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 Sean Terry on Thursday, April 20, 2017 - 13:12

Hi, I also find that the "Sell 50" button is enabled even if you don't have 50 of the currently viewed product. so, It seems as if the button actions are reversed. If you have, say, 35 logs, it enables the sell 50 button, and disables the sell 10 button.

By Michelle on Thursday, April 20, 2017 - 13:12

Hi, that is indeed a bug, the buttons don't get enabled/disabled correctly.
We'll fix that in the next update. Thank you for reporting!

By Michelle on Thursday, April 20, 2017 - 13:12

Hi everyone,
I know this is a lot to ask, but I was wondering if anyone who is experiencing the lag issue would be able to make a recording of it and send it to me? Preferably with audio and video capture.
I can't reproduce it here and I think I might need a visual to confirm what's going on and make sure it is related to the swipe sensitivity that we are trying to fix, or whether this is a different issue altogether.

By Karok on Thursday, April 20, 2017 - 13:12

hi how do i get that audio share to work? sounds a great way to record iphone related podcasts direct from the device.

By Sunshine Daisies on Thursday, April 20, 2017 - 13:12

Hi Michelle, I have a couple things to report, and some request for the game.
First, it seems like the Princess bonus is not applying to the sale price of the products.
I was selling leather strips for $135, then I got a 2 percent bonus from the princess, but my leather strips was still selling for $135.
The leather strips was originally $120, so I should have at least gotten a $1 or $2 increase in my sale price, right?
Also, I tried using the system voice for a little bit today, and I noticed that it doesnt lag so much as the voice over. It still loses focus like the voice-over, but it doesn't lag as much. So I was wondering, is there a way that we can get something to adjust the speed of the system voice?
Another request, if it's possible, is there a way that you could put the automation timer with the title of the slots?
What I mean is, for example, when I flick down, we would hear "production Slot 1 logs 5 minutes remaining". Is that possible?
I think it would help with navigating the page easier since we don't have to flick twice to hear the time, and flick back to the "produce" button.
It's just frustrating at times when the focus jumps around so much, and I can't seem to find which ones I did already, and which ones I didn't, especially when you have 10 to 15 slots in one place.
On a side note, why do we make pots in the jeweler? smiles
I'm still enjoying the game very much, even when I'm ready to pull my hair out because the focus just won't get to where I want it to be smiles.
Thank you very, very much for all the hard work and dedication you give in making this game accessible for us.
I do appreciate it very, very much.

By Sean Terry on Thursday, April 20, 2017 - 13:12

Hi. I have a request for automations. Is it possible to have either VO or the system voice tell us on the main world screen and others that the automations you are currently running have ran out. so, it would say something like, automation for Lumber Yard slot 1 logs has run out I do understand that it could get quite hectic the more automations you run. But, I think it would help if you are doing stuff in another screen such as the main world map, or the city or other places. The reason I bring this up is that my wife says she can see that her automations have ran out anywhere she is in the game.

By snowyowl on Thursday, April 20, 2017 - 13:12

Hi.

I did the update last night and each time I click on the boost most of the time I don't get the video and it goes back to the castle. If I tap my way around the screen very occasionally I find a back button that takes me back to the castle. Before I did the update there was an L button that took me back but that seems to have gone.

Does anyone play this game without boosts is it possible to do that?

Another suggestion I thought of maybe if the videos are problematic unlocking a boost with either gold or a mini quest either sell so many items etc.

Loving the game still Cheers.

By DrummerGuy on Thursday, April 20, 2017 - 13:12

In reply to by snowyowl

Some videos don't have that exit or L as voiceover reads it. In most games you need to click on download or get and then, once you are at the App Store Touch on the upper left corner and you will here VoiceOver say return to grafting kingdom. Click there and it will take you back to the game. Once there, swipe up with two fingers and it will take you to the back button. Double tap on that back button and you will be on the main screen. As I understand, the videos we are supposed to listen to or watch don't have anything to do with the game itself. Since the game is for free, the boosts Are meant to help us move or progress faster in the game . When we watch videos, I assume that it is a way of helping the developers of this game since the game can be played for free. You could always play without using the boosts but without any doubt they are there for a reason: to help us accomplish things in the game faster. Once again, some videos have that L and some don't and the developers of this game don't have anything to do with it. Take care, my friend. Keep enjoying the game.

By DrummerGuy on Thursday, April 20, 2017 - 13:12

In reply to by DrummerGuy

I think we can live without the cell one button. I rather keep the cell all button. I think it is better that way. However, this is only my humble opinion.

I am happy to find my way to the back button by just swiping up with two fingers and then double tapping on the back button.
I would really be even happier with a gesture that would take me to the last location or the treasure chest and double tapping there to get the Gold coins. thank you, Michelle, for doing such a great job. Loving this game more and more.

