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.

Options

Comments

By Bellsfurmama on Saturday, August 25, 2018 - 17:23

I was so excited to see the reroll option and rerolled for a new quest. It rerolled my 10,000 automations quest. I had only about 2,000 to go. But now it only gives me two or three quest options, no matter how many times I reroll. One of those options is the 10,000 automations quest which is now at 0. None of them are the gold or treasure chhest quests. I have not had one of these in at least a year. Can someone please help me? Is this a bug?

By Unregistered User (not verified) on Saturday, August 25, 2018 - 17:23

I love the fact that we can now re-roll quests because I can complete multiple quests that overlap at one time. I have a question about this feature, though. Is it only possible to re-roll the last quest listed In the castle, or is it possible to reroll and get a new quest after completing one quest? Sometimes I would like to pick up an additional quest without having to sacrifice one that I have already started doing, but since it is the last in the list, it doesn't appear that I can do that.
Oh, in the blacksmith property, could you place weapons before armor, since that one is cheaper?
Also, could you Give us the option to stop automations? I would suggest giving the option to close out the building entirely, but since we have the new option of re-rolling quests, I don't think that would work since we might pick up a quest and may need that building again, then we would just have to buy that building a second time if we didn't restart the game.

By Use Small Words on Saturday, August 25, 2018 - 17:23

hi guys. Regarding my last post, ignore the majority of it except for the compliments it wasn’t a bug I was just being dense. :-)

I’ve been reading comments made by other people and I agree with most of them. I also have a few suggestions that might be useful for the use of James.

It might be useful to be able to buy storage using gems as well as production slut and automations. At least that’s something I’d like to say.

Also regarding the video rewards, instead of having them turn up every 10 to 20 seconds , it might be A good idea for them to be available, say, once a day like the princess?

Anyway my thoughts are out there see you later

By Clare Page on Saturday, August 25, 2018 - 17:23

I have not yet tried rerolling quests since I found it in the castle: before i do, i want to be sure what it does. Do I guess right that it gives you another set of quests if you're not happy with the quests you currently have? If not, what does it do? Thanks in advance for any reply to my questions;

By Smiling Bookworm on Saturday, August 25, 2018 - 17:23

In reply to by Clare Page

Hi, there is a button to reroll a quest after each quest that will reroll that particular quest only. It does not reroll all your quest. Be carefull that you know which quest you are rerolling because I didn't one time and rerolled a quest I was almost finish doing.
Love this game and am really enjoying the new editions.

By Ornella on Saturday, August 25, 2018 - 17:23

How about after completing all the levels in the estate we get to decorate it. Maybe a few levels like if you want to put something in your kitchen like a fridge we do more of the expansions and get even more storage space using the construction materials what ever the requested amount will be.

By Unregistered User (not verified) on Saturday, August 25, 2018 - 17:23

I found the button to reroll each individual quest. Thanks.
By the way, if I complete a quest, and reroll for another one, will that quest be marked as completed, or will it just show up at another time when I restart the game to collect my rewards? Just want to be sure about this feature before I continue.

By Michelle on Saturday, August 25, 2018 - 17:23

Hi everybody, I'm currently reading through the feedback here as I'm preparing the next patch update. This patch is just a small bug fix update, nothing major.

In regards to gems: We've gotten some negative feedback about the gems, mostly in other forums. Here everybody seems surprisingly understanding.

Yes, we've added gems as a new form of currency - but were careful not to take away anything that was available without gems before. Mostly gems were just added as an additional way of purchasing something. As an example: You can now buy locations and automations etc for gems as well, but the regular gold purchase still exists. Players who played the game before this patch did not lose any functionality with the update, just gain more options.

Those players that didn't purchase the ad-free boosts before used to have to watch one video per boost. Now you boost for gems, but you get gems for free in treasure chests, from the princess and from completing quests. And when you watch an ad and then take the double up offer, you get three gems for two ads.
This means players actually have to watch less ads than before to get the boosts.

