Hello, everyone. This is Cheese, developer of .
This May, we took part in PlayX4 and held the first public demo of .
Although there are still many areas we need to improve, we would like to sincerely thank everyone who visited our booth and took the time to play the game.
In this DevDiary, we would like to talk about what we prepared leading up to PlayX4, as well as share some thoughts after the exhibition.
Preparing Two Different Builds
Since we were planning to take part in PlayX4 and run the third user test at the same time in May, we had to prepare two separate builds.
First, the PlayX4 exhibition build was designed around a more linear series of combat missions, so that players could quickly get immersed in the game within a short amount of time. We adjusted the overall flow so that the demo would end after a total of three expeditions.
At the venue, we guided players to leave feedback through a survey right after they finished playing. The survey was made up of simple questions that could be answered quickly and without much burden.
We also decided that the PlayX4 build needed to be balanced so that players could clear it on-site. To make this possible, we added a system that allowed us to adjust individual enemy stats separately for each build.
Feature to adjust enemy stats for diverse versions.
On the other hand, the third Steam user test build was prepared with the goal of gathering feedback on the overall content implemented so far. For this reason, we based it on the latest build, with most of the available content unlocked.
Scientist, General, and Shaman themed enemies.
Unlike the exhibition build, the Steam user test build also allowed players to select the Shaman and Scientist areas.
Adding and Improving Tutorials
As we mentioned in the previous DevDiary, we have made many changes related to the combat structure over the past few months. As a result, we had to remake about 50% of the tutorials we had previously created.
The most difficult part of this tutorial improvement process was deciding what to explain to players, how much information to provide at a time, and in what order to present it, especially from the perspective of a development team that had already become familiar with the system.
Battle Tutorials during prologue sequence
In the new combat system, there was a lot that needed to be explained within a short amount of time, such as turn order, character skill editing, item usage, and how to use tactical skills. We felt that presenting all of this information at once would place too much burden on players.
Functional UIs within a battle sequence
For that reason, we arranged the tutorial so that the key points would be introduced across the three combat sections in the prologue. However, we still believe there is room for improvement before this can become a tutorial structure that allows all players to learn the system naturally.
In the future, we would like to move beyond a fixed, step-by-step tutorial format. Instead, we plan to restructure the tutorial so that the system can detect specific situations and show the appropriate guidance at the moment it is needed.
PlayX4 Recap
This was our first exhibition event in about three years, since we last took part in PlayX4 in 2023.
It was also the first offline event for , so there were many new things we had to prepare, including booth props and banners.
We also produced two new types of merchandise in advance for the event: stickers to hand out during the exhibition, and keychains to give away as event prizes.
PlayX4 exhibition booth
Stickers and Keyrings distributed during the event
Over the course of the exhibition, around 180 players tried our game, and 162 of them took part in the survey.
Based on the results of this survey, we selected the following three points as our top priorities for improvement.
Improving the intuitiveness of controls and UI
Improving how tutorials deliver information
Improving the overall pace of the game
Overall, many players pointed out areas for improvement in the UI/UX.
From checking basic skill information to viewing enemy details and controlling the flow of combat, we received feedback that players experienced inconvenience when trying to access information and perform actions during battle.
We also found that, after combat ended and the game returned to non-combat controls, the shift toward keyboard-based controls made the controls feel less consistent. This seems to have contributed to a general sense that the game lacked convenience in some areas.
This issue is also connected to the tutorial. With the UI and controls not yet feeling intuitive enough, having the tutorial information presented all at once made the learning process feel difficult for many players. For this reason, we plan to improve the tutorial structure alongside the UI/UX improvements.
Lastly, there was also feedback regarding the overall pace of the game. In the pace category, the average score was 3.88, with 4 points representing a “satisfying pace.” Looking only at the number, this may not seem like a particularly bad result. However, we still received quite a few comments related to pacing in the written feedback.
In particular, many players mentioned that the game felt slow when the speed setting was disabled outside of combat, and that the time spent watching battles unfold felt too long.
In addition to these points, players shared many other suggestions for improvement. However, we judged that the three points above were the ones most commonly agreed upon by players, and we plan to focus on polishing these areas before the next event or build release.
Closing
Since this was our first offline event in nearly three years, we took part in PlayX4 with both excitement and some nervousness.
There are still many areas we need to improve and many tasks left ahead of us, but seeing players enjoy the game gave us a great sense of fulfillment and encouragement as developers. It was a truly meaningful event for us.
Based on the feedback we received from players, we will keep improving the game and come back in the next DevDiary with a more polished build to share.
Thank you for reading this long post.