The release date of the first private alpha is approaching and it's time to show you how we will support this version. Today no screenshots or fancy images. He are going to talk about telemetry, data and cakes.
Yes, about cakes.
As a reminder, you can participate in this alpha at this address: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeaYRR1KQjarm1cZcuW6aHoCTA66PnAy1xuV-E9AWdCcht8tQ/viewform?usp=sf_link
The usefulness of tracking actions
Since we deployed the first version of the online counterpart of our board game, we have developed our own telemetry system called “Solid Pancake”. Behind this name automatically generated by Github (thanks a lot for this legendary name) hides an event-based tracking system.
It's not an easy exercise, but I'll try to explain how this telemetry works. Each time you launch Drifter's Tales, the game informs our Solid Pancake service that a new session has been opened. This session has information about the product (not you), such as platform (Windows, Switch, etc.) and current product version. Then, with each action you take, we send a signal to the telemetry service so that we can know what you are doing.
So when you play a card, choose an action or win, we are able to analyze it all in order to balance the game and give you the best possible experience.
Here is a small overview of what we collect:
This tracking will be actively used during the private alpha to detect any issues that may arise during this test.
Solid Pancake is of course an open source project that you can build yourself on your own server: https://github.com/thefirstspine/solid-pancake
From collecting to display via Looker Studio
Tracking user actions is one thing. Being able to do something about it is another. For this we have set up what is called an ETL (Extract Transform Load). This ETL is responsible of transforming the data we have to be able to make a more usable and readable version of it in a visualization system.
In order to visualize the data we use Google Looker Studio, which allows us to display relevant data about your experience. Here's some examples about what we can have:
- story completion rate
- rate of discovering secrets and oaths
- most played cards, most discarded cards
- hardest, easiest stories
- etc.
Private Alpha Support & Distribution Plan
With all this data, we will be able to have qualified feedbacks on the experience of the testers.
The private alpha will be sent to you via a Google Drive link to the email address you provided in the form. It will be maintained until the end of December, where all the issues and improvements will be pushed with monthly updates.
I sincerely hope that you will be satisfied with this relaunch of Drifter's Tales. Believe me when I tell you that we are more than excited to have your first feedback!
See you soon !