By Use Small Words on Saturday, August 25, 2018 - 17:23

while we’re on the subject, I am unable to buy production slots with gems. Am I supposed to be able to?

By Unregistered User (not verified) on Saturday, August 25, 2018 - 17:23

I love all the additions to crafting kingdom, and I think that the gem feature is really great. For one thing, it allows completing the boost quests so much easier, saves time in purchasing buildings and it really helps out when I need to automate a slot.
Consider what I said in my previous comment, though. Maybe try to give us the option to exchange gold coin's for gems, Providing more gems after watching the videos, in the treasure chest and collecting from the princess. Just increase the overall amount of gems after Completing a task. I'm not sure if this would defeat the idea of using gems for boosts, but maybe you could implement a feature similar to the back of gold, but give us gems instead, call it a gem quest.
Really though, some people just take time to get used to new features. Love the game and keep up the great work.

By Ornella on Saturday, August 25, 2018 - 17:23

I don't understand why people would get upset about gems since it makes the game much more efficient and easier. The only problem is that there's no back button when you go in to a building that hasn't been purchased. The only way to get out of it is to close the app and reopen it. Other than that the game works good. This might be a bug or a mistake but since the clothes cost more than the food could it be switched around like to put the food after fabric since it costs 5 million and then the clothes?

By Paul Martin on Saturday, August 25, 2018 - 17:23

After not being able to play this for 3 weeks owing to the constant crashes in the "offline mode", I suppose you can say I'm getting back into the swing of it. After not having an internet connection at all during that time, I just came back home to find the update available in the store. For the most part, I'd have to say I much welcome the new version, but aside from hoping and praying I don't have another "Crashing Kingdom" in 2 weeks when I would as some would say fall off the grid,, there are a few things I'm both curious about and would like to suggest.
First, I'd have to mention a couple cancellations if you will. I can confirm the only way to exit a property's section is to have bought it or closed the game completely through the switcher. Though not the most ideal thing to do, exiting out of the crafting kingdom game with the switcher far beats having to purchase a property you didn't mean to tap on when something such as a treasure chest throws off your aim so to speak. Another cancelation I'd like to mention is the newly implemented option to terminate a boost before time runs out. The function itself works just fine, but my concern is instead this mechanism being used to get a certain quest line done much quicker without actually even really using a boost at all, and yes this is certainly affected by the add free boost purchase. Imagine the following series of events to quickly "use" 5000 boosts; select boost, cancel in 10 seconds, repeat…
Next, I must say the gems could be a gem! I did find myself accidentally using some to build up building when I had over 800 million, but that was just user error. I'll be more careful next time, promise! What's more curious to me is that gems are device specific. Though I can easily see why it was done like this, it does make for some "cloudy" methods of obtaining them.
Finally, I decided to go on a bit of a rerolling quest if you will. I'm pleased to confirm that indeed all progress on a quest you elect to ditch at the cost of gems is lost, even the completed ones! Having it otherwise would surely go against the vary nature of the game; starting from the beginning once in a while, getting to the top a little quicker each successful tap of that reset button.

By Ali Colak on Saturday, August 25, 2018 - 17:23

Do gems disappear with everything else we've accumulated when we restart the game, or do they stay?

By Kimbowen on Saturday, August 25, 2018 - 17:23

Never mind what I said about skipping videos, my boyfriend showed me how to use the feature, and I really like it now. However, for some reason, the videos don’t play immediately and I have to keep flicking between the two buttons without the use of voiceover and pressing each one to try to get the videos to play. Strangely enough, voiceover disappears after double tapping on the OK button to start playing a video. Is this an iPhone X bug because my boyfriend can play the videos every time he presses the OK button when a video appears. Also, I love the idea of a bag of gems quest, although boost makes more sense to me.