By Karok on Thursday, April 20, 2017 - 13:12

hi all, once i have accumilated quite a bit of storage space, can i do anything to maintain its currenj state even when i reset my game to earn rewards? thanks, Will

By Sean Terry on Thursday, April 20, 2017 - 13:12

I like that idea. especially as the cost for the amount of storage space you gain gets quite costly. You have to pay quite a lot for other things which isn't a problem, I just think that a good balance would be that your storage space stays at what it was when/if your reset the game for current rewards.

By Karok on Thursday, April 20, 2017 - 13:12

hi again, i note that i can make and combine products to make more useful materials later on is this correct?

By Sean Terry on Thursday, April 20, 2017 - 13:12

Hi, this is correct. You will also need certain raw materials and/or to combine products to expand your Estate. You also need to sell a certain amount of raw or combined products to complete quests.

By snowyowl on Thursday, April 20, 2017 - 13:12

Hi.

I have got the second estateexpansion done and I have got lumber, logs, and my farm is doing grain and meat.

How many production slots do people normally have on each property? Should I get the quarry next?

Should I look at going for the sales man boost and the quick study one?

Cheers.

By KE7ZUM on Thursday, April 20, 2017 - 13:12

You actually get all of them in slot 1. I use the sharped axe a lot. Lol!

By KE7ZUM on Thursday, April 20, 2017 - 13:12

Quick observation. Has anyone else noticed when using the system voice the game still lags and loses focus? I'm wondering if this has anything to do with some accessibility element put in. I can't code, but that's just a theory.

By Sean Terry on Thursday, April 20, 2017 - 13:12

I believe they are still working on things to help the lag. We also have to remember that the accessibility plug-in for Unity or however you spell it is still in beta and most likely still being worked on. It being in beta could be the cause of some of the lagging and focus jump issues.

By Ornella on Thursday, April 20, 2017 - 13:12

Someone mentioned when you tap on l the video closes that is true and I could still find the button. I don't know how its not showing up for other people. If I had known that from the start instead of going to the ap store I would've done it that way.

By KE7ZUM on Thursday, April 20, 2017 - 13:12

Oh yeah I didn't actually think of that. I wonder why this was coded in Unity? Swift I think has all the hooks in it already so one only needs to do what ever to implement them.

By Michelle on Thursday, April 20, 2017 - 13:12

Hi KE7ZUM,
Swift is a programming language, while Unity is a complete engine. You can't really compare the two.
Unity allows you to make very complex and beautiful games very fast. It has a wonderful Editor in which you can set up your hierarchy, create 3D scenes as well as your 2D UI. You can make your app run on iOS, Android, Amazon, Windows, Mac, Linux, XBox, PlayStation and about a dozen more platforms after you created it. I worked with many game engine in my career, from Ogre, over CryEngine to Unreal, and I even coded my own little ones. Of all of them, Unity is the best, by probably a mile.

Swift on the other hand is only a programming language, and it only runs on Apple devices. It's possibly a good one, I don't know, but it really isn't a good choice for developers that want to create larger apps or ones that run on more than iOS, or both. Like I said, you can't compare the two though, because they fullfil different purposes.

To throw some numbers out there: in a talk at GDC a few weeks ago it was mentioned that about 40% of mobile games made today are made with Unity.

Of course, one of the drawbacks of Unity in terms of Accessibility is that it doesn't work with VoiceOver. Or TalkBack. Or JAWS or NVDA.

By KE7ZUM on Thursday, April 20, 2017 - 13:12

In reply to by Michelle

Actually swift is cross platform now, programs coded in swift will run on ios, windows and mac os and android.

Good luck.

By Nancy on Thursday, April 20, 2017 - 13:12

Hi:
What happened to the "Sell 1" button? I have 301 meat and I need 300 for my next expansion. I am using the latest update on an Iphone 6 running the latest IOS. I see the sell 50 and 10 buttons but not the sell 1 button. Thanks.

By Sean Terry on Thursday, April 20, 2017 - 13:12

Hi, I've mentioned the sell one button missing in a previous post. What I do is make my estate expansion, then sell the rest with the sell all button.

Yes the Sell One Button was indeed removed to make room for the Sell All button.
If this is making things cumbersome, then we can see about maybe squeezing it back in.

By Maria on Thursday, April 20, 2017 - 13:12

HI. I see the close video button, but then I hear v voice over say, you will loose your reward. So if I close the video when it'[s done will I lose my reward? Do I have to go to the app store in order to get my boost?
Thanks.

By Michelle on Thursday, April 20, 2017 - 13:12

Hi Maria,
You will only lose your reward if you choose the video before it has finished. Most ads are 30 seconds long, and their music will stop when they are done. When you wait for that and then close it, you will no longer get the message that you will lose the reward, but the video will simply close.

