Monday, September 24, 2007

Game Instructions Please?

I don't spend all of what little spare time I have on programming. Sometimes I even get to play some games. With this thought in mind, I decided to look through the Ubuntu games repository and see what strategy games were there.

I came across Boson, which I'd given a few seconds of my time to before. After installing it (which, thanks to Synaptec, is so easy anyone can do it blindfold) I started the game.

This is where the problems hit, and this is why I only gave it a few seconds last time. Visually, the game is great; I could only dream of one of my games looking this good. But how do you play it? My first (and probably only) port of call was the website.

Unfortunately, on the website:-
  • There is no link that give the smallest clue that it might lead to some instructions.
  • The link to the FAQ doesn't work.
  • There is a wiki, but that looks like it's purely for the development team. Nothing to do with actually playing the game.
  • Under "Contact us", there are only links to forums and mailing lists and an IRC channel. Sorry, but I haven't got time for any of those. I either want an answer now (or an emailed reply), or I'm just going to play another game, and there are plenty out there. I was going to email them to tell them that the FAQ link doesn't work.
It's a pity really. Like I said, it looks like a really good game, but they are shooting themselves in the foot by not telling anyone how to play it.

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