By Michelle on Saturday, August 25, 2018 - 17:23

Hi everybody,
I just wanted to quickly let you know that the back button in the buy location window and the falsely labeled buttons in the shop have been fixed. A new update is in review.

I made a note to add two extra labels to the window that let's you extend your storage, which will contain your current storage and your current money. This won't be in this update, because that's already in review. But I'm planning to add that for the next patch.

By Use Small Words on Saturday, August 25, 2018 - 17:23

this is always seemed rather confusing to me. I understand the challenge in making the right amount of money to unlock products that’s not the issue I am having. I find it odd that you have to unlock products that you might not be using for example if I need to sell 1000 iron or I need to unlock stone before unlocking iron which wastes my money I know that I get it back but I still find it a bit, for lack of a better word, annoying.

By Sabrina on Saturday, August 25, 2018 - 17:23

Okay, for the lasgt two minutes my VO has been talking without interuption. Here is what it says,.
Video reward available. video reward ran out. video reward available. video reward ran out. Video reward available. video reward ran out...
For two minutes. Is that a bug? It doesn't look like my phone wants to make up it's mind. It was a bit amusing to start with.

By Wren on Saturday, August 25, 2018 - 17:23

I download did and reinstalled TestFlight and I still cannot get the latest update of the beta. Mine ends with 09 but there is a 10. Can someone please help. Thank you. I love the new beta and I’m so grateful for it. The germs are wonderful.

By Clare Page on Saturday, August 25, 2018 - 17:23

In reply to by Sabrina

Even though hearing VoiceOver keep saying "Video reward available" and "Video reward ran out" doesn't annoy me, I can understand why it should annoy others. I'm not saying video rewards should be taken away, they can be useful to get extra gems, but maybe those video rewards should be a bit less frequent. Someone said a bit earlier in this thread that maybe the video rewards should come once a day like the princess's gift, but I suggest every hour or two, so that we are not bombarded with being told that video rewards are available or have run out, but we still get several chances to get gems from these rewards throughout the day if we want to. Having video rewards definitely isn't a bug, it's a new feature, but, as toggling them on and off isn't an option, not having quite so many is less likely to annoy people. Just a suggestion, of course, it's not for me to make the final decision what should change in Crafting Kingdom!

By Ray Rucker on Saturday, August 25, 2018 - 17:23

I would love to be a beta tester for this game. Can you add me?

By mojsior on Saturday, August 25, 2018 - 17:23

Hi.
I have a problem playing this game with voice over, because mmusic in this game is studdering when voice over stops speaking, but without voice over this game works very well.
I remember that some huboole games have had this trouble but I see that it has been resolved.
I have this game on iphone se.

By mojsior on Saturday, August 25, 2018 - 17:23

Hi I have asked about testing this game on this thread and I didnt receive a reply for this, so I think that the developer dont have any free slots in test flight.

By Ornella on Saturday, August 25, 2018 - 17:23

How about using the grains to make beer since its not used for anything and a building suggestion could be a factory. Where you could make glass for different products or paper and plastic. I do agree with the poster who wrote about having to unlock a product before getting to use the one you need. I really wished that would change. I think its just wasting money and I don't like unlocking things that I know I'm not going to use. I had a notification problem so I just saved and reinstalled so hope it got fixed.

By Ray Rucker on Saturday, August 25, 2018 - 17:23

I don't get notified when my automations run out. Also, when I'm not in the game, it's like everything stops until I go back into the game. Is this a bug?

By Jennie A Facer on Saturday, August 25, 2018 - 17:23

In reply to by brandon armstrong

I recently restored my phone. Now I can’t get the game to ask me if I want to receive Notifications. Did this feature get removed?

By Ornella on Saturday, August 25, 2018 - 17:23

I think that's a bug because I saved my game and reinstalled the app and I don't get notifications for anything. Not even in the game except for when the boost runs out.

