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Happy Meeple community / Re: Bad news - Good news
« on: 04/12/24, 05:33am »
fixing the title so as not to scare people prematurely... 
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Happy Meeple community / Re: Bad news - Good news
« on: 29/11/24, 11:08pm »In the last 12 years, no one in the board gaming community has really noticed Happy Meeple, so I really doubt anyone would have been interested in doing something with it.It's been tough reading the discussion because I want to comment on almost every comment! On this one though I'll go ahead - I think you touched on a real issue here that has been mentioned rather sideways in the past - this isn't really the "board gaming community" here, this is the "casual gaming community." IMO the audience is much more like the past Big Fish audience rather than BGA in interest and spirit. That doesn't seem to have been your intended target, but that's where it landed. The "board gaming community" is much less concerned with aesthetics, ease of use, and clarity, again imo.
Example - a few of us expressed frustration with the time limit not comfortably allowing us to teach our friends how to play (something else you mentioned earlier in the thread, that we didn't seem to invite friends). If this was the "board gaming community," those friends would have been inherently interested in gaming and come out to play the tutorials on their own or after being sent a link. Someone who could be a casual gamer, playing just to spend nice time with a friend, they aren't nearly as likely to do that. They'll give it a try if a friend asks as an activity to enjoy together. But then as a few of us noted, it didn't work out because the time limit didn't allow us to help them learn the game. Just for myself, I did invite several friends IRL and each time they happily attempted to play a game with me and left frustrated by the time limit and didn't come back, because there was no option for us to play together comfortably while they learned the game. I thought then, and still think, that you underestimated the appeal of having another timer option for those of us who wanted to invite friends outside of the "board gaming community."
Similarly to another of your points, most of us here not being the "board gaming community" don't tend to be on those types of forums talking up wherever and whatever we're playing lately. (And we don't tend to create websites to place banners.) If we'd had this discussion some time ago perhaps some headway could have been made on more public commenting and promo also, but perhaps not so much in the places you were expecting. Overall I think more w/casual gaming it comes down to, I invite a friend, they like it and they invite a friend, who then invites a friend...
From what I've heard, it sounds like BGA will work for teaching a friend, however the rest of the time I prefer the relaxed ease of playing with bots and intuitive design that is easy on the eyes. Like many others, that's why I've been here and not there. (And to the errant design points... hamburger menus with hidden stacks of options and sliding sidebars and dialogue popups, light grey fonts and glaring whitespace, "modern design" can keep that to itself.)
Although it's so frustrating that a discussion didn't take place a year or two ago, I do appreciate and applaud you for at least participating in it somewhat now, rather than just posting a notice and leaving us hang until the plug is pulled. Thank you sincerely for that.
Beyond all that, I feel similarly as Kcekce G. And will be playing in quiet denial until it's gone.
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Happy Meeple community / Re: Bad news - Good news
« on: 21/11/24, 10:07pm »The automatic joining to the Happy Meeple Players Group doesn't seem to work...Agree - used the link and didn't work for me either.
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Happy Meeple community / Re: Bad news - Good news
« on: 21/11/24, 10:06pm »
Thank you so much for all the enjoyment here. It's the only game site that had the features I prefer and the design is top notch - there's no way I can overstate that. I'll really miss Happy Meeple. A couple people used the word gutted and I agree.
While being doubtful I'll end up playing elsewhere (having looked at other game sites in the past), I did sign up on BGA to give it a chance. HAS ANYONE FOUND LEVEL X there? It's not coming up for me even trying with various searches and filters and order settings.
Already this reminds me that Happy Meeple above all feels friendly and intuitive, while other sites... not so much.
While being doubtful I'll end up playing elsewhere (having looked at other game sites in the past), I did sign up on BGA to give it a chance. HAS ANYONE FOUND LEVEL X there? It's not coming up for me even trying with various searches and filters and order settings.
Already this reminds me that Happy Meeple above all feels friendly and intuitive, while other sites... not so much.
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Happy Meeple community / Re: Error message that server is down?
« on: 12/09/24, 01:47am »How were y'all able to post in the forum if the server was down?! 🤔
It's common that the forum still works when the game server is down. I don't know the infrastructure details but you can see multiple similar threads here from past outages.
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Lost Cities / Re: Is scoring of Lost Cities unfair/biased?
« on: 18/12/22, 01:08pm »Regarding Lost Cities, as has been said, part of what makes it fun and exciting is trying to figure out how much you should give up in some expeditions to go for the big bang ones. The Happy Meeple version plays a bit different than the official game because it's one hand instead of three. That makes luck much more important here.I know it's an old thread but I'm curious what does this mean:
"The Happy Meeple version plays a bit different than the official game because it's one hand instead of three"
The official game rules recommend playing three hands (or three games) and adding the scores together to determine the winner. On Happy Meeple we play one hand (or one game) and that one score is the final score to determine the winner.
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Tips, polls, updates / Re: Bug with closed tables
« on: 26/07/22, 09:58am »
Am still interested in a reply from Admin here, isn't this a bug? It does sound like an unexpected result at best - most players would expect "play with a friend" to mean their own friends, the people on their own friends list. Also it sounds similar to this old report.
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Cartographers / Re: Wall of shame
« on: 27/05/22, 12:35am »
Am new Wall of Shame member. Am suitably ashamed.
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Tutorial, training, online play / Re: Link to a table - invite a friend
« on: 09/04/22, 07:51am »
Although I tried using screenshots in advance to teach the game (due to my original poor experience inviting a friend noted above), I now have 3 friends who won't come back here after feeling flustered and overwhelmed by the time limit in their first experiences trying to play with me on the site.
