down. I understand there is a way to put it down, but it might make sense to just have it automatically dropped during the tutorial for the sake of the beginner.
You're not a brainlet, craps is just a super rule heavy game. Once you learn them they seem simple, but getting to that point is a challenge.
>It would be way better to just have that information on screen, maybe when you scroll over the place you bet.
Right now I'm thinking of adding a "help" mode, where it shows everywhere you can place a bet, and if you hover those places it tells you what they do. I think that would help out a lot.
>I don't know why exactly, but something about the sounds make me expect a more skeuomorphic aesthetic
My guess is the dice sounds, which are pretty close to realistic. I've for sure got some work to do on aesthetics.
>In the tutorial, the chip gets stuck to your mouse after you put it down.
Yeah, people found tons of ways to break the tutorial. I've got lots of fixes going in for that, and hopefully adding the previously mentioned in game one.
Thanks for playing and giving feedback!
Whoops, didn't know there was this page here to leave comments as well. So I'm copying what I left on the other page here as well. This is coming from a person who knows how to play Craps more or less.
I'm quite impressed with the game so far. Just have a few questions, and possible improvements to the UI from the period of time of playing the demo.
1. Will you add Hardways, Single Bets, C&E, "Free Odds", and one time bets? Or are these excluded to reduce complexity? Could be exciting to break the game with some of these added, considering you can change the dice.
2. Will you ever implement a higher minimum bet as the game progresses, increase the stakes, and more challenging? Perhaps a hard mode?
3. Was it by design to not allow the player to change between the colored and non colored dice between rolls, and only via the shop? What if we wanted to reset back to regular white dice?
4. Can you put an odds button on the table, so we can view how we modified the point numbers for our payouts?
5. I feel the "Fast Roll" doesn't feel faster since they are stationary in place, even though its a consistent 1.8 seconds roughly on my stopwatch. Sometimes my regular roll resolves as quickly as 1.4 seconds to 3.8 seconds. Even the "longer" rolls when animated feels faster. Is it possible to increase the animation speed of the regular roll?
6. Can you add a way to cancel the chip we are currently holding, by say Right Clicking or something to cancel? Having to drag the chip back to the bottom, clicking, before clicking something else got a little annoying.
7. During the shop phase for the "Cage" perhaps color code the "$1" -> 10 chips aspect to make it clearer that we are spending gold to buy more bankroll. Also, I noted that chip and bankroll are essentially the same thing, but it wasn't clear in the store that we were spending $1 gold to buy $10 of bankroll.
8. Add a restart button or a way to go back to the main menu, without needing to refresh the screen. (I was playing on the web browser"
9. Maybe while you are holding a chip, highlight all the locations that you can drop the chip itself. Unless you knew the rules, you might wonder why you can drop a chip under the point, but not above the point. (IE, that's for the come line)
10. You should explain in the tutorial that once you wager money on the "Pass Line" it cannot be refunded while the point is set.
Bugs found:
1. In the tutorial, if you try rolling the dice while the message "Now Press this to roll the dice and set the point!" hasn't finished rendering on the screen, we get a hard lock where the tutorial doesn't progress any further.
2. If you roll the dice while the message "Make a wager on the pass line, using the chips below", we also get a hard lock where the tutorial doesn't progress any further. I was unable to add any chips to the pass line.
Basically at any point of the tutorial if you "don't behave" and mess around and play chips, or roll the dice before it prompts you to, it goes to a state and hard locks the tutorial. Didn't want to list them all, but I found more than the two above in the tutorial. Possibly hard lock the player from doing any moves until prompted?
3. Even if the master volume is set all the way to the left, its not completely muted. I also set music and effects dial all the way to the left, I also could still hear sound. Maybe a setting to toggle the sound off.
4. When in the shop, if you click where the chips should be on the overlay, you can drag and drop them all over the shop screen. Possibly disable clicking on the bottom layer while in the shop? On that note, possibly do not allow random chip placement in non valid locations?
5. While the point is on, when you click on the chips on the pass line, it still has the "Return Bets" show up if you click on it. Possibly have a pop up show up "Cannot Return Bet while the point is on" instead of it just closing when you click on it.
I'll update my comments as I find more things. But awesome job!
