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 burak on Saturday, November 25, 2017 - 16:24

Hello,
There seems to be an issue where when you force close the app ladder production stops. I don't know if this happens with other stuff requiring multiple materials.

By Jennie A Facer on Saturday, November 25, 2017 - 16:24

I’m not sure if this is the place to give my feedback, but I thought I would do it here just in case anyone else had ideas or suggestions to go along with my feedback. All went well setting it up. I redeemed the code with my phone and then downloaded it to my iPad also. I had to go into game center settings and turn log in on. I had to turn it off and back on in my iPad once Crafting Kingdom game was open in order to get the cloud save to work properly.

The next thing i notice is that when I save the game to the cloud with my iPad and reload it with my phone, the music starts playing. It does this consistently.

Other than that issue, the cloud save has worked for me running an iPhone 8+ and an iPad pro 10.5 inch. I am also running the beta of iOS just in case you needed to know.

By Jimmy V on Saturday, November 25, 2017 - 16:24

Keep up the great work. One of my fav Iphone games!

By Jennie A Facer on Saturday, November 25, 2017 - 16:24

When I load games from the cloud, my princess gift restarts at 21:59 minutes. It happened no matter which device I use.

The boosts have gone from 15 minutes to 35 minutes for no reason. I am grateful for the pickup but thought you may want to know. My phone gameo only had 15 minutes and my iPad game had 20 minutes before I started the beta.

By Michelle on Saturday, November 25, 2017 - 16:24

Hi everybody,
I just uploaded a new beta and every tester should be getting a notification on Testflight soon.
Sorry this took so long, there were some technical difficulties. We updated to a newer version of Unity at work and as we found out, iOS builds were broken.
I installed an alpha version from Unity on my own machine to be able to update the game.

In this new version, the numbers speaking as single digits bugs should finally be gone. If you find any that I missed, please let me know!
Also, the storage prices got reduced quite drastically. The prices for storage expansions are getting much too large much to quickly, so the game felt a little too hard because of that. With this new version, the storage prices for the late game are about half of what they used to be.

I haven't added any new beta testers in about a week or two, because I wasn't sure when we'd be able to update the iOS build. If anybody is interested in becoming a tester and hasn't received an invitation yet, please let me know.

The current beta will run for about a week, and then I will put the build live. Most features have already been tested, but any feedback is welcome, of course!

By Wren on Saturday, November 25, 2017 - 16:24

In reply to by Michelle

Hello Michelle,
Will you please add me to the test flight list for a beta tester. I am very anxious to try the beta and I want to thank you for a great game.
God bless,
Wren Langley

By alex wallis on Saturday, November 25, 2017 - 16:24

Hi michelle, I am wondering is there any way you can look into allowing crafting kingdom to support the 4 finger swipe right or left VoiceOver gesture that normally switches between open apps?
surely this is possible given that it supports other VoiceOver gestures like double tap, flick up, down left and right etc.
I am using an iPhone x, and because of apples decision to get rid of the home button which I guess is good for sighted users but does make navigation slower for blind users in my view its a real pain when wanting to switch to other apps then go back to crafting kingdom because of the fairly precise swiping that is involved just to bring up the app switcher. Over all I do see the x as being a step backward for blind users of apple products with the combination of face ID and the removal of the home button. If the 4 finger swipe gesture could be supported this would at least help in the case of crafting kingdom though over all I would still not recommend the x to blind users just because of usability being slower. I didn't go for the 8 line of phones as lets face it they are really second class when compared to apples x, plus I wanted the better camera, but if the 8 and 8 plus had had the same camera as the x I would have gone for one of those instead.

By Michelle on Saturday, November 25, 2017 - 16:24

Hi Alex,
that's a very good point. I don't understand why Apple is so intent on removing every button and plug from their devices. The physical home button was a great advantage over most Android devices.

But to the point - I will look into supporting four finger side swipes. I can detect them no problem, but bringing up the App Switcher from Unity might be the tricky part.

Could you do me a favor and check out whether swiping up with four fingers will bring up the app switcher? You will likely have to make a long swipe all the way to the top edge. That brings up the app switcher for me on my iPad. I don't know if this is an iPad only feature, though.

