Help us improve accessibility of our game Idle Crafting Kingdom

By Michelle, 17 March, 2017

Forum
iOS and iPadOS Gaming

Hi everyone,

I'm one of the developers of the game Crafting Kingdom.
We just released the game today and we would love to know what you think, especially in terms of the game's accessibility.

The game focuses a lot on crafting resources, producing goods and then selling them.
You start out small, chopping logs in your lumberyard. Eventually you will work your way up unlock new products, buy new buildings and production facilities which allow you to produce more valuable goods.
You can also build out your own estate, if you have the necessary construction materials.

The game is incremental, which means one of the gameplay mechanics is that you need to restart your progress every now and then to get ahead. You complete quests and earn bonuses like faster production and higher sale prices for your next restart.

The game is free. There are optional ads, but no in-app purchases. The ads are voluntary rewarded videos, which will give you a powerful boost for watching (for example double log production for 10 minutes).

You can find the game here:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/crafting-kingdom/id1190611967?ls=1&mt=8

We tried to make this game as accessible as possible, but know that there are probably plenty of things that could be better. We would really appreciate some feedback on what could be improved. Any feedback is welcome.

Please note: The game uses Unity and the Unity Accessibility Plugin (UAP), so not all VoiceOver gestures are supported.

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Comments

By brandon armstrong on Saturday, March 25, 2017 - 12:10

hi their, I tried to get started, and when I open the game, voiceover says crafting kingdom, main menu, but I can't swipe up or down, left or right to start the game. how do i start this game?

By brandon armstrong on Saturday, March 25, 2017 - 12:10

I would actually love to play this game, however, like I said in my previous post, I can't seem to get started past the main menu screen. Voiceover says main menu, but I cannot flick in any direction whatsoever to get started. There is no clear explanation on how to start this game. How do I start it? This is not to put you guys down, I am actually excited about this game, because this is one of the greatest companies that I've seen in a long time making Accessibility and putting effort into it. Thank you for reaching out to us, but I really do need to know how do I start this game if I cannot flick in any direction with voice over turned on? It will just say main menu, but flicking doesn't do anything.

By brandon armstrong on Saturday, March 25, 2017 - 12:10

OK, I went and read the way to turn on Accessibility mode in the App Store, I've tried it with tapping with three fingers in the main menu, and it doesn't seem to turn on. Do we double tap without voice over turned on, or do we do a triple tap? I've tried both methods, and it doesn't turn on.

By brandon armstrong on Saturday, March 25, 2017 - 12:10

I've tried these tapping methods with three fingers without voice over turned on as well as with it turned on. And it's still not turning accessibility mode on. So how exactly do we do this?

By alex wallis on Saturday, March 25, 2017 - 12:10

Hi Brandon, just a suggestion maybe you could consider editing your existing comments with new information as you get it as at the moment your putting up like 3 comments in a row which is a bit kind of spammy and there isn't anything we can do till we hear back from the developer anyway, I haven't had any luck either, if you edit your existing comment when nobody other than you has replied to it it also means less to read through smile.

By Michelle on Saturday, March 25, 2017 - 12:10

Hi everyone, I am beyond puzzled at the moment as to what went wrong.

A quick explanation: The accessibility mode should turn on by itself when VoiceOver is detected. You wouldn't have to use the three finger triple tap unless you turn if off by accident. The gesture is just there as a failsafe. If you can hear the text "main menu" being read, then it is in fact turned on.

A single swipe to the right should bring you to the play button (which is in the middle of the screen).
I just tested it again on an iPhone 5c and it worked as expected.

If this is not working, then it sounds like the app is not receiving any input at all.
Is there anything else you can tell me, any other screen readers you might have installed by chance?

Would you be willing to tell me on what devices and iOS version you are playing?
Can you hear anything when swiping? Maybe just the voice is failing - do you hear clicking sounds when swiping?

By Dalia on Saturday, March 25, 2017 - 12:10

I have just downloaded this, and things worked as described by Michelle on my iPhone 6 (although it did take a few attempts for the app to correctly respond to my double-tap on the Play button.

Thank you Michelle and your team for making this accessible.

By Christel john on Saturday, March 25, 2017 - 12:10

Its working for me.
Grate game

By Michelle on Saturday, March 25, 2017 - 12:10

Hi everybody and thank you for the feedback so far.
This seems to be an issue with VoiceOver. One tester has managed to turn VoiceOver off and start the app fresh, and then the swiping worked. However, this is obviously not an ideal workaround.
We're working on this issue, and would love any more information that those of you having issues could give us.

