TriviaNet Challenge Beta Demo

Demo version has just a few hundred questions to try out the gameplay. The full version contains over 6,000 questions, with more to come. Some features have also been disabled in the demo, including some elements of the Computer AI. The final demo will be time limited and have no feature limits at all. It will include all 6,000 questions.

I have made a lot of changes in the past two days, so there may well be small, harmless bugs. These are likely to be visual. This is also the first Glimmer Games product using BlitzMax, so there could be technical issues and incompatibilities resulting from that. Please report all bugs here, or in the thread elsewhere on CW.

The full version is ready to go, and will be released as soon as the feedback from the demo has been taken care of.



http://www.animebowlingbabes.com/trivianet_beta.exe ( 4MB )



EDIT: Just making a note of the bugs and changes as they're done. The download won't be updated, but it'll let you know I'm listening ;)

Bug Fixed : High score enter screen would lose the name if you clicked on the "done" button rather than pressing enter.

Bug ( hopefully ) Fixed : The game would hang after the end of the first question when you began a second game after achieving a high score and not quitting early. I couldn't find the problem, but I changed the way the game quits, and the problems does not seem to occur any more.

+ Nice clean interface
+ Good background music
+ Presented well
+ I like the sarcastic comments which pop up

- Could do with a few effects to spruce thngs up when you get the answer right

Suggestions:
* maybe some nice slow background changes to liven up an otherrwise dead display
* A sound effect (heatbeat?) which gets louder as the timer begins to run out. Adds to the pressure

Polished number though. It reminds me of 'Who wants to be a Millionaire'


Oh, there was a question to do with Cocktails which appeared under [Sport]
Something to do with mixing 2 types of drinks to make a particular Cocktail.

Thanks Jim.

I'm really bad at effects, but I'll see what I can do to liven things up a bit.

I'll look at the background effects, but the overlay panels do add quite a bit of overdraw, so I wanted to make sure I was ok for speed.

The heartbeat sound effect sounds good. That should be easy to do.

Some questions may need to be moved into different categories. I automated the categories from the directory structure I created the questions in, and some will be wrong. Sport is the classic Trivia Pursuit sport and leisure though, and cocktails generally go in that category.

With the word NET in the title, do I assume that you can go head to head with trivia nuts across the world?

also does that mean that there is a central database of questions that is contstantly updated?

Or is it eventually be a pay-per-play online pub quiz machine (very addictive)

or is it because it sounds cool?

Will download when I get home, I loved YDKJ (You dont know Jack) the one i played and Quizzes in general. Looking forward to trying it when I get in.

Hi Sybixsus,

no time but i couldn't resist...so as a compromise i will concentrate on the bad things i've noticed... ;O)

-) low resolution
-) the interface has some blurred corners and black pixels in the alpha areas. Also the different components don't align to each other very well - for example at the bottom. I would prefer if they would be made more in a fitting complement style.
-) i dislike the colour of the timeslider. It doesn' fit well into the rest of scene for my taste. Also the interface could need some nicer graphics. I apologize but it's not my style.
-) Music can't be turned off and on during the game. Maybe a click on the loudspeaker (is it one?) in the left lower corner. When playing music the box vibrates. Otherwise it doesn't.
-) The style of the music is somehow ok but it lacks an element which includes the left time, going faster, louder...
-) You also can't hear a change of the soundvolume if you alter it. Only after saving it changes.
-) Textalignment is a bit tight. Make some more space between the text and the corners.
-) I wouldn't have done the texts in the buttons so wild with upper and lowercases. It only makes reading more difficult in this case.
-) Clicking between the answers is also recognized.
-) Generally it wasn't clear for me where i had to click on: the text, the sphere? I also would have made it asymetric.
-) Why are there rollovers on the buttons but not on the rest of the interface? question-type (sin-scaling images for instance) and the answer-buttons (glowing)...
-) It also lacks some great feedback for good and bad.

Overall it feels very static. Just a little bit of moving elements would aerate it a lot. Well i hope this is okay for you and it helps. By the way if your coming from germany the questions are very hard.


Greetings,

taumel

Andy: It's because the theme is that of playing against a computer quizmaster ( called TriviaNet. ) Online highscores and updated questions are both possible additions for the future though. It won't be pay-per-play though, just a straight one-off payment like all our other games.


Taumel: Thanks for the feedback. I won't clutter the post replying to each point, but I'll take a look at them all. I'm sure you're right that the questions will be a bit harder for people from non-English language countries. I wrote and researched the questions myself and I tried to ensure a good balance for UK, USA and Australia, but if I had questions about "Die Harald Schmidt Show", it just wouldn't fly for the US and UK, which are my primary markets.

Overall I found this to be a pretty slick affair. :o)

Bugs:
*Every other game I played would 'lock up' when I answered the first question forcing me to return to the menu and restart.
*A blank appears on the hi scores table where my name should be (I did input a name).

Visual Suggestions:
*The screws on the timer panel look a bit out of place as none of the other panels have them. What's that black bezel thing at the bottom all about?
*Some of the panel graphics could do with a bit of a tidy as there's some blured jaggies here and there, and it kind of spoils the look a bit.
*IMHO the questions are drawn too near to the left side of the top panel.

[edit]That's what happens when you don't refresh the page before posting ;o)[/edit]

I can't reproduce either of the bugs you mention, Pete. Any chance you can give me any specific ideas on how to reproduce them?

Thanks for the visual suggestions.

Okay...I've played some more.

It appears that the hi scores name isn't registered if I click on 'done' rather than hitting enter.

Sorry...Wasn't too clear on this one before...
Play a game (doesn't seem to matter which skill level) all the way through (I got a hi score each time, don't know if that matters) until you're dropped back into the main menu. Play another game and after answering the first question, the game just sits there. You can go back to the menu, where you're told that you ran out of moves. It's as if a counter or flag isn't getting reset.

[edit]
It seems you do need to get a hi score the first time for the lock up to occur.
[/edit]

Many thanks for the specifics on those bugs Pete. That should be enough for me to fix them both.

Just about fixed up all the reported bugs, along with several more I found myself. I've made a number of additions and changes, including a few more dynamic elements, a couple of question fixes, some typos, the two-theme interface and fast switching between them, and various other tweaks.

I could really use a few testers who are going to play it quite extensively though. Just to make sure nothing I've introduced recently has broken anything else. I'm not looking for feature-feedback at this point ( that will come post-release now ) but I do want to make sure this is 100% bug free and with 6,000 questions that's hard to do. If anyone liked the demo and is interested in buying it when it's released, drop me an email and we'll come up with some kind of pre-release discount. The point being I know I can count on people who have bought it to give it some serious playing.

If you're interested, email : info@...