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[philosophyguy]

One thing that I didn't realize about the Goko interface until just recently is how easy it is to miss that the Ruins have run out as a pile because they're on the second page. Goko folks: is there any way to move the Ruins pile to the first page? That's the only card I've seen where the piles are likely to run and the info about whether the pile is dead (or how many are left) is not immediately obvious, and since it impacts the endgame I think it's significant enough to warrant putting on the main page.

[jsh357]

The YW bane can also be on the second page where it's easily missable.

[ftl]

The YW bane can also be on the second page where it's easily missable.

Specifically, when there's a Bane, SOME card gets moved to the next page, not necessarily the bane. (In fact, it usually won't be the bane).

I believe they are working on a redesign but I don't know how high on the priority list that is.

[SirPeebles]

Young Witch, Ruins, Spoils, Madman, Mercenary, and the five Prizes all go to the second page.  I hated it at first, but you really do get used to it.

[philosophyguy]

I don't mind Spoils/Madman and the Prizes, and Mercenary is also probably a low-frequency issue. But Ruins run a not infrequent amount of games, and not knowing how many are left or if the pile is gone immediately really makes endgame misplays more likely.

[mameluke]

Yes, I don't mind non-supply piles being on the second page, since, e.g. the page automatically flips over for Prizes, and you can't buy Spoils, etc. But I really don't like what happens when YW is on the board--I once totally missed that King's Court was even in the game...

[GendoIkari]

Crossposted from here:

Man I'm already annoyed that things like Ruins are on a second page. Spoils, Prizes, Mercenary, and Madman I get, because they aren't in the supply, you can't buy them, and the pile being empty doesn't matter for game-end. But anything that you can actually buy, like Ruins, should most certainly be on the same page! And to hear that when Young Witch is out; only 10 of the 11 Kingdom cards are on the first page... that's just pure awfulness; that's a design and layout that flat-out doesn't work.

[werothegreat]

See, this, to me, is not a problem.  Whenever there is a second page, the next page button is there, and it instantly attracts my attention.  Now that I'm used to a 2nd page, I almost never forget about what's over there.

To me, the BIG UI issue is that I'm so trained to hit "play treasures" during my Buy phase, so that when my entire hand is Fool's Golds, I automatically hit "end turn" since that's the only button there.  I mean, honestly - would you ever have a reason not to play Fool's Gold?  At the very least, put in an iso-style "are you SURE you want to end your turn?" warning when you do something like that.

[pinkymadigan]

See, this, to me, is not a problem.  Whenever there is a second page, the next page button is there, and it instantly attracts my attention.  Now that I'm used to a 2nd page, I almost never forget about what's over there.

To me, the BIG UI issue is that I'm so trained to hit "play treasures" during my Buy phase, so that when my entire hand is Fool's Golds, I automatically hit "end turn" since that's the only button there.  I mean, honestly - would you ever have a reason not to play Fool's Gold?  At the very least, put in an iso-style "are you SURE you want to end your turn?" warning when you do something like that.

Certainly there are worse issues, but I don't see that as a reason to be complacent with a poor layout.

[Donald X.]

I don't need to see the Ruins pile, I just need to know if it's empty. If I want to look at it it's not hard, but it would be nice to show how many empty piles there are on the first page somewhere. That would do most of the time, and I can always check if I care, just how many are left or what's on top.

I don't see a great solution for Young Witch. For sure I want that 11th card on page one. You could move Curses to page two (again with an empty pile count somewhere) and put Young Witch or the Bane where the Curses were, although that would look weird. Young Witch could have the Bane under it, both without art in the space of one normal card. There's no room to the right if you have Platinum and Potion, and shrinking all of the normal cards isn't great.

[GendoIkari]

I don't need to see the Ruins pile, I just need to know if it's empty. If I want to look at it it's not hard, but it would be nice to show how many empty piles there are on the first page somewhere. That would do most of the time, and I can always check if I care, just how many are left or what's on top.

I don't see a great solution for Young Witch. For sure I want that 11th card on page one. You could move Curses to page two (again with an empty pile count somewhere) and put Young Witch or the Bane where the Curses were, although that would look weird. Young Witch could have the Bane under it, both without art in the space of one normal card. There's no room to the right if you have Platinum and Potion, and shrinking all of the normal cards isn't great.