By Michael Charlton on Saturday, March 25, 2017 - 12:10

I look" forward to giving this game a try, but I have encountered 2 issues.

First, response in the main menu is very sluggish. There is about a 1.5 second or more delay between my swipes and actually moving focus.

Second, only left and right swipes are doing anything. no ammount of tapping of any type activates anything.

I am using a 64 GB iPhone 6 s+, running iOS 10.2.1.

By brandon armstrong on Saturday, March 25, 2017 - 12:10

In reply to by Michelle

It's definitely reading the main menu, but when I flick right and left I don't hear anything. No clicking no nothing. I'm playing on an iPhone 7, running iOS 10.2.1. Upon further exploration, I got to the play button OK, but I'm also experiencing the same leg that everybody else's. I can't even activate the play button. And my iPhone 7 is a 128 gig iPhone. It's definitely got a 1.5 second delay between the actual flick and actually moving. I also keeps hearing Accessibility enabled to disable it double tap with three fingers.

By Michelle on Saturday, March 25, 2017 - 12:10

Thank you all a ton for the feedback. Right now I am almost certain that the issue comes from something that's eating performance in the main menu. That's why swipes are sometimes not detected, and why double taps seem to not get detected at all.
We're working on it, but having a hard time, because (of course) all of our test devices run without problem.

By alex wallis on Saturday, March 25, 2017 - 12:10

for me I am running the game on a 7 s plus with the latest version of ios 10, I have found that VoiceOver reads the main menu title but once this happens nothing else is read by speech, if I try swiping in the lower half of the screen sometimes I get a click sound with nothing read, if I try swiping in the upper part of the screen near the top I get no click sounds or anything, I have tried quitting the app from the app switcher and reopening it with no luck.

By JTran2013 on Saturday, March 25, 2017 - 12:10

I'm playing the game on an iphone 6 Plus with IOS 10.2.1. I like it! Thank you for making your games accessible! Keep up the great work!

By Toonhead on Saturday, March 25, 2017 - 12:10

I just tried this as well, and it's almost as if the game's very presence locks up VoiceOver, so that you're unable to do much of anything. I was able to find the play button and the more games buttons with VoiceOver enabled but I can't even begin to tell you how I did it, it was purely on accident. The game launches and you hear the music playing, but you can't really do much of anything after that. The very best advice I can give Michelle is to enable VoiceOver on one of your test iPhones, mine is an iPhone 7 by the way, and then llaunch Crafting Kingdom. You will certainly hear Crafting Kingdom Main menu, and that's just about it. Exploring on the screen really doesn't help much, unfortunately. The one thing that struck me is that usually when an audio game or other app is loaded, it's very easy to turn VoiceOver off with 3 taps of the home button very quickly. When I tried that with the app open, nothing happened. It's almost as if the accessibility mode, or some other portion of the game's code is fighting with VoiceOver for control of the app, and unfortunately, we really can't do much, because it's impossible to turn VoiceOver off....I hope i'm making sense here. I really appreciate you guys trying to make the app usable to as many people as possible!

By brandon armstrong on Saturday, March 25, 2017 - 12:10

That's exactly what I am experiencing is well on my iPhone 7.

By JeffB on Saturday, March 25, 2017 - 12:10

This game is working great for me and I'm on my way to timber! You said you made this with Unity? If that's true there goes an excuse for unity games not being Voiceover friendly.

By Ornella on Saturday, March 25, 2017 - 12:10

I'm using an iphone 4s to play this game and its working good but a little sluggish but I'm changing my phone in a few weeks so that will change. My question is how do I collect the coins or stuff in the chest? I hear the jingle but I don't know where to tap and grab it before it goes away.

By Michelle on Saturday, March 25, 2017 - 12:10

When you hear a chest, it will either appear at the beginning or the end of the list of locations. Which means your best option to find it fast is to swipe right until the end of the list first. Then, if the chest isn't there, you can swipe up once, which will jump to the money and storage panel. Then swipe down once again to get back to the map. That will bring you to the beginning of the location list, where the chest then must be.

JeffB, yes, the game is made with Unity, but it is using a beta version of a plugin that adds accessibility to Unity games.
The plugin is still in beta, which is why the swipes and double taps aren't recognized as fluidly as in VoiceOver directly.

The sluggishness of the rest of the game doesn't seem to come from the plugin, there seems to be something else wrong. Accessibility is just affected by it as well.

By Toonhead on Saturday, March 25, 2017 - 12:10

I still haven't gotten past the main menu. I know this is probably confusing Michelle because some of us can use it and some of us still can't. I could find the play button, but couldn't double-tap on it to begin the game. For you folks who could start playing, you are either very lucky, or you know stuff I don't. I still can't get to the play button very easily, in fact I don't even know how I got to it the first time I tried. Sorry if this seems confusing to folks.

