Greetings Researchers & Readers:

_About These Questions_
It has been far too long since we've posted on this wonderful service!
We've got a new series of questions related to the newest version
(4.0) of our web site, and really hope you guys can help us out. 
Hopefully these questions/tasks will be fun!  Oh, and no fair
answering identical questions ? feel free to answer different, but not
the same!

_About The MyAdventureGame.com Project _
MyAdventureGame.com is a website dedicated to playing, creating, and
sharing Choose-Your-Own-Adventure style games. The people behind
MyAdventureGame.com (us) created the site as a hobby and to have a fun
learning experience. Because of this, we have no real budget or
anything like that, which is directly reflected in the questions'
$-to-time ratios. But, we hope to make up it for fun.  The current
live website has some more information if you're interested.

_About The New Version _
Being never satisfied, we've decided to complete redo the entire
website - from giving it a slightly cleaner interface to using an
industrial strength 3-tier ASP.NET web application (in our humble
opinion).  Currently, we're in the Alpha stages, which we define as
having enough functionality to determine if the design/interface will
work.  Expect broken links and errors, but don't worry about reporting
them unless we specifically request in the Question.
 
_And Finally, The Questions_
For this question, we'd like you to tell us what you think of the new
Game-Playing web page.  To do this, you'll need to play a few games. 
Ugh, such a challenge, we know.  You don't have to beat the games
(although, it may be personally rewarding, giving you a nice warm
feeling of accomplishment if you do).

Some games utilize inventory items -- it is important that you check
out a game with this.  It's also important that you see how it works
on the current site too.  We've provided links to games that utilize
inventory items.

How does the game play experience differ from the current game player
to the new? Do you find the separate game window (styled much
differently) helpful?  What do you think of the way Inventory is
handled in the Current vs. New? What do you think of putting the "Back
Button" in the drop down menu?  Do you use the Back function often?
Did you encounter any ugly asp.net server errors (this portion should
be mostly error free)?

? so we just asked a whole bunch of questions, but we're just trying
to explain what we're thinking.  You don't have to explicitly answer
each question, but try to have your response answer what we're
generally asking.

_Links_
Current Site: http://www.MyAdventureGame.com
Alpha Site: http://Mag.Papadimoulis.com
Wal-Mart Game (Current): http://www.myadventuregame.com/preview.asp?G=253
Wal-Mart Game (Alpha): http://mag.papadimoulis.com/games/game.aspx?253
Finals Week (Current): http://www.myadventuregame.com/preview.asp?G=8
Finals Week (Alpha): http://mag.papadimoulis.com/games/game.aspx?8
The Black Hand (Current): http://www.myadventuregame.com/preview.asp?g=327
The Black Hand (Alpha): http://mag.papadimoulis.com/games/game.aspx?327

Note: Black hand written by GA's own easterangel-ga! (Question #105275)

_Closing_
Please accept our apologies for the novella of a question.  But,
understand that we want to be as concise as possible, and explain
exactly what we're looking for, and try to make sense of why we're
asking such atypical questions.  Also, we really appreciate your help.
Everyone on this site has been very helpful in the past, so thanks in
advance!

Sincerely,
The MyAdventureGame.com Team

Hi myadventuregame-ga,

Thanks for the question. As I said in the other question I answered,
first let me just say that I had a really enjoyable time answering
these questions. I will be coming back to your site again.

I played all three of the games you linked (Wal*Mart Game, Finals
Week, and the Black Hand).

There are features in the current game player that I preferred to the
Alpha version and vice versa.

SEPARATE GAME WINDOW: I like the idea of it, but in order for this to
be successful, the back button needs to be improved. As it presently
stands, playing was easier in the current versions. See my comments
below in the "back button" section.

INVENTORY: Current version, I really wasn't enthralled with this.
Having to click on "My inventory" every time I wanted to use or see an
item was a bit annoying.

I much preferred the way you have it set up in the Alpha version where
it's always visible. However, I think there are a couple of things you
could do to improve this. For starters, right now, once a player
acquires enough items, the window lengthens and one has to arrow or
mouse over to see all of the inventory. If you could manage it, I
think it would be easier on players to display the items in rows so
that they're more visible.

Like vorfeed-ga, I also found it superfluous to have to pick the item
and then click again on the link to get me to the next page.

BACK BUTTON FEATURE: I'm not a gamer really and I tend to make lots of
judgment errors in these things, so I used this a lot. While I think
the addition of a "Back Button" in your Alpha versions was a good
move, for functionality, the Current version has it beat.

Current version: clicking the back button took me fewer moves and was
more intuitive.

Alpha version: It took me a minute or two to realize where the back
button was hidden. So you may want to make that more visible. I would
move it (as vorfeed-ga suggested) to the other side of the screen. The
other problem I had with it, was that it took me two clicks every time
I needed to go back.

No server errors or dead links that I found. 

STRATEGY:
Went to the links you provided and played around with several of the games. 

Thanks again. If you need additional information or if my comments
weren't clear, please ask for clarification and I'll do my best to
assist you.

Regards,
luciaphile-ga

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Request for Answer Clarification by myadventuregame-ga on 23 Dec 2003 20:24 PST

Thank you very much for your comments! They have been very helpful,
and we are getting very close to another release of the Game Player
with these recommended changes.

Please forgive the long delay in responding to your answer -- with the
holidays, flu, and some difficulties with the G00gle Answer billing,
we've been unable to respond.

(No need to respond to this clarification, just wanted to let you know!)

---

Request for Answer Clarification by myadventuregame-ga on 23 Dec 2003 20:26 PST

This one you might want to reply to ... where did the tip box go? ...
didn't see it in the normal place when rating the question -- why did
it go away?  We'd like to offer a tip on this answer, but just can't
figure out how!

---

Clarification of Answer by luciaphile-ga on 23 Dec 2003 20:49 PST

Hi myadventuregame-ga,

Thanks for the nice comment and the 5-star rating! I'm so glad I was
able to be of assistance. I'm not sure where the tip button went, but
perhaps the folks at Google Answers could help. Their e-mail is:
answers-Support@google.com

http://answers.google.com/answers/faq.html#contactus

Regards,
luciaphile-ga

Thanks! A very good answer.