By Michelle on Thursday, April 20, 2017 - 13:12

Hi,
I've read many posts asking for additional gestures, especially a scrub gesture to go back and a gesture to get to the bottom of the page quickly. I wanted to write a quick update on this, so you know that I didn't just ignore those posts.

Both of these gestures are actually already planned, but because the Accessibility plugin isn't finished yet, they are not currently supported.

Here's what those gestures will look like: To get to the bottom of the page the plugin will eventually use a down-up swipe. And for the Back gesture it will support both the VoiceOver scrub, as well as the right angle gesture on TalkBack (I believe it's down-left).

Because these gestures are more complex than a regular swipe, this hasn't been added to the plugin yet.

However, something I could add rather fast is that swiping down on the map will take you to the last location - or, if it there is one, a treasure chest. Would that help?

By Sean Terry on Thursday, April 20, 2017 - 13:12

Hi Michelle, Did you get my post about the sell 10 and sell 50 buttons having reversed actions? If I have 32 items, it says that the sell 10 button is dimmed. and the sell 50 isn't. the same is in reverse if I have 63 items, and the sell 50 button is dimmed, and the sell 10 isn't.

Hi Sean,
Yes, I did put that in my bug list, but forgot to reply here. Sorry about that, and a big thank you for following up on this.

By snowyowl on Thursday, April 20, 2017 - 13:12

Hi. Could someone tell me how to close the video from the app store please?

I'll go back through the posts to see if it was mentioned earlier.

Thanks.

By Sunshine Daisies on Thursday, April 20, 2017 - 13:12

Hi Michelle, I have a question about the quest.
Does it give you random quests to do, or is it based on the things that you do in the game?
A friend of mine and I started playing the game together, but we don't do things exactly the same. He has different list of quests to do, and I didn't get the same ones that he got when I did the previous quests that he finished.
So, just wondering if the quests is given randomly or not.
Also, his "sell 10" button is disabled most of the time. Sometimes it's there and sometimes it's not, even when he has way more than 10 products to sell.

Also, it seems like the Princess bonus is not applying to the sale price of the products.
I was selling leather strips for $135, then I got a 2 percent bonus from the princess, but my leather strips was still selling for $135.
The leather strips was originally $120, so I should have at least gotten a $1 or $2 increase in my sale price, right?
Also, I tried using the system voice for a little bit today, and I noticed that it doesnt lag so much as the voice over. It still loses focus like the voice-over, but it doesn't lag as much. So I was wondering, is there a way that we can get something to adjust the speed of the system voice?
Another request, if it's possible, is there a way that you could put the automation timer with the title of the slots?
What I mean is, for example, when I flick down, we would hear "production Slot 1 logs 5 minutes remaining". Is that possible?
I think it would help with navigating the page easier since we don't have to flick twice to hear the time, and flick back to the "produce" button.
It's just frustrating at times when the focus jumps around so much, and I can't seem to find which ones I did already, and which ones I didn't, especially when you have 10 to 15 slots in one place.

I like the idea of having announcements when your automation has ran out.
Adding another level of navigation to get to the bottom of the page would be awesome.
I really didn't want it so I can get to the treasure chest quicker, but it would be helpful if you have 10 to 15 slots going and you want to add another slot, you can get to the bottom fast enough, and most of the back button when you are selecting a product to make is at the bottom of the page.

Thank you again for all your hard work and dedication to make this game accessible for us.

Hi Sunshine,
Thank you for reposting, and I apologize for missing your post earlier.

There is a random component to the quests. When you reset your progress, the quests you completed are removed from your quest log and new ones are selected to fill their slots. You can have no more than six quests active at once. So the game picks randomly from the quests available. A quest becomes available or eligible to be picked once you unlocked the requirement for it. For example, once you unlock meat, the meat quests become available.
In short, you will eventually get all the same quests as your friend, just in a different order.

Now, since the game launch we received a lot of feedback that the quest selection needs more work. When you have only six quest slots and you get hit with a really hard quest such as "Sell 1000 ladders" early on, that quest slot is essentially blocked for a while.
We're currently working on redesigning this a little bit to make more fair.

About the princess:
The leather base sale price is 100 if I remember correctly. It's hard to tell what bonuses you have already achieved through questing, though. I'll double check it on my end, but could you check in your upgrades in the castle what your general sale price bonus, and the one for the farm is?

I like the idea of adding the automation tone to the slots, I'll put that on my Todo list. Thanks for that idea!

By KE7ZUM on Thursday, April 20, 2017 - 13:12

I'd ditch the sell 1 button. I just let it expand and play with the items I have left over. Not a big deal really. They have helped me restart my autimation after I expand and if I'm gone for a while.

By snowyowl on Thursday, April 20, 2017 - 13:12

Hi Applefan thanks for the help its much appreciated. So if I do tap the get button cancel the download and look at the top left to go back to crafting kingdom and two finger swipe up and bob's your uncle etc.

