Blitz anyone?

TheBitPilot · 03-20-2013, 10:14 AM

I think Outwitters is in need of some form of blitz play for when you wanna just sit down and knock out a game in 10-60 minutes. Chess is the first game that comes to mind when we think of blitz play, but one game on iOS that I think nails it is Carcassone. Instead of having a match time limit you are giving 60 seconds (if I remember correctly) each turn when playing an online quick match. This is more suitable to outfitters than overall game limits because in outfitters you simply can't make moves as quickly as in chess. A minute and 30 seconds would probably be best because you need some time just to watch the replay or maybe your timer would just start after the replay is complete.

This was just something that I thought about many times and just remembered when I was playing Carcassone last night. I could even see it being implemented with options for how long each turn is. Two Super Titans could choose to have 1-2 seconds per turn while two Clevers opt to have 5 minutes per turn. I just think it would be nice to start a game knowing that you are going to finish it before you go to sleep.

This ties in with Alvendors thread, but tries to bring more structure and openness to Blitz play. Love Alvendors idea but there can only be one King and there are thousands of Outwitters players. If One Man Left could bring some sort of blitz option to the table in a future update I would be happy to continue throwing money at them. Just imagine how crazy the 1st blitz tourney would be.

Panga Panga · 03-20-2013, 10:27 AM

How would this work with the replay? You have to press to continue after its completion with the game in the background, wouldn't that allow you to take all the time you need? Or would replays be throw out? Only other option is to remove the fog of war entirely.

Would it be so that a blitz game, and the app Outwitters, had to be open at all times?

TheBitPilot · 03-20-2013, 10:40 AM

I think the best option would be for the replay to watched while the timer runs and to just add about 30 seconds per move. That way you can choose to watch it all or end it and start your turn. I think your timer should start the second your opponent hits done. I don't think the app would need to stay open, but you wouldn't want to leave for very long because the game wouldn't wait for you.

rob12001 · 03-20-2013, 10:45 AM

Since you would have the app open while your opponent was moving, you could watch your opponent make his moves in real time (except for those blocked by the fow). Then replays wouldn't be necessary.

TheBitPilot · 03-20-2013, 11:28 AM

That's a good point I wasn't thinking about. Watching opponents moves in real time would be fun and replays wouldn't be necessary.

Panga Panga · 03-20-2013, 11:36 AM

That would be ideal, but could the game servers handle it though? Wouldn't it be a bigger server load? Wouldn't it require a lot more bandwidth?

CombatEX · (This post was last modified: 03-20-2013 11:56 AM by CombatEX.)

What is wrong with a match time limit? I still think that is preferable. What I suggested previously was to have a mode where each player has a clock (ideally this could be set by the players, but a standard could be something like 15 minutes not including watching the replay). This way you have a general idea of how long you need whereas in a game with turn lengths and no hard cap timer it could drag on past your allotted 'Outwitters time' for that session.

I believe Alex or Adam said something which implied this wasn't easy to do, but that was ~8 or 9 months ago so things may have changed.

TheBitPilot · 03-20-2013, 12:08 PM

The one reason why I don't think a match time limit would work like it does in chess is because when you are down to 5 seconds there is no way for you to make a move. In chess you can make moves in less than 2 seconds. Either way this thread was mainly to see if people were interested and to generate ideas. I'm sure it would take a lot of effort on One Man Lefts part which is why I would be willing to pay for this added feature (although I wish the game was just a $10 package so I could gift it to friends, but this belongs in another thread).

CombatEX · 03-20-2013, 12:22 PM

This topic has come up many times ever since the game was released so there certainly is interest in it. As for the clock running out, I guess it would be a problem but then I suppose you could just do what you stated - give players 10 second time limit or so per turn once the clock has run out.

bobolynx · (This post was last modified: 03-20-2013 12:40 PM by bobolynx.)

you could make it touch move, which would speed games up a bit

and have an added time for every piece moved

so if you move only one unit one turn, you have less time to do it, but if you are doing a charge, you will have more time to do it.