I just don't even get why it's a question of "which 10 cards can we fit on the first page"? Why not simply put more cards on the first page? Someone here posted a screenshot he'd made in photoshop of a layout of the screen that had 3 rows of cards instead of 2... and it looked just fine. It even fit within the tiny screensize requirements that they were going for. Once again, speaking as a programmer, I can't quite understand the mindset that would lead to the decision to only put 10 of the 11 Kingdom cards where you can see them right away. It really isn't that hard to redesign it (or to have designed it in the first place!) to fit all the cards.

[Donald X.]

Why not simply put more cards on the first page?

The normal layout, with Platinum and Potion, takes up all of the space except a small band at the top. There's some space that sometimes looks empty, but other times has a text message, a lot of cards in play, a big hand, or your opponents in a multiplayer game. If you want to add more things, you have to give up some of what you've got - shrink stuff, cut stuff off. So I mean, they should put the 11th card on the first page, but "simply" isn't how I would describe it.

[Kirian]

Why not simply put more cards on the first page?

The normal layout, with Platinum and Potion, takes up all of the space except a small band at the top. There's some space that sometimes looks empty, but other times has a text message, a lot of cards in play, a big hand, or your opponents in a multiplayer game. If you want to add more things, you have to give up some of what you've got - shrink stuff, cut stuff off. So I mean, they should put the 11th card on the first page, but "simply" isn't how I would describe it.

Alas, the 11th card problem is something that all but necessitates a complete layout change, which is probably impossible at this point.

[GendoIkari]

Why not simply put more cards on the first page?

The normal layout, with Platinum and Potion, takes up all of the space except a small band at the top. There's some space that sometimes looks empty, but other times has a text message, a lot of cards in play, a big hand, or your opponents in a multiplayer game. If you want to add more things, you have to give up some of what you've got - shrink stuff, cut stuff off. So I mean, they should put the 11th card on the first page, but "simply" isn't how I would describe it.

Alas, the 11th card problem is something that all but necessitates a complete layout change, which is probably impossible at this point.

I just don't get a good feeling out of the short-sightedness that it takes to build a layout around 10 Kingdom Cards, 3 Victory Cards, 3 Treasure Cards, and Curse; when you know full well to begin with that sometimes there are more cards than that. It's not like Young Witch was announced after Goko implemented all this stuff. Same with Potion, Colony, etc. Maybe they didn't know about Ruins when they started this... but surely they knew it was possible that more piles would be added in the future. I've helped design and implement lots of web-based layouts, and you always have to ask yourself "how is this going to work when we need to add more content to the screen?"

[SirPeebles]

I really get the sense that they made the fundamental structure with nothing more than a casual understanding of the base set.

[Drab Emordnilap]

I bet an optional interface with less pretty card art would easily fit everything on one screen... 

[Kirian]

Why not simply put more cards on the first page?

The normal layout, with Platinum and Potion, takes up all of the space except a small band at the top. There's some space that sometimes looks empty, but other times has a text message, a lot of cards in play, a big hand, or your opponents in a multiplayer game. If you want to add more things, you have to give up some of what you've got - shrink stuff, cut stuff off. So I mean, they should put the 11th card on the first page, but "simply" isn't how I would describe it.

Alas, the 11th card problem is something that all but necessitates a complete layout change, which is probably impossible at this point.

I just don't get a good feeling out of the short-sightedness that it takes to build a layout around 10 Kingdom Cards, 3 Victory Cards, 3 Treasure Cards, and Curse; when you know full well to begin with that sometimes there are more cards than that. It's not like Young Witch was announced after Goko implemented all this stuff. Same with Potion, Colony, etc. Maybe they didn't know about Ruins when they started this... but surely they knew it was possible that more piles would be added in the future. I've helped design and implement lots of web-based layouts, and you always have to ask yourself "how is this going to work when we need to add more content to the screen?"

Yeah.  It was impressively short-sighted.  Alas, failing a complete redesign...

[blueblimp]

Why not simply put more cards on the first page?

The normal layout, with Platinum and Potion, takes up all of the space except a small band at the top. There's some space that sometimes looks empty, but other times has a text message, a lot of cards in play, a big hand, or your opponents in a multiplayer game. If you want to add more things, you have to give up some of what you've got - shrink stuff, cut stuff off. So I mean, they should put the 11th card on the first page, but "simply" isn't how I would describe it.