By alex wallis on Saturday, November 25, 2017 - 16:24

Hi michelle, as to the buttons I can understand apples point with say making the home button solid state on the 7 plus and 8 lines of phones because its less ware and tare with a solid button, in fact I am surprised they haven't made the volume buttons and mute switch solid state as well but doubtless that's in the works and they don't want to start a revolution, but total removal of the home button is a bad idea let alone removal of touch ID.
anyway now to the point of this message, the 4 finger swipe gesture doesn't actually bring up the app switcher, instead the 4 finger swipe gesture directly moves you through your open apps, think of it like arrowing through a menu or alt tabbing on the pc, unfortunately 4 finger swipe doesn't work from the home screen which is annoying but that's apples shortcoming nothing you can do about it.
also, another long standing bug is the fact that crafting kingdom can't be opened with braille screen input from the home screen, it would be great if this could be sorted at some point though I know other things such as this 4 finger swipe are more important.
so the way the 4 finger swipe gesture should work is if I am in portrait mode I 4 finger swipe right or left and it moves me instantly between my apps, I don't know what happens to the 4 finger swipe gesture in landscape I assume it changes accordingly, 4 finger swiping up and down vertically isn't a valid VoiceOver gesture I don't think.

I don't see the lack of a home button to be a problem. It works even better to use the new gesture on the iPhone X. Now, About the four finger gesture to go from app to app, yes, we need it. But, as far as thinking that the lack of a home button is a step back for blind people to be able to use their phones, not at all. It is even better. The same goes for Face ID. I am totally blind and I am able to use it without any problems.

Although I upgraded to the iPhone 8 plus due to the cost of the 10, I hear from those who do not have the 10 that it is more cumbersome and difficult to use. Then again, I hear from the users of the iPhone 10 that it is better. I would tend to believe those who know from firsthand experience. Back to topic, I will have to start all over from scratch, because I traded my iPhone 7 plus in toward the cost of the 8 Plus. I guess that's known as replay value? I do hope that the storage in the cloud works well on the update that we will be getting, because I really don't want to lose my building again.

By alex wallis on Saturday, November 25, 2017 - 16:24

we don't want this thread to degenerate into a discussion of the merits of various iPhones, there are dedicated iPhone threads and blog entries for this, at the end of the day its a matter of personal opinion, and for me personally I find sliding up to go home or open the app switcher much slower than just pushing a home button, and with face ID again I have to hold the phone at arms length from my face so its a question of getting the distance right, where as just resting my finger on the home button was much quicker to do things with touch ID. Plus face ID makes us much more conspicuous as blind users. so yes the x is perfectly usable, but its a case of usability vs efficiency and productivity all of which I think have been impacted by apples changes on the x.
certainly because of these changes though the 4 finger swipe gesture is certainly needed to move between crafting kingdom and other apps, if it can be supported I might never need to go home or open the app switcher again. Hopefully its just a case of crafting kingdom detecting the swipe and VoiceOver then responding accordingly.

By alex wallis on Saturday, November 25, 2017 - 16:24

Hi, I have a suggestion for new boost line quests. This is win a reward of a 10 or 20 second cancellation time for boosts so say you accidentally tap the wrong boost which I often do you then have a small window in which you can tap a boost to cancel it and allow you to select to use a different boost.
you could of course have selling quests to allow for extending the window of time you have to cancel using a boost.

another quest idea I just had is ones for buttons that will allow you to restart boosts without having to wait for them to run out, so for example if you were using master of stones and had 3 minutes left to run the restart button would let you reset the boost time back to the beginning.

I now would actually really like to see a way of shutting down production areas, I finding particularly with large quests my storage can get clogged up if I am making resources especially with how long automations run for.

Good on ya, Alex, for coming up with some excellent suggestions! I back all of them whole-heartedly, as they would definitely improve things for me. I also sometimes hit the wrong boost, and I admit I would also like to be able to restart boosts before they run out, like we can already do with automations. Stopping production of an item we've sold enough of, regardless of where it is, to complete a quest or whatever, would also be useful: at the moment we can only do that within the same property, such as changing production slots from stone to iron ore in the quarry because we've produced and sold enough stone and need iron ore instead, but there's no means of stopping production otherwise unless we wait for automations to run out, which takes longer and longer as we progress through the game. If these suggestions can be added to future versions of Crafting Kingdom, that'd be great, but the absence of such improvements won't spoil the game, I still love it.

Maybe you guys just need to pay attention to what boost you wish to choose. Frankly, I have never hit the wrong boost.

By Clare Page on Saturday, November 25, 2017 - 16:24

In reply to by DrummerGuy

I am usually pretty careful what boosts I choose, but sometimes my finger can slip and accidentally double-tap in the wrong place, and it seems i'm not the only one. We all make mistakes sometimes, even little ones like that! (Smile).