Wow, this is great feedback. Thanks for putting so much time into playtesting, and writing everything is such a organized way. Hope I can respond to all of it.
1) I plan to add hardways, horn bets, taking odds, and lay bets. Hop bets are tough just because of the UI needed, so they probably won't be in for a while. The main issue is figuring out where to fit them on the game board, and presenting them in an easy to understand way for non-craps players.
2) Increasing the min bet is a really good idea, IDK why I hadn't thought of that. But yes, I plan to do a lot of tweaks to difficulty, I think I went a little to easy by about 40% with this first demo. Hard mode and other ways to challenge players are also something I'm working on adding.
3) Not intentional, more of an oversight. Letting player revert dice mid level is a good idea.
4) For sure, that's also a good idea. The entire "odds" screen needs some love anyhow.
5) I'll speed up the fast roll for sure. Both are speeds are picking a random float between two values (Which you deduced very close too). I could possibly even add a setting for them, and give players more freedom.
6) Yeah I have to make the control scheme a bit better. My goal was to avoid multiple clips when placing multiple bets (IE: 10$ on each number) but there's still issues. Currently the fastest way is to just drop the unwanted chip somewhere on the board, and they will be cleaned up on the next roll. But will work on improving it for sure.
7) Yes to the reword and color coding.
8) Others mentioned this as well, it's a high priority TODO.
9) This is a great idea, especially as the UI changes. Will look into it. Also want to add some "tooltip" mode so new players can check the rules of bet locations
10) Good point.
Thanks for all the bug reports. I thought I'd fixed that shop one! Will work on fixing them, most aren't hard to fix.
Thanks again for spending so much time playtesting, and reporting great feedback. I really appreciate the time you spent, and hope you had fun! Thanks for playing!
1. Hop bets definitely will be a pain in the butt UI wise and they are so intimidating to newer players. Perhaps as the game progresses, you can gradually add more bet types. Like first few levels, keep the current stuff, Pass Line, Come, etc. But after you progress add more and explain what they do. Also, you can automatically have these bets on by default in a hard mode.
One possible way to approach hop bets is by having a toggle open up a pop up window for all the different bets.
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Alternatively, one thing to also address the concern of the gentleman who felt the game felt "sterile" and also to potentially up the spice + fix the complicated betting issue is to have progressively fancier looking boards at higher difficulties/complexity + maybe adding some animations for times when you make an absurd amount of bank (Image below as an example). For example with Balatro, the different decks have different boosts, abilities, etc, you can add variety with different tables. And to make it exciting, instead of having them all unlocked from the start, you need to beat certain modes with certain settings on to unlock more tables.
Table 1: (Regular Green and white stripe Craps board)
Pass Line, Come, Field, Don't Come, etc.
Table 2: (Maybe a red/burgandy color scheme)
All of the above + Hardways, Lay, Odds, etc.
Table 3: (Fancy galactic screen, etc)
All of the above + Horn + Hop Bets
And then, with my minimum bets idea:
Difficulty 1: No minimum bet
Difficulty 2: Progressively higher minimum bets. +5 per level or something
Difficulty 3: Some form of gimmick for the specific table, such as, start with a higher bankroll, but cannot add anymore with the cage, etc, etc, etc.
Reward the player for trying out different bets, or reward the player for having higher dice strategies, etc.
As for color scheme, I feel you can get inspiration from real life craps boards. Most of them do feel pretty "sterile" but look at this video hybrid craps board from Harrah's Las Vegas. Super bright and colorful. You can potentially do theming, like a cowboy western, Japanese Samurai, etc. Sky's the limit, but haha, sorry for introducing scope creep.
(This board lights up when you roll the point with all these crazy flames and effects haha)
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2. The minimum bet thing came up when I was at around level 8/10, and I was down to the last $4 in bankroll. I was doing a $1 Passline, $1 6, 8, and 10. hahaha. It was a slow and painful death hahahaha.
Seriously man, this game helps me scratch my Craps itch without it being painful for my bankbook. I am such a fan of Balatro likes, that this game is perfectly up my alley. Sorry for potentially suggesting scope creep to your project, but, I'm genuinely excited, and want your game to succeed.