By Jimmy V on Saturday, August 25, 2018 - 17:23

I love the new update and the new stuff in this game Keep up the great work guys

Hello and am posting this here as I have encountered this twice now. I accidentally tapped a property I do not own and do not have the correct amount of gems or cash to buy it, but there is no "back" button to get out of the screen. Could you please put back buttons in the properties as the only way I was able to get back out is to delete the entire game and reinstall it and start completely from the beginning. Now I am stuck in Quary and I really don't want to delete and reinstall again. Anyone or the developer have a fix for this? I even waited 24 hours thinking it might kick me back out, but I'm still stuck and I'm lvl 4 quests, help!

By Sports Lover Dave on Saturday, August 25, 2018 - 17:23

Go to your App Switcher and close Crafting Kingdom. That should get you out without messing with the game. HTH, Dave

By Unregistered User (not verified) on Tuesday, September 25, 2018 - 17:23

There are a few things that I've noticed while playing this game after the new additions and updates, after rerolling a few of my quests, I have noticed that when I collect my rewards and restart the game, I seem to get a fewer number of quests than I would otherwise. Most times, I would be doing about seven or eight quests, including those that I chose to continue, but after using the rerolling quest feature, that doesn't seem to be the case anymore. Now I only receive about five quests, including the ones that I choose to continue. I think that's a bit weird, even if I get some of the same quests that I chose not to do before. Also, if you don't have Internet, then many of the features, especially those involving using the gems, doesn't seem to work. You can't collect your rewards and you don't seem to receive any gems from the princess or in the treasure chest. Without Internet, you don't actually get a gift from the princess, it just keeps telling you that the sales prices go up 100% , And without Internet, the time for you to collect the gift from the princess tends to go up and down. And even though you use gems for boosting, if you don't have any Internet, you cannot activate a boost, and you cannot use the gems for automations or to buy a property. basically, you can't use any feature that involves gems without internet.

By Ornella on Tuesday, September 25, 2018 - 17:23

I found a bug with the princess. When receiving coins as the gift the digits are red out as single numbers like 1 3 6 0 0.

By Bellsfurmama on Tuesday, September 25, 2018 - 17:23

I restarted the game in order to start getting gold quests. I have completed the 750 million in the bank challenge and I’m wondering if there are any more gold challenges? Right now the game is telling me there are no new challenges right now when I reroll. Thoughts?

By Sabrina on Tuesday, September 25, 2018 - 17:23

For some reason VoiceOver keeps saying video reward available video reward ran out without interuption several times and this makes it very difficult for me to do things as VoiceOver is busy with saying that wich means I find it really hard.

By Sabrina on Tuesday, September 25, 2018 - 17:23

I quick question. Has the quests to get cheaper expansions for a property disappeared? I don't get those any more.

By Bellsfurmama on Tuesday, September 25, 2018 - 17:23

I haven’t gotten any either. You wouldn’t happen to know about the gold quests would you?

As far as I know, quests in Crafting kingdom are randomly generated, to a certain extent anyway. If I've understood that correctly, that means there's no guarantee that you will get a gold quest or any other particular kind, useful as it is to have such quests, since, for example, the quests to get certain amounts of gold in the bank usually make the bag of gold boost bigger. I have never re-rolled quests since that was introduced, so I don't know if doing so will increase the chance of the kind of quest you want coming up.

By Bellsfurmama on Tuesday, September 25, 2018 - 17:23

Thanks for the reply. I was just wondering because I had started the game over aafter a year and a half of playing. My thoughts were: if I can get more gold coming in then I will be able to handle the more complex quests easier. In particular the 10,000 automations.

So I am hoping someone can tell me if they’ve gotten a gold quest higher than 750 million.

By Bellsfurmama on Tuesday, September 25, 2018 - 17:23

I saved my progress in the cloud so I can go back to where I was before I restarted. If there is no more bag of gold increases then that’s what I will d I guess. I just wasn’t getting any treasure chest quests either. I just kept completing quests hoping the next one would be either a treasure chest quest, bag of gold increase, or boost duration.