By DrummerGuy on Saturday, November 25, 2017 - 16:24

In reply to by Clare Page

If I was to hit the wrong boost, nothing happens. I don't win, I don't lose. It is just a game. At least, I don't take it seriously. Nothing bad happens if I hit the wrong boost. I am just thankful that we have a really good game and that we all can enjoy it. Have a great day. God bless you.

By alex wallis on Saturday, November 25, 2017 - 16:24

Hi, I really don't see why your opposed to my suggestions, would implementing them really impact you in a negative way, if they were introduced as features, guess what you don't have to use them. also its a bit arrogant of you to say I have never activated a wrong boost therefor I don't like your suggestions. also in regards to boosts sometimes I accidentally tap the wrong ones, but other times VoiceOver can lag and wrongly interpret a swipe as a tap and activate a boost, or I go to tap on the right one and my cursor jumps to the wrong one.

By DrummerGuy on Saturday, November 25, 2017 - 16:24

In reply to by alex wallis

First of all, Alex, I never implied liking or disliking your suggestions. I merely stated that it does not affect me in a good or bad way whether I should or not press or choose the wrong boost. After all, this is only a game and nothing happens if I get the wrong boost. There are far more serious things to worry about in life and, believe me, it's not a boost in a game. As far as seeming arrogant to you when I said that, until now, I have not gotten the wrong boost, I am very sorry for having given you that impression. I only suggested that maybe you should be a little more careful when choosing a boost to avoid hitting the wrong one. In the end, Alex, just in the same manner In which you have expressed your valuable opinion, I, Too, have done exactly the same. It is perfectly OK to have different opinions. That is all. Peace.

By alex wallis on Saturday, November 25, 2017 - 16:24

of course there are more serious things than games to worry about, however anything that makes them more fun and easier to use is welcome, sure nothing particularly bad happens if I choose the wrong boost, but it is frustrating in the context of game play and of course everyone is entitled to express an opinion I never said they weren't. and for me accidents do happen especially when VoiceOver is being funny in the game.

I think that Alex has a good suggestion. As has been stated, you don't have to use it, and if there is a way to correct an error in tapping, so much the better. Curious, though, if you were to tap the wrong boost, and you close the game and reopen it, would your incorrect tap still be selected, or could this be a solution to correcting errors?

By alex wallis on Saturday, November 25, 2017 - 16:24

No if you close the game totally boosts still stay on, as if they didn't that would probably be a way of cheating that people would abuse.

Yes. That is exactly what would happen if you could restart boosts.
Charles,
By the way, there is no hostility here. Please do not take a different opinion as a hostile attitude. We are all free to express different ideas. Isn't that the purpose of this community besides helping each other?
Peace.

By alex wallis on Saturday, November 25, 2017 - 16:24

I disagree my suggestion of having a time limit for canceling boosts after starting means there would be no cheating. as to restarting boosts before they expire at the moment as it currently stands you can restart them as soon as they expire, so having the ability to restart them early wouldn't mean cheating at all, my restart suggestion is that you could restart your currently selected boost before it expires not select a different one, it would work in exactly the same way as automations. and with cancelling a boost I am suggesting maybe a 10 or 20 second window to cancel a boost after freshly starting it, which could be extended by seconds with quests. Besides if people choose to cheat they are not harming anyone only spoiling there own enjoyment, its not like there are publicly submitted scores or anything or leader boards that can be rigged.

For some reason I had the impression that you were suggesting to be able to stop a boost to select a different one. Please receive my apologies. I misunderstood your suggestion.
Peas.

By alex wallis on Saturday, November 25, 2017 - 16:24

Hi apple fan, I am making two different suggestions.
1. if I select a boost due to slip of the finger or VoiceOver getting a swipe wrong and thinking its a tap a short very short seconds length window in which a boost selection can be cancelled and a different one selected this time for cancelling could be extended with quests but not by two much I don't mean like minutes or hours.
2. my second suggestion is a restart boost option which would allow for restarting of a currently selected boost at any time like you can with automations.
and of course shutting down production areas would be nice and would make for another possible quest line.

I like suggestions two and three. I think there would be good. For number one, how about a question asking if you are sure you're selecting the correct boost or something like that. Or even maybe a warning saying the boost will start in 10 seconds in order to give you time to cancel it or simply let it continue.