Unfortunately my words are not enough to overcome those very poor initial experiences. Nobody enjoys feeling clumsy and embarrassed and that is what it does to some people who need a little more time to find their footing - more than 1 min 45 sec - after they land on a table for the first time. And it's embarrassing for me too, after extolling the site, to be in the position where I have to tell a flustered friend to hurry up, click there, just hurry! Explaining this constraint in advance doesn't make the experience any better for either party. I've learned my lesson and won't be inviting any more newbies.
I'm glad the site is here and appreciate the work that goes and has gone into it, however this slice of the experience has been nothing but depressing.
EDITED TO ADD: a link to the post I wrote 4 years ago right after the first time I tried playing via link with a friend. Had I found and re-read it earlier I wouldn't have led myself or my friends into the same experience twice more (memories do fade...). Linking for what it adds imo.
https://www.happymeeple.com/forum/index.php?topic=31.msg729#msg729
Unfortunately my words are not enough to overcome those very poor initial experiences. Nobody enjoys feeling clumsy and embarrassed and that is what it does to some people who need a little more time to find their footing - more than 1 min 45 sec - after they land on a table for the first time. And it's embarrassing for me too, after extolling the site, to be in the position where I have to tell a flustered friend to hurry up, click there, just hurry! Explaining this constraint in advance doesn't make the experience any better for either party. I've learned my lesson and won't be inviting any more newbies.
I'm glad the site is here and appreciate the work that goes and has gone into it, however this slice of the experience has been nothing but depressing.
EDITED TO ADD: a link to the post I wrote 4 years ago right after the first time I tried playing via link with a friend. Had I found and re-read it earlier I wouldn't have led myself or my friends into the same experience twice more (memories do fade...). Linking for what it adds imo.
https://www.happymeeple.com/forum/index.php?topic=31.msg729#msg729
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Tips, polls, updates / Re: Bug. Replay with the same opponent
« on: 18/03/22, 03:01am »
I found the feature/option problematic, "Replay with the same opponent" (or maybe now it's "Play again with same opponent")
As in Geraldine's case, I was playing with a guest who'd come in via link, however when it gave me the option I expected it to work. That did not seem to happen, at least not intuitively.
The guest ended up back on the initial Welcome screen. I landed in the Inn holding a table, which blinked that it was via link, but it never showed me the link so my only option was to play with a bot.
Was the guest supposed to go back to their email and click on the old link to come in again? What was supposed to happen here?
Thanks for any assistance.
As in Geraldine's case, I was playing with a guest who'd come in via link, however when it gave me the option I expected it to work. That did not seem to happen, at least not intuitively.
The guest ended up back on the initial Welcome screen. I landed in the Inn holding a table, which blinked that it was via link, but it never showed me the link so my only option was to play with a bot.
Was the guest supposed to go back to their email and click on the old link to come in again? What was supposed to happen here?
Thanks for any assistance.
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Tutorial, training, online play / Re: Timer when playing with a friend
« on: 05/03/22, 05:20pm »
Thanks for this request Michel. I requested this several years ago and still would very much like to see it happen. The timer was such a turn off to the couple friends I invited to learn and play together that I just gave up on playing with people I know and eventually drifted away from Happy Meeple.
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Tutorial, training, online play / Re: Link to a table - invite a friend
« on: 25/06/18, 04:13am »2) your friend does not need a white meeple to play online with you. He will join you without it. You will be the teacher.An old thread, however not sure if I ever saw it.
Have you used this feature? Did it work well? Any feedback is greatly appreciated.
Yes, I did use this feature, and wrote rather a lengthy forum post back then about what a poor experience it was, and it relates exactly to your comment that I've quoted.
Using the feature results in the games with the 2 minute time limit - very, very difficult to teach anybody anything, even for the new person to figure out how to take their first turn - especially when the timer is running before we've pressed the button to start the game! Certainly not time to teach them anything. Take your eye off the game to look at a message or read any screen text, instructions, anything at all, and suddenly time's up!
So while I tried to use it as suggested, the time limit erased the benefit. My friend still won't come back here, in fact.
I think it's great for you to offer the link feature though, and wish I could make more use of it.
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Gold, Magic potion / Re: Giveaway - find the name of your next game
« on: 23/06/18, 08:42am »
Great job Alexandre!
Looking forward to this one too, and feeling a bit <slaps head>. I'm in their current kickstarter, which includes this game, and didn't even think of them.
And the not-an-award that it won was the 2016 Button Shy Wallet Design Contest. So indeed, that reply made sense.
Looking forward to this one too, and feeling a bit <slaps head>. I'm in their current kickstarter, which includes this game, and didn't even think of them.
And the not-an-award that it won was the 2016 Button Shy Wallet Design Contest. So indeed, that reply made sense.
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Gold, Magic potion / Re: Giveaway - find the name of your next game
« on: 17/06/18, 08:47pm »To summarize the clues :
_Released in the last 5 years
_Card-only game (no dices etc.)
_2-players only
_Include set collection ("sometimes")
_Strategic (more than game)
_Not released in France
_No card drafting, No path cards
_No Mythical theme
_No physical violence theme, or very little (war, mafia...)
_Award game
_Scorekeeping/point counting, (maybe possible above 100pts)
_Less than 500 rating on BGG
_Minimum age : below 10
_Historical theme. But not a strong one.
_Several designers
_NOT a known game author (Not a Reiner Knizia for example...!)
_New editor an happymeeple
Also not a German designer.
Designer may be known to some, just not broadly well known (as in your example)
Regarding Awards, not sure what to make of - "I am not aware that the game won any award. But it won something as far as I know..."
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Gold, Magic potion / Re: Giveaway - find the name of your next game
« on: 13/06/18, 06:30am »
Is the winner determined by scorekeeping/point counting?