Cheers. I am enjoying the game finally got the quarry built now its time to build up the funds and prepare for the next estate expansion.

Fantastic game look forward to hearing a few Podcasts on it.

By Karok on Thursday, April 20, 2017 - 13:12

hi all, could this game be made to run under windows and mac in the future? i assume not? secondly, i am upgrading my iphone to a 6s or 7 not sure which yet, and was wondering will my progress be saved in the cloud for me to continue? or, for now, could i pick up my ipad mini now, fire up crafting kingdom and have my current progress as 9 thousand coins 275 storage and 4 production slots in progress? thanks.

Hi Will,
Unfortunately there is currently no cloud save. We never planned to add it in either, but we've gotten various requests for it by now - so we're reconsidering. I don't have a date for you yet though.

The game would technically run on Desktop computers, and we actually use Windows PCs for development. There are only a few things, such as the boosts that don't work. And the accessibility plugin currently only supports mobile devices properly. This will change in the future however. Windows support is already in the works, and Mac support will follow shortly after.

By Roxann Pollard on Thursday, April 20, 2017 - 13:12

Another poster mention that they use the Sell All button after they have completed an estate expansion to handle single digit items left over. I like this suggestion and would rather not lose the Sell All button just to have the Sell One button added again.

Great suggestion, @Sean Terry.

By Ian McNamara on Thursday, April 20, 2017 - 13:12

Hello Michelle,

first I would like to say thank you for taking in to account blind players when making this game. Normally this is not my type of game as I don't really like games where you have to work on things slowly in order to do well. However this game really got me interested and I am really hooked on it. I find the game really nice to play and enjoy the different things you can do. They only thing that I find a negative is the restarting game option. I would find it really frustrating if I was somebody like Sean who got his estate up to level 3 and if I had all of the buildings or at least most of them. Would really frustrate me then having to restart in order to get my rewards as then I would be starting again from scratch and would have to do the whole thing again. However the game is fantastic and I like the fact that you don't get things over night and really have to work hard to get what your kingdom improved. I would also be interested in being added to the tester list if there is still space. my email address is.

[email protected]

By Lulu Hartgen on Thursday, April 20, 2017 - 13:12

Hi Michelle and Everyone.

I've been away from the game except to collect my Princess gift each day, but today I'm back with a vengeance and I've just got the update, and wow! It's so awesome! I love the sell all button, having the produce button right by the production slot so I can refresh so quickly, being able to see how much of everything I've got in city without having to swipe too much. Having the sell fifty button right after sell all, the lagging on my phone is practically gone, as is the losing focus.

There's only one thing I'm having issues with, and if this has already been mentioned please excuse, there have been a mountain of posts since I've been away which I haven't had time to read. Videos are not playing properly unless I touch the center of the screen, and I can't get them to close at all unless I close the game altogether and reopen it.

Having said that, everything else so far is incredible, my three properties are all in full production, well, as far as I've unlocked the third one so far anyway, and my hands are not hurting anymore from swiping too hard. Thank you thank you so much for all your hard work and for this glorious game where I'm having fun, de-stressing and not having to kill or fight anything!

By Karok on Thursday, April 20, 2017 - 13:12

hello everyone, i want to do my first applevis fodcast on this title. do people recommend i record direectly on my iphone as i play the game to make the game audio clearer? some tips welcome please to assist me.

By Michelle on Thursday, April 20, 2017 - 13:12

Hi everyone,
the text inside the game doesn't explain this properly, I think, but when you reset your game, the estate and the princess are not reset. You keep your current bonus with the princess and you keep the build out of your estate.

By Karok on Thursday, April 20, 2017 - 13:12

hi all was only playing the game for hour and used 61 percent in audio from my attery! is this normal?

By KE7ZUM on Thursday, April 20, 2017 - 13:12

No it is not. I hardly go through my battery. This might be a battery dying on you..

By Karok on Thursday, April 20, 2017 - 13:12

hi. i'll have to switch playing this to my ipad mini since my battery on this iphone 6 needs servicing. least on my ipad mini, 4 should last a while.

By Michael Charlton on Thursday, April 20, 2017 - 13:12

I think that using a two finger swipe Down gesture would work out best here. This is the opposite gesture to the one that now brings focus to the top of the screen.

By Sean Terry on Thursday, April 20, 2017 - 13:12

I wanted to say that I think This game has a bit of a battery hogging issue. I unplugged my phone last night, and played for about an hour, when I looked at my battery status, it was at 38%. When I unplugged my phone, it was at 90%. So, just something to check.

By KE7ZUM on Thursday, April 20, 2017 - 13:12

No issues for me. My battery is quite new though I went from 100 to 90 in about an hour.