By Hubert on Saturday, November 25, 2017 - 16:24

Hi,
A quick suggestion here, I was thinking if it would be possible to implement some sort of a notification system that tells you when your automations are complete?
For example, when you're playing the game, voiceOver tells you when one of the boosts has expired, now, would it be possible to do the same when the last automation slot out of all the slots that are being automated has finished, I understand that if you have lots of production slots, being told automation has ran out for every single slot could be annoying, which is why I'm suggesting for VoiceOver to only tell you when the last automation out of all automations that you have running, has finished.
Also, I noticed that I get a push notification from the game to come back and restart my production, an hour after the automations are finished, would it be possible to change the way the notification works, and for you to get a notifications as soon as the last of your automations is complete?
Hopefully the suggestions make sense, I'd be happy to clarify anything that I might not have made clear.

It's all good, bro. It is true that screen readers can make us interpret things in many ways. Part of being a member of this great community is the fact that we can all express our opinions respectfully and in a proper manner. When there is a misunderstanding, the right thing is to clarify it. We all learn from each other and we all help each other. That is one of the many purposes of this wonderful community. Happy and proud to be here. Take care.
Best regards.

By alex wallis on Saturday, November 25, 2017 - 16:24

I don't like either suggestion for boosts, either a countdown or a question asking to confirm if you made the right selection, I would find a question every time I used a boost intrusive same with a countdown but that's just my view.

By DrummerGuy on Saturday, November 25, 2017 - 16:24

In reply to by alex wallis

To be honest with you, I don't like them, either. I was just trying to contribute with different ideas. The truth is that I would not change anything about the boosts right now. I preferred them the way they are. If I start the wrong boost, too bad for me. LOL. Take care and have a great day.

By Michelle on Saturday, November 25, 2017 - 16:24

Hi everyone,
I think the idea of adding a simple button to cancel a boost again is a good idea.
In the earlier versions of the game that was impossible, because it would have allowed cheating. The Bag of Gold boost worked different back then, and gave you all the gold at once. But now it gives you gold over time, so by canceling it, you'd gain nothing.

Adding a cancelation button also would allow to restart a boost early - you'd just cancel it and select it again.

Lastly, it would make some boosts a lot more useful, such as the boosts that make selling and buying cheaper, which are only useful for a short period of time.

I can't think of anything negative about it, unless I'm mistaken. I'll keep this on the list for the next update.

Sorry I haven't added anyone new to the beta yet by the way. I'm currently on vacation and will be back in the office next week.

By Michelle on Saturday, November 25, 2017 - 16:24

Hubert,
I like the idea of adding a notification if all automations in a location have run out. This would be a notification that would only trigger while you are actively inside the game. I've got a few of those on my list of ideas.

The local notifications that trigger while you are not in the game only trigger with a delay, that's correct. Or to be exact, there is a minimum wait time between leaving the game and the first notification popping up. I don't want the game to be annoying, so I set a minimum wait time of an hour. Even if your automations run out earlier.

By alex wallis on Saturday, November 25, 2017 - 16:24

Hi michelle, that's really great you came on here even on your vacation, I must admit I hadn't thought of the possibility of canceling boosts also being useful for when reducing cost of stuff etc, that's a great point as particularly when production slots get expensive you can usually buy one or two then that's it till you raise enough money for more.
what do you think about the idea of canceling production of items? I have firmly moved into the camp of think this would be a good idea, as for example last night when I went to sleep I had about 2 hours to run on producing stuff to make food but I completed that quest and would have far rather shut that down in favor of the quarry.
I still think you could make the cancel boost button a quest maybe, and also the ability to shut down production areas.
I also sent you an email last week about rather serious issues on the iPhone x where navigation cues in ios don't work properly when leaving crafting kingdom and going back to the home screen, and also the app switcher not being able to be opened with a long swipe, hope you got that message.

By Sabrina on Saturday, November 25, 2017 - 16:24

I would like to have the feature to canceling boosts in cas you do not maybe need it for a horter time. This would be awesome.

By MikeFont on Monday, December 25, 2017 - 16:24

Hi all, I've been playing this excellent game since the beginning, and I've gotten my friend into it as well. Problem is, one, he doesn't know how much the purchase price is to take away the video boost method, nor can he find where a button might be to upgrade to the full version so to speak.
I know its been quite a while since my wife and I upgraded so I surely can't remember how that worked out. lol Thanks for help with firstly the price of upgrade, and how to do it. :)

By Michelle on Monday, December 25, 2017 - 16:24

Hi MikeFont,

removing the video ads from the game and get the boosts for free costs $4.99. This might be different outside of the US, because the AppStore takes care of currency conversions and local taxes etc.
To make the purchase, you go into the Castle, select one of the boost buttons and choose a boost. That will open a dialog offering you to watch a video ad in return for the boost. Further down inside that same dialog window is the option to buy the ad free version, just keep swiping.
You will need to have an internet connection when you make the purchase.