Alas, the 11th card problem is something that all but necessitates a complete layout change, which is probably impossible at this point.

I just don't get a good feeling out of the short-sightedness that it takes to build a layout around 10 Kingdom Cards, 3 Victory Cards, 3 Treasure Cards, and Curse; when you know full well to begin with that sometimes there are more cards than that. It's not like Young Witch was announced after Goko implemented all this stuff. Same with Potion, Colony, etc. Maybe they didn't know about Ruins when they started this... but surely they knew it was possible that more piles would be added in the future. I've helped design and implement lots of web-based layouts, and you always have to ask yourself "how is this going to work when we need to add more content to the screen?"

I agree.

IMO, this is partly a symptom of using the same interface for desktop and tablet. On a tablet, anything tappable needs to be at least a certain minimum size, or it will be super awkward to use. If there are a lot of piles and they all obey a minimum size, it might be impossible to fit them all on screen. So on a tablet, maybe multiple screens are necessary.

But it's unnecessary for the desktop interface to inherit the problems of the tablet interface. It's easier to click small icons with a mouse than to tap them with a finger, and there's more screen space available, even on a small-ish laptop.

[pinkymadigan]

Why not simply put more cards on the first page?

The normal layout, with Platinum and Potion, takes up all of the space except a small band at the top. There's some space that sometimes looks empty, but other times has a text message, a lot of cards in play, a big hand, or your opponents in a multiplayer game. If you want to add more things, you have to give up some of what you've got - shrink stuff, cut stuff off. So I mean, they should put the 11th card on the first page, but "simply" isn't how I would describe it.

Alas, the 11th card problem is something that all but necessitates a complete layout change, which is probably impossible at this point.

I just don't get a good feeling out of the short-sightedness that it takes to build a layout around 10 Kingdom Cards, 3 Victory Cards, 3 Treasure Cards, and Curse; when you know full well to begin with that sometimes there are more cards than that. It's not like Young Witch was announced after Goko implemented all this stuff. Same with Potion, Colony, etc. Maybe they didn't know about Ruins when they started this... but surely they knew it was possible that more piles would be added in the future. I've helped design and implement lots of web-based layouts, and you always have to ask yourself "how is this going to work when we need to add more content to the screen?"

Yeah.  It was impressively short-sighted.  Alas, failing a complete redesign...

I don't get this resignation. It's really easy to re-size 2D graphics and change placement of graphics in a 2D plane. I really fail to see any difficulty in adding in a small amount of shrinkage and adding a 6th kingdom column at the very least. I would do it dynamically if I were on the project, so the cards are bigger when it isn't necessary to have a 6th column.

A 6th column at least allows a Bane and Ruins to be on screen at the same time, which are the really important ones, as they count towards a 3 pile.

All we are talking about is 2D UI manipulation. It's incredibly simple. It's not like we're avoiding gimble lock by using quaternions to do 4 dimensional math in a 3 dimensional workspace transposed to a 2 dimensional surface. This is simple stuff that people solve every day.

[blueblimp]

It's really easy to re-size 2D graphics and change placement of graphics in a 2D plane.

Said like a programmer, not a UI designer. I'm sure it's not technical difficulty that's blocking interface redesign, but the lack of an acceptable design to change to. Keep in mind that it will need to work for tablets too, since Goko as a company ("Goko is games that go anywhere") have locked themselves into using the same interface for all platforms. Shrinking tappable regions is a big no-no on tablets.

[pinkymadigan]

It's really easy to re-size 2D graphics and change placement of graphics in a 2D plane.

Said like a programmer, not a UI designer. I'm sure it's not technical difficulty that's blocking interface redesign, but the lack of an acceptable design to change to. Keep in mind that it will need to work for tablets too, since Goko as a company ("Goko is games that go anywhere") have locked themselves into using the same interface for all platforms. Shrinking tappable regions is a big no-no on tablets.

Hey now, I did my share of UI work when I was finishing my Game and Simulation programming curriculum. Actually, considering I was one of the few people who understood what was going on, I did 3 or 4 people's share of UI work.

I guess my problem is the whole mentality of wanting to do something that will work on any platform. Build to your target, make sure that environment works properly, then think about the tweaks necessary to port to a new one. Call me old school, but I think I'd rather wait a while for each new platform then have the mess they are in now, where it functions well on some PCs and other users report spotty performance at best, and the best we've heard out of the tablet scene is 'yeah I can get through a game or two'.

