1.3.0/F-droid: A step backwards

[Sapiosenses]

I've been using 1.1.3 for months now and have been very happy with it.

Updated to 1.3.0 today and discovered that both the game play and UI were much more sluggish than 1.1.3, even with the original "fuzzy" typeface.

Not only that, the feature that allows you to restart a game by closing the app and reopening was eliminated, despite the fact that when asked about it here in December you said you wanted to keep it. I use that feature a lot to try to figure out how to come up with a finely tuned strategy to beat a very difficult level, and it makes the game much more addictive as I can oftentimes eventually find the "trick" that completes the level and that feels very satisfying to me.

So I tried to downgrade the app. (I know the latest Android versions are blocking that now but this device is only on Android 10 and that was never changed in that respect) Latest official F-droid app tries to prevent that too but you can still manually select a version. Which didn't work. Tried some other methods including a special "downgrader" tool. Didn't work either.

So I was forced to completely uninstall it, install 1.1.3 again, and now of course my high score is erased.

What a bummer.

I appreciate your efforts on this as it is one of the very few FOSS games I actually spend a significant amount of time playing. I hope you can figure out a way to make the UI/graphics work better in your subsequent versions.

[adil192]

discovered that both the game play and UI were much more sluggish than 1.1.3

I can't think of anything that's changed to affect the game's performance, unless you mean the new page transitions?

even with the original "fuzzy" typeface.

Like the pixelated Silkscreen font, or a rendering issue?

the feature that allows you to restart a game by closing the app and reopening was eliminated (https://github.com/adil192/ricochlime/issues/26)

You can just use the new undo button for this now. I removed that as part of a larger series of bug fixes because it's a confusing behaviour for the last move to not save

[Sapiosenses]

discovered that both the game play and UI were much more sluggish than 1.1.3

I can't think of anything that's changed to affect the game's performance, unless you mean the new page transitions?

The transition between the landing/home page and the gameplay screen is now extremely slow, you can literally watch the screen painting, maybe 0.5-1.0 seconds to paint the transition to the other screen.

Also seemed to me that the gameplay was more sluggish, but as of the moment on that device I am back to 1.1.3 so I cannot test right now.

even with the original "fuzzy" typeface.

Like the pixelated Silkscreen font, or a rendering issue?

There is just one option called "Use the Atkinson Hyperlegible Font", and that is not the default.

On 1.1.3 I tried that setting at the beginning and while the text of course looks better it seemed to run slower like that so I reverted to the default. I tried both in 1.3.0 and there didn't seem to be much performance difference between the two.

the feature that allows you to restart a game by closing the app and reopening was eliminated (#26)

You can just use the new undo button for this now. I removed that as part of a larger series of bug fixes because it's a confusing behaviour for the last move to not save

OK, as long as that accomlishes the same thing I'm fine with that. I agree it could be confusing (was a bit surprising to me when I first discovered it) but it ended up being one of the most addictive parts of the game for me. 😁

Nonetheless, I think after that last experience I'm going to stick with 1.1.3 for the forseeable future until there seems to be some kind of massive other improvements.

(Caveat: I think I will try 1.3.0 on another, newer device. Perhaps if it runs well there and since that device will eventually/theoretically replace the older one, that may be a workaround for me from the performance standpoint)

Thanks for the reply and interest.

[adil192]

The UI font shouldn't change performance at all. But I'll see if I can make an option in settings for the transition duration

[adil192]

Closed with 51f61f817c0631b3b61bcb0a8f74374df5938934