Here are my stats as best as I can remember:

Boost Duration: 45 min
Bag of Gold: 819,000
Average Treasure Chest: 160,000 to 185,000 gold
Estate: Level 12

Iwas doing quests in the work shop and some in the keweler I think.

The only quest that wasn’t a production quest was the 10,000 automations which was almost impossible to complete and it offered little reward. My automation duration was already well over 300 minutes, so five more minutes meant nothing.

By Unregistered User (not verified) on Tuesday, September 25, 2018 - 17:23

I've been having this issue for a while now, but just got the chance to report it. Anyway, it seems that there are times when I close the game expecting my automations to continue producing goods, but when I reopen the game later on, nothing happens. Sometimes, the game simply stops working, the time doesn't run out or anything like that, So when I reopen the app, the game seems to pick up where it left off.
Also, there are times when I will watch a video or activate a boost and close the game out, when I open the game again, my storage is full and the automations stopped altogether, even before the time is finished. It's like the automations overload the storage or something. Even when I just restart the automations, I will activate a boost and within a few minutes, my storage is full and the automations have stopped working, thereby forcing me to restart them again, even though I should have over 200 minutes of automation time remaining.

By Unregistered User (not verified) on Tuesday, September 25, 2018 - 17:23

In reply to by Ali Colak

Gems do not disappear when you restart the game, and the more quests you complete in a single segment will ensure that you collect a few more gems when you restart the game to collect your rewards.

By Unregistered User (not verified) on Tuesday, September 25, 2018 - 17:23

In reply to by Clare Page

Careful when using this feature though, if you complete a quest and reroll to get another one, that quest will not be marked as completed unless you have collected the reward and restarted the game.

By MikeFont on Thursday, October 25, 2018 - 17:23

Hi all, I'm back to playing Crafting Kingdom after a long time away, and I'm really enjoying it again!
I think the introduction of gems is a stroke of genius! :) Though I haven't used any yet, I'm kind of letting them pile up for a rainy day.

I have a couple questions reguarding gems and the video rewards.
Without tapping into opening a gem shop, what does this do? and, what are the bennifits to having a gem shop? As aposed to just letting them pile up. lol

I remember when we were using videos for boosts before the app purchase came into affect, and the videos would leave tons of useless storage on our phones.
With these video rewards for gems, will we still experience the same issue with needless data being kept in our storage with no way to delete it? Just unsure how much to take advantage of these video reward for gems.

as to the video reward notifications, I have to agree, they're way too frequent! So to cut back on some of the announcements for these I suggest maybe we only get notified when the video reward is available. In fact, when I hear the announcement, "VIDEO REWARD HAS RUN OUT", I only sometimes get to hear the part where something has run out, so I'm not sure if its a boost that's run out? or maybe something else needs my attention...
So if we only get the notification that a video reward is available instead, this is the lesser of the two that creates the least amount of confusion, at least for me.
Anyone else think that makes the most sense?

Anyway, as always, devs keep up the unending great work you're putting into Crafting Kingdom! As well as your terrific team of beta testers! Its really appreciated!!! :)

By Sabrina on Thursday, October 25, 2018 - 17:23

Okay, I have found a place where VO still reads things like digits. When you get gold from the princess it says just digits.

By Michelle on Thursday, October 25, 2018 - 17:23

Hi everyone,

I hear you loud and clear! The next patch of the game will remove the spoken Video Available announcement. Instead, it will be replaced with a small sound effect. In addition, the frequency will be a little reduced. Both changes should lower the disruption to the gameplay a lot.

We've also fixed another bug, which sometimes calculated the time wrong that has passed while the app was closed.

Also, thank you for the bug report on the numbers being read out as digits, I made a note of it and will fix it.

