Navigation and gameplay suggestions for eteRNA

Feedback Feature Suggestions
1

Hello everyone,

Here are a few things that I would find useful for navigating the http://eterna.cmu.edu site easier or improving the service.

  • [challenge] ability to skip to the next puzzle without getting the suggestion to return to the unsolved challenge after each other solved puzzle. If penalising puzzle-skipping is desired, limit ability to skip to 2 per hour, 5 total?

  • [solved puzzles in player profile] player puzzles should be separated or marked (ex. a different colour) from challenges for better overview.

  • [puzzle rating and comments] encouragement to comment/rate (vote) difficulty on puzzles after solving (looking at) them without needing to navigate to out of the puzzle solver (maybe by “pop-up” - with a setting to also turn off said pop-up if desired).

  • [puzzle editor] option to block a base to a certain nucleotide in the puzzle editor

  • [puzzle solver window] boost performance by allowing work on a single branch/arm by temporarily greying out the rest/map. For puzzles larger than 100 nucleotides

  • [player profile]“last played” section in player profile to find recent puzzles easier

  • (players’ ?) selection of intermediate and expert tutorials?

  • search bar for (player) puzzles

  • ability to “show more” puzzles per page!

  • option to favourite puzzles

  • show own sent messages

  • ability to save limited lines of text in one’s own profile (screenshot links).

  • ability to enlarge or hide chat box. Ignore and report options for the chat (this is the internet after all).

  • less blonde jokes in chat =P

  • note that some html codes work in forum posts: http://getsatisfaction.com/some.html

Furthermore (significant changes):

  • the possibility to (1-click) save puzzle solutions while within the game. Respectively a way to easily save a puzzle draft and temporary solutions in the editor.

  • A “conference room” in which one host can make changes to a puzzle, while others can suggest by “ghost”-pointing bases to the puzzle. Eventually with a separate chat box. Limit to the number of such conference rooms to inhibit players taking servers down and encourage turning back to the global chat after solving a puzzle.

  • (players’ ?) selection of intermediate and expert tutorials?
    Suggestions: Basic: Freywa’s “Just for Laughs”. Intermediate: Brourd’s blocking puzzle “Small Limit”, Flashback’s “TL with stack”, Flashback’s “Cute little puzzle” with a free base boost. Expert: Green boosts - Brourd’s “A Fun Puzzle”, “Isolated triloop”.

2
  • Please mention Ctrl-click as a text box while explaining natural mode in a tutorial! This has proved to be one of the most useful tools to date =)
  • [challenge] ability to hide cleared challenge puzzles or sorting them to the back.
  • option to not display the bubble-animation when solving a puzzle and skip right to the “cleared” screen and submitting the design.

Many of these suggestions came from the disheartening flash interface - which is needed for the game, certainly, but is very slow for browsing puzzles (for example chat reloading with each clicked link).

PS: Might I add that I’m a member for only few days. Especially the missing puzzle-skipping and slow navigation were almost frustrating at times, and surely the biggest threshold to really start getting the grasp of puzzling and earning enough points to enter the lab.
PPS: Just found the hide chat button

3

Lots of good ideas in here. In particular, this would argue that the “skip puzzle functionality” should be upped in priority as we move to a quest-based model.

4

+search for puzzles/challenges which have been solved by zero players, or by at least 50% of players ot similar - letting you find easy/hard puzzles/challenges

++pretty much everything Dicey said but particularly

  • Please mention Ctrl-click as a text box while explaining natural mode in a tutorial! This has proved to be one of the most useful tools to date =)
5
  • an option to enlarge the bar for drafting and sending messages (PMs in the game, not here on the forums)
  • the infoscreen that opens when clicking from the lab entry list to a single design, should have the melting point and kcal value written on it as well (as well as the pairing probability plot if possible) to make for more accessible and easier voting decisions.