Our focus right now is on implementing OblivAeon for the full digital version of Sentinels. We plan to add OA mode support to Sidekick as well, but have no ETA on that. Thanks!
GTG: can you exert any influence here? Many of your player base uses Sidekick and Oblivaeon is so darn fiddily that many I know don’t play the scenario. They are waiting for Sidekick (something they already paid for) and now we are being told it got bumped until the Ap version is ready for sale
Even if they weren’t already aware I’m pretty sure GtG wouldn’t be able to force their hand on it. Much like the main digital version, the Sidekick app would need some UI changes to support OblivAeon. How hard or easy that is to implement I don’t know for the Sidekick app but I would guess the main digital version would at least assist in what that finally looks like.
Yeah, I suspect it's basically a case where the challenges in implementing OA in Sidekick are many of the exact challenges in implementing OA in the digital app, ergo it makes a certain amount of sense to do the latter then back port to the former.
I also doubt they could do anything but I was hoping. Handelabra had months while Oblivaeon was in production to work on Sidekick. Instead they chose the money over existing product support. Not surprising, just disappointing
Extending Sidekick to handle the OblivAeon mode of play seems like a significant project. I would find it reasonable if Handelabra asked for more money for that.
Sure and I doubt that would bother anyone but do the darn update. Oblivaeon has been out 5 months and is largely unplayable without some tracking software due to a billion fiddley targets
I've been rigging up the Sidekick app to try to have all the different scions and characters of Oblivaeon in there to keep track of the HPs... and it works ok... That being said, it is a huge pain, and a real disincentive to playing Oblivaeon. I'd like to register my complaint, here.
Support for the heroes and environments of OblivAeon was not complicated, so they were added to Sidekick quickly after the tabletop expansion was delivered to backers. Support for the OA game mode in Sidekick is a significant project on both iOS and Android. We are a small company, and Sidekick is the smallest of our products, and that's just how priorities have to go. We appreciate you buying Sidekick, and have added tons of free functionality updates to the app over time, for no additional charge, and with no obligation to do so. As I mentioned in the private Facebook message, we are planning to add OA mode in the future. Thanks for your patience!
I quoted the FB message in it's entirety to provide the community with an update.
BTW, I paid for all the graphics packs, with no obligation to do so, to make sure Handelabra got more money for the functionality provided at no additional charge. The graphics add NOTHING to the experience but I wanted to make sure I paid more, with no obligation to do so because I felt it was the right thing to do. I also bought other Handelabra products to thank them for the updates to Sidekick which makes Sentinels more enjoyable on the table.
Most people here are already aware that Handelabra has its hands full working on the digital app and so other things are likely going to be delayed until it’s finished.
On top of that, many people here have already paid for the Season 2 pass same as you have already paid for Sidekick, and so we’re just as eager for the stuff we already paid for to be finished.
And I mean… Android’s Play Store lists Sentinels Sidekick as being in the 1K downloads category, and I’d be surprised of iOS was that much different.
In contrast; IIRC they’ve said that the full app has something closer to a quarter of a million downloads across the various platforms.
Right, but this is the GtG website. I certainly don't know the details of how the license works, so if GtG gets some percentage based on downloads from Handelabra, then I'm sure they agree with you. But if it's a fixed price license, they've gotten the same money regardless of Digital vs Sidekick and hence they might prioritize the tool that makes their game playable to sell more physical copies of Oblivaeon.
Digital doesn't exist without the paper version and the great designers at GtG, hence why my belief is to prioritize Sidekick.If I'm alone in this feeling, no worries by me. I'll prioritize their products accordingly.
If we assume iOS has similar download numbers to Android, that means there’s around 2K people who own Sidekick.
The OA kickstarter had about 10K backers.
So even among physical owners, the people who use Sidekick are a minority, and thus it is likely not a major driving force behind people buying OblivAeon.
That’s also without noting the fact that there’s plenty of people like myself who own both Sidekick and Season 2. And basically I can still play physical OA without help and use the OA heroes and environments with help, but I can’t yet play digital OA content at all, so my own personal priority of the two is still “finish digital OA”.
I’d also note that GTG is also a small business that has at times talked about the logistics of having to prioritize projects based on what keeps the lights on, so I am going to guess they’re not going to tell Handelabra to use a different business model from themselves. C&A have also expressed time and time again they’re just happy whenever there’s new fans of Sentinels and generally don’t seem to place physical-owning fans in a tier over the digital-owning ones.
I empathize with your frustration since as I noted plenty of us own both things and are equally looking forward to Sidekick being finished as we are to the digital app. But you also made your case and were given I feel a polite answer that I recognize is not what you wanted to hear but is also an answer that makes sense logistically for them to give.
So I just am noting that if your goal is to try to change that answer via prodding the community and GTG to get mad at Handelabra and demand they focus on a 2K-selling product over a 250K-selling product–with the latter product being again one even those of us who own Sidekick, also own the other one too–I just don’t feel that you’re going to succeed there.
1) Without data I’m willing to wager IOS is double android. At 30% that’s statistically a minority but barely.
2) “we all knew this”... really? Where was it published that Sidekick is now an afterthought to the digital? I’ve asked Handelabra for info using multiple methods pretty much since I got physical oblivion and gotten no definitive answers, only “we’re working on it”. Yesterday was the first I heard “we’re actually NOT working on it until digital is complete..
3) polite response? Try passive aggressive response. Words like “under no obligation” are entirely passive aggressive.
Yes, I was hoping both the company and fans of the paper game would be concerned as I am and exert pressure, but from this small sample size it seems clear people are content with the status quo, so I will cease using this forum for this line of discourse
It was mentioned on these forums by MigrantP in their Sentinels Sidekick main thread https://greaterthangames.com/comment/194487#comment-194487 and again in September https://greaterthangames.com/comment/196038#comment-196038 that support for the OblivAeon Mode would be added later. They haven’t forgotten the app but as a small programming team they have to set priorities on what to work on. I don’t see their reply to you as passive aggressive and if anything I see it coming across rather straight forward. With all of their projects they don’t get an ETA until they know for sure they can release it.
And what I’ve been trying to point out/warn you about is that the company and fans of the paper game are also looking forward to the digital version as well, and there’s also a very large quantity of digital-only fans on top of it, who are all thus more likely to be concerned with and exerting pressure about the digital version, all of which is something Handelabra also has to listen to.
“We all knew this” more or less because much of the online Sentinels community is fans of both GTG and Handelabra and so we keep tabs on both. If you go to Reddit you’re likely to find people more concerned with when the digital version is coming out (there was a thread about the topic literally just the other day in fact) and Steam and the fan Discord are definitely both primarily concerned with the digital version.
I tried to give you polite nudges but that seems to have not worked, so I guess I have to be a little more blunt: The reason you’re not finding much traction is because even the people who own Sidekick here generally either also own the digital version and care more about that being done first, or they just understand that the pressure exerted from a quarter million people is a lot heavier than the pressure exerted from a few thousand people.
Not to mention, to loop back to my initial post in this thread, a lot of the problems they have to solve UI and tracking-wise are likely to be very similar for both Sidekick and the full app, so it’s likely even if they put full resources on it you still wouldn’t have that much of a difference in ETA anyway simply because they’d have to solve much the same problems either way regardless.