I don't mean to keep dumping on Goko, I know I got a rep for being negative, but man, I like things that are done well, and it hasn't really hit my standard yet.

[LastFootnote]

It's really easy to re-size 2D graphics and change placement of graphics in a 2D plane.

Said like a programmer, not a UI designer. I'm sure it's not technical difficulty that's blocking interface redesign, but the lack of an acceptable design to change to. Keep in mind that it will need to work for tablets too, since Goko as a company ("Goko is games that go anywhere") have locked themselves into using the same interface for all platforms. Shrinking tappable regions is a big no-no on tablets.

Hey now, I did my share of UI work when I was finishing my Game and Simulation programming curriculum. Actually, considering I was one of the few people who understood what was going on, I did 3 or 4 people's share of UI work.

I guess my problem is the whole mentality of wanting to do something that will work on any platform. Build to your target, make sure that environment works properly, then think about the tweaks necessary to port to a new one. Call me old school, but I think I'd rather wait a while for each new platform then have the mess they are in now, where it functions well on some PCs and other users report spotty performance at best, and the best we've heard out of the tablet scene is 'yeah I can get through a game or two'.

I don't mean to keep dumping on Goko, I know I got a rep for being negative, but man, I like things that are done well, and it hasn't really hit my standard yet.

I agree with this, but I feel compelled to mention that Goko Dominion works great on my 4th gen iPad through Safari and I have yet to have it crash. I'm sure I've played at least 8 to 12 games in a row on it at some point. They've definitely made improvements. But as you say, they do have a ways to go before delivering a professional product.

[Kirian]

Yeah.  It was impressively short-sighted.  Alas, failing a complete redesign...

I don't get this resignation. It's really easy to re-size 2D graphics and change placement of graphics in a 2D plane. I really fail to see any difficulty in adding in a small amount of shrinkage and adding a 6th kingdom column at the very least. I would do it dynamically if I were on the project, so the cards are bigger when it isn't necessary to have a 6th column.

A 6th column at least allows a Bane and Ruins to be on screen at the same time, which are the really important ones, as they count towards a 3 pile.

All we are talking about is 2D UI manipulation. It's incredibly simple. It's not like we're avoiding gimble lock by using quaternions to do 4 dimensional math in a 3 dimensional workspace transposed to a 2 dimensional surface. This is simple stuff that people solve every day.

My resignation is to the fact that I don't trust Goko to figure out a lot of, as you say, simple stuff.  You're absolutely right that this should be a minor manipulation; it's certainly something I could do, although I'd want to redesign at least partly from scratch.  But of course all the graphics and animations would have to be redone.  And I just don't see them taking the time to redo them.  They have something that "works," and that's "good enough" for them.  They really don't seem to care whether it works well, or whether it's good enough for the players.

[pinkymadigan]

I agree with this, but I feel compelled to mention that Goko Dominion works great on my 4th gen iPad through Safari and I have yet to have it crash. I'm sure I've played at least 8 to 12 games in a row on it at some point. They've definitely made improvements. But as you say, they do have a ways to go before delivering a professional product.

That's good too hear, but I still see choppiness on a 2nd Gen iPad, and have failures after a few games. It seems like you have to really have a nice setup to get good performance, and I don't see it being a great casual experience if people have to have a nice system, mess with port settings, clear their cookies all the time, etc. just to get things to work. Every so often I feel like I would like to kill a few minutes around lunch at work, but for me to do so on Goko requires me remoting outside our firewall as my (very nice) development PC just does not play well with Goko due to their incompatibility with strong firewalls (infinite hang on login). I've got a twenty+ long email chain with JQS, who seemed to be genuinely interested in solving the problem initially (and I am happy that someone is, because no one else technically minded there has any public visibility as far as I can tell), but I think the problem is outside of his expertise as the last few emails ended up being a canned response - 'Thanks for the info, I'll look into it tonight'. -NOT THAT I'M DOGGING JQS. I'm absolutely sure he has bigger fish to fry.

Overall, it just continues to frustrate me and I do not see an end in sight.

Addendum; @Kirian (posted while I was typing):
They should be able to use the same graphics, resizing can be done on the fly in code.