By Unregistered User (not verified) on Thursday, October 25, 2018 - 17:23

In reply to by Michelle

Hi, I'm happy to hear that there will be a new update out soon. By the way, I don't know if you read through the thread, but I am reposting this here. These are a few more bugs that I found. Hopefully they can be fixed for the next update.
There are a few things that I've noticed while playing this game after the new additions and updates, after rerolling a few of my quests, I have noticed that when I collect my rewards and restart the game, I seem to get a fewer number of quests than I would otherwise. Most times, I would be doing about seven or eight quests, including those that I chose to continue, but after using the rerolling quest feature, that doesn't seem to be the case anymore. Now I only receive about five quests, including the ones that I choose to continue. I think that's a bit weird, even if I get some of the same quests that I chose not to do before. Also, if you don't have Internet, then many of the features, especially those involving using the gems, doesn't seem to work. You can't collect your rewards and you don't seem to receive any gems from the princess or in the treasure chest. Without Internet, you don't actually get a gift from the princess, it just keeps telling you that the sales prices go up 100% , And without Internet, the time for you to collect the gift from the princess tends to go up and down. And even though you use gems for boosting, if you don't have any Internet, you cannot activate a boost, and you cannot use the gems for automations or to buy a property. basically, you can't use any feature that involves gems without internet.

By Unregistered User (not verified) on Thursday, October 25, 2018 - 17:23

In reply to by Unregistered User (not verified)

In this update of Crafting Kingdom, will there be a button to stop automations? In any case, I'm thinking that there could be a button to stop all automations in a building, or perhaps you could make it so that double or triple tapping quickly stops individual automations. Both options would be suitable, though.

By MikeFont on Thursday, October 25, 2018 - 17:23

Hi Michelle, I'm looking forward to the new update also, and again, thanks a ton for continuing to work on this terrific game!
In an earlier post I asked if we were still collecting extra useless data from the video ads. Since you didn't speak to this directly, I went and checked the overall size of my copy of Crafting Kingdom, and it doesn't appear to be inflated out of proportion. I'm just trying to confirm that the devs are gaining some source of funding due to us viewing the video ads for the extra gems.
I hope so, as I've already purchased the app and hope you guys have a way of continuing some small cash flow from this project. :)
If so, I'm happy to continue clicking for video rewards as it doesn't appear at this point to be storing up backend data.
:D

Thanks again!

By Michelle on Thursday, October 25, 2018 - 17:23

Kadie, thank you for taking the time to summarize everything.
When we added the reroll feature with the last update, we reduced the total number of quests you can have at the same time. The only reason there were so many quests before was that the player had no control over the quests. Having a larger number would increase the chances of getting quests you might actually like. Now that you can reroll, it makes sense to reduce the number again. You'll have fewer quests, but overall more quests you actually want to do.

When you reroll, you get a random new quest from all quests that are currently available. You might get a quest that you already rerolled previously. This makes sense, because you might be doing a new playthrough and now actually want that particular quest, because it fits with your current production focus.

Regarding the internet requirements. Yes, we have added the requirement to be online whenever you make any transactions that involve gems. This was necessary to put a little bit of a limit on the high amount of cheating we were seeing. Since gems are one of the few ways we earn money with the game, it had to be done.
Instead of making the entire game require an internet connection at all times, we limited it to only those interactions.

Stop Automations: Yes, we're currently working on a button to stop all production and automations in a location at once. It will be included in the next update.

Video Ads: We're still receiving a little bit of money for the video ads, and I'm really relieved to hear that the storage issues seem to have been resolved. We are still experimenting with our ad providers, but overall will probably stick with what we have now. It seems to create the least amount of technical and user issues.

Thanks again for all the amazing feedback!

By Ali Colak on Thursday, October 25, 2018 - 17:23

I stepped over from the game for a while, and when I came back the game had closed. When I pressed play and opend the game, I saw that I had 13 gems where previously I had 77.