By Queenofeagles07 on Saturday, March 25, 2017 - 12:10

I'm using Iphone 5s. Should I download and try?

By Michelle on Saturday, March 25, 2017 - 12:10

Queenofeagles, yes please. I have a suspicion that only iPhone 6 and higher are affected. It would help if you could test it and let me know if it works for you.
If this is the case, it could be related to a new graphics library! This would be good news, because I think I can fix that.

By Yokose on Saturday, March 25, 2017 - 12:10

This is an awesome game! I am however experiencing the same lag issues. I am using an iPhone SE running iOS 10.2.1.

After reading the comments, I installed the game and restarted my phone just in case. There is lag time in every area... the Main and Options Menus as well as during game play, however the game is still playable if you're willing to go slowly. I think that if the lag time can be resolved... then that would make things perfect.

By Hubert on Saturday, March 25, 2017 - 12:10

Hi, This game is very good, I have managed to play it, however, I am experiencing the issues that all the users mentioned in the comments, your theory about iPhones 6 and above experiencing this could be true, as I am using an iPhone six, running the latest version of iOS 10.
However, the game is great, and if it's accessible as a 1.0 version, then I'm sure with people's input this will get better and better, big thumbs up for this game, you've done a great job, keep up the good work :)

By Ornella on Saturday, March 25, 2017 - 12:10

Thanks for telling me about the chest but the only real problem I had was in the options to turn off the music. I had a hard time finding it but eventually I did.

By JeffB on Saturday, March 25, 2017 - 12:10

Hi I am using an iPhone 6S and this game works well.

By Ornella on Saturday, March 25, 2017 - 12:10

I was able to get to it once but I could understand why I'm not getting to it all the time. because there's a big lag in the game, the time runs out and by the time I try to grab it, its gone.

By Toonhead on Saturday, March 25, 2017 - 12:10

I'm using an iPhone 7 32 gig with iOS 10.2.1. The screen is extremely unresponsive, I could find the play button once but couldn't actually double-tap it. hope that helps.

By Michelle on Saturday, March 25, 2017 - 12:10

I just found a bug that made the button for adding a production slot invisible! Which means, players using VoiceOver would be stuck with just one production slot. This will be fixed with the next update!

By Ornella on Saturday, March 25, 2017 - 12:10

How far does the storage space go for the lumber yard? Is it unlimited? or does it stop at a certain number?

By Michelle on Saturday, March 25, 2017 - 12:10

Hi Ornella, you have one storage and all products from all your production facilities end up there.
At the beginning of the game, you have room for 100 items in your storage. However, you can expand your storage in the city. If you decide to build out your home estate, you will also get an additional storage bonus, which is permanent. Meaning, if you restart the game after you've done construction, you already start with more storage space in the next reset.

By JeffB on Saturday, March 25, 2017 - 12:10

Any chance we could get different sounds based off the perduction being done? Like maybe more animal like sounds for the farm, mettle sounds for the blacksmith and so on? Just a thought loving the game!

By Ornella on Saturday, March 25, 2017 - 12:10

Thanks. I think I may have to reinstall the game because every time I go to the estate I can't do anything. Voiceover did read stuff when I first started but I keep going there and its just silent and doesn't read anything.

By Michelle on Saturday, March 25, 2017 - 12:10

Hi Ornella,
you won't need to reinstall, it seems there is a bug in the estate that is related to popup windows. When a popup window opens with a hint, then the screen beneath it isn't properly accessible after it closes. If you go back to the world map and then reenter the estate, it should work fine, because the popup won't open again. This will be fixed with the next update or course, and thank you for reporting it.

By Michelle on Saturday, March 25, 2017 - 12:10

Are there any players here with an iPhone 7 that have encounter the main menu issue that makes the game unplayable who would be willing to help me find the bug? I would love for you to join the Testflight group, so I have a chance to verify that this is fixed.

By Toonhead on Saturday, March 25, 2017 - 12:10

I'm still one of those folks who haven't been able to hit the play button to even get started, i'm still completely stuck on the main menu. I don't really want to give out my email address here...is there a way to write to you privately? If so count me in. I've helped to beta test other apps so i'll do whatever I can. I'll sure try.