Once you're ad-free, that dialog window will not come up again. Choosing a boost will just instantly activate it.

By alex wallis on Monday, December 25, 2017 - 16:24

Hi Michelle, just posting hear so that everyone can contribute to this topic if they want to. I sent you two messages about incredibly bad performance of VoiceOver in the quarry when I have loads of slots and they are running to produce stuff. I have now got 76 slots in my quarry and I have found that if I go into it with VoiceOver running the screen almost freezes up entirely if I go in without VoiceOver running then the game performs better though not totally as good when I had fewer slots. If my storage is full and I go into the quarry with VoiceOver on the game seems more responsive. But it seems crazy I am experiencing this level of performance considering the iPhone x's specs. I have also found frequently with VoiceOver on and th quarry having these performance issues that a single swipe can often jump me multiple items with one flick so taking me to the wrong part of the screen. also, buttons to automate new slots or go back out of the quarry frequently don't respond once the performance issues start. now that I have so many slots in the quarry the VoiceOver performance is bad all the time in the quarry with production running restarting the game doesn't help. also I have found that navigational cues to do with vibration don't work properly when swiping to go to the home screen they don't trigger till I touch the screen after going home.
as a side note it would be great if I could flick down to go to the bottom of the screen with two fingers as I tell you its not fun swiping through 76 production slots just to add another. I have saved my game data to the cloud for you to look at and will save again before I reset which I expect to be maybe today or tomorrow then I will leave my cloud save up there till you have told me you have looked at it before saving another game. I am also routinely finding that since the terrible performance started in the quarry that while my slots are all producing I am literally unable to select a product to produce even when I am using the system voice, double tapping almost always fails to tick the product I want to produce, and even if it does tick the product automating a newly added slot doesn't respond. I have to wait till my storage is full, then I can go into a newly added slot and automate it.

By Jessica Brown on Monday, December 25, 2017 - 16:24

I am running the latest appstore version and when i have 50 or more slots in any buildings the buttons in that building don't respond and vo focus jumps all over the place. Turning vo off does not help. Still unresponsive buttons and jumping focus

By Jessica Brown on Monday, December 25, 2017 - 16:24

Once you unlock each slot being able to make more then one of a product it would be nice if we could pick how many products were made in each slot. For example i have 4 cole production in 1 slot and cole is made faster then furness products so my storage gets full of cole rather then what i am trying to sell. So it would be nice to be able to tell the slot to make 0 1 2 3 or 4 cole. Same with logs when making tools.

The way that I would control production is to decrease the number of slots that are producing those items that are more quickly produced. Example: Why have 20 slots producing logs when you only neer 4? The more slots that are producing an item, the more you will be overrun with them.

By Jessica Brown on Monday, December 25, 2017 - 16:24

When you have 1 slot making 4 logs every 1.5 seconds and tools take something like 30 seconds the number of blacksmith slots needed to use all the logs is crazy. Especially when you consider each slot gets more expensive and having a large number of slots makes the game have a temper tantrum.

By Clare Page on Monday, December 25, 2017 - 16:24

In reply to by Jessica Brown

I can sympathise with the performance problems you have with 76 slots in the quarry on your iPhone X, Alex, as I also have performance problems with only 30 slots on my iPhone 6. I'm lucky that Crafting Kingdom doesn't freeze up on me, but quite often, when I go into any property where I have 30 slots, focus can dance madly round the slots so that it is hard for me to restart all automations or check how much automation time I have left. I don't dare give myself more than 30 slots in any property these days, given this situation. It's true that the iPhone 6 is slower on IOS 11 than newer models, so my problems are probably not surprising, but with plenty of restarts of the app, of VoiceOver, and sometimes of the phone itself, I can continue my production, even if it takes longer than it could have done, due to me having to limit the number of slots in any of my properties to 30 at the most.

By alex wallis on Monday, December 25, 2017 - 16:24

glad to know I am not the only one experiencing these issues, I think they have been around since the very early days of the game but I think they really need addressing as a matter of urgency given the increasing length of quests and automation times. the performance issues are crazy, I don't know how crafting kingdom works from a coding point of view, but essentially when you think about it all crafting kingdom is is a series of timers running for different lengths of time they really shouldn't be causing this level of performance issues, and I don't think the game is even that graphical is it? my production issues are made worse on the x by the fact that there is no home button so in order to go home I have to swipe on the screen the very thing that becomes unresponsive in the game in the first place, really not fun.