3. I just thought of this idea, what about an announcer that speaks what you rolled? Snake Eyes (1, 1), Yo we have yoh (11), Craps "Oh Crap" (7), etc. Could add a nice bit of flavor. and if you do some kind of theming, different accent for the announcer.
And the announcer can also say that you can go ahead and bet on numbers, etc. Include an option to turn off the announcer, etc.
4. Possibly make it more clear when the state changes, from having a point to not having a point on. One of the games I played earlier, I didn't realize I won the pass line. Then when I rolled a 7, i was like OMG! I lost, but then realized, oh wait a second, the point is off. haha. (My fire example above could solve this)
5. Las Vegas Style Casino sound effects could do the trick on telling the other person what the changes in state have as well, as well as let people know yay they won a ton of chips!
Adding new bets for different "tables" with different bets and minimums is a really good idea, and would be great for easing players into things... I'll have to see how hard it is to dev, but shouldn't be impossible.
I've never seen those tables before those are nuts! I usually play stadium or bubble craps when I have a chance to gamble. Those seem super advanced! Curious about how the dice bounce on them though. Flames are cool, just don't want to be *too* much balatro.
This is great to hear! It's exactly what I want this game to do, be the fun of craps without the expense.
No worries about suggesting more scope, I've got lots to add hahaha. So any ideas are always appreciated!
I've looked into number call outs, and sadly there's no audio packs that I could find. Could always record my own, but I'm not stickman lol
Thanks so much for the enthusiasm and ideas, it really makes me inspired to work more!
I'd recommend you get Steam Deck support, which mostly needs controller support. The Aesthetics are good and the tutorial was well made. It needs some something to make it stand out, and the chips to be less sticky when placing them, but it's alright.
Oof controller support does NOT sound fun to implement. But you're right, it would be good.
From what I understand, many people who buy those kinds of devices like comfy like games that are calming while waiting for something irl. It's how I mostly use my switch all things considered. So they gravitate to roguelikes when outside and other types of games when inside.
you clearly have a solid plan for the gameplay loop itself, but i feel like the aesthetics themselves feel kind of... maybe sterile is too harsh of a word. like, the whole thing needs more spice, more identity, more charm.
the white characters on top of a light green background are readable enough thanks to the outline, but there's little contrast. they don't really pop as much as they could
also some of the special chips definitely feel OP, brim shouldn't be able to win so easily lol
No I agree, it's something I've always struggled with. Maybe I'm just an NPC at heart, but adding character to my games seems really difficult.
I'm definitely nerfing that 10 gold to prevent a seven haha that made his super risky strategy almost risk free.. Also think I'm going to change the way seven's get saved in general, where it's just a no impact roll, not a totally new number.
Appreciate the feedback!
Very chill, very vibe balatro-like.
Overall, I enjoyed it and would gladly play it again.
It's setup like this so you don't have to go back for a chip each bet, which adds a lot of clicking. But I definitely should make clicking the "roll" with a chip just get rid of the chip and work as expected.
Good catch, will fix.
This is a major hurdle, I need to figure out some way to "onboard" non-craps players without a wordy tutorial. The Tutorial does cover placing numbers, but most people won't use it. I also definitely need a good, concise keyword to differentiate between betting on a specific number, vs a come/don't come bet like you had.
Basically you get any extra winnings chips to your bankroll. So if you need to get 50, and get 75, you get +25 to your bankroll. Gold is just 5, and +1 per level. But it's good feedback to make this more clear.
Thanks for playing and the good feedback! Knowing about how the balance feels is really important.
Will definitely be adding a reset button haha
Thanks for trying it out, appreciate the feedback from a fellow skinnerbox dev.
Luckily that is the last part. It was most likely your extra roll, which I thought about locking the button and clear should have.
Good to know. Definitely need to add a pop-up for the different places you can bet on.
Yep, this is my central problem with the difficulty. Technically a field be is a very sub-optional bet (House edge of 5.50%), but on such a small scale you can easily just win by getting a good roll. I'm thinking about adding a "lives" resource, that you lose one on 7, so can't win this easily.
Yeah, I need to take a pass over and standardize everything, as well as highlight keywords.
Really appreciate the feedback, thanks for playing!