Hi! I've been playing this game on my 6S all afternoon, and I've got lag issues like everyone else, but they're dealble with, also voiceover does have a tendency to jump about some, which gets annoying at times, but what was really making me tear my hair was the fact that I only have one production slot and can't find a way to get anymore! So I keep having to change from logs to timber, timber to logs, and I will want to unlock ladder soon, and I do not want to think about what that's going to do to my production times if I only have one slot to work with! I hope that update doesn't take too long or they're going to find a gibbering wreck instead of me in here when it comes out!

Seriously, I can't tell you how pleased I am to finally have a game which contains quests and crafting, buying and selling but no killing! no fighting! At! Last! I feel like someone has listened to me and those like me, finally finally. Yes, we want some interesting games too, and not card games, word games, puzzle games, hello? This game is it!

By Michelle on Saturday, March 25, 2017 - 12:10

In reply to by brandon armstrong

Thank you Brandon, I'll add you to Testflight - you can remove your email from your post if you don't want it to show here publicly. I already copied it.

By Ornella on Saturday, March 25, 2017 - 12:10

I still had to reinstall the game because nothing I did could've gotten me out of the estate. The lag is making my hand hurt bad but this game is worth it. Because when I swipe either left or write, the lag is making me push more force on my finger to get to where I want to go and that's why I hardly get to the treasure chest. And I'm happy for a game like this. Too much monsters and fighting games are out there.

By Michelle on Saturday, March 25, 2017 - 12:10

The swiping detection definitely needs improvement, I know. Currently it requires a very determined swipe, a slower and a longer than VoiceOver requires. I had to reimplement the swipe detection from ground up, and the result isn't as great as the native detection.
I will go back and work on this next week, once I got the general lag issue under control.

By Karen on Saturday, March 25, 2017 - 12:10

Hi,
I love this game I have played it with no problems. I am using the iPhone 6S. However, I confirmed my quests, selling 1000 logs and having 50.000 gold. Sadly, when I went back to the game after re-starting it, I have not been able to play at all. I am having the same issues as other users, the play button not working. I did get back into the game but when I wanted to sell my logs, there was no option in the city whereas there was the first time I played.
I hope this makes sense.
Thank you so very much for taking the trouble and time to make this game accessible.

By Ornella on Saturday, March 25, 2017 - 12:10

Close the game from the ap switcher and then restar it. I wasn't able to sell logs after restarting the game so I closed it out and I was able to after.

By Lulu Hartgen on Saturday, March 25, 2017 - 12:10

Hey all. Well, here are a few thoughts, for what they're worth, after the best part of a day's play! Don't do anything by halves, do I!

First, two things that bite, one is fixable, one's just part of the game. One production slot per property gets worse as it goes on! Button, button, who's got that button! I want it! I know, developers have lives too and I'm not being impatient, but that's my main ouch!

The other thing that really got to me was claiming my quest rewards and having to reset my game progress to do it! I mean ouch! Suddenly no property, no storage space that I worked my butt off to buy, no nice healthy bank balance, just the rewards and permanent bonuses I'd earned, and compared to what I lost, those seemed negligible. The next reset I do is going to be worse, because to get my next estate expansion I'm going to need at least six hundred storage. Which I will mostly lose and have to buy again. Storage gets progressively more expensive, and until we get the next update it's hard graft earning money to get it. Hmmm. That's gaming life I guess.

One thought did occur to me. I saw suggestions about more sounds. This app is a hundred megs already, and I'm happy with the sounds it has, but I would like to see one sound addition. An alarm, something non intrusive, to tell us when automation has run out. It would just need to go off once, but to hear a sound when automations stop would be helpful to me, I don't know what anyone else thinks. Excuse the long comment. I'm done.

By Ornella on Saturday, March 25, 2017 - 12:10

I agree about the alarm through. Itwould be nice to know when the timer is done. I still have 5000 logs to sell. I'm trying to buy bigger storage space.

By Michelle on Saturday, March 25, 2017 - 12:10

That is a pretty great idea, I added it to my list of improvements. Thanks for that.

I admire how tenaciously you play, even though the game is incredibly hard with just one production slot. By the way, the bouncing focus cursor is actually due to the same issue that is causing several players to be unable to play the game. Once I get that fixed once and for all, it should disappear.

By JTran2013 on Saturday, March 25, 2017 - 12:10

Hi,
Is there an easier way to exit a video after I finished watching it? I find Voice Over says l on the x icon to exit it while other videos Voice Over doesn't say anything. There are some videos where BO doesn't see the exit icon and I've to turn off VO and I don't have enough to see the x icon to exit a video.
Thanks,
JoAnn

By Ornella on Saturday, March 25, 2017 - 12:10

When the video is done, tap on download. When it goes to the ap store, tap on cancel then close the game from the ap switcher and reopen and your reward will be there.