Legion TD 2 (Pre-Alpha Demo) Usability Review

Legion TD 2 is a tower-defense game in which the player controls minions and mercenaries to defend their king from opposing armies. Currently in pre-alpha, the player jumps straight into the action: right from the get-go, you have 180 seconds to set up a phalanx to defend your king. Wave after wave, balance your resources to position yourself correctly for late-game as the waves get more difficult.

As demos go, Legion TD 2 is looking fairly shiny and clean. Even though there was no tutorial, I picked up the game (fairly?) quickly. And while I'm sure the team will eventually make a tutorial, there are a few places where I certainly had questions, or I have some concerns.

173 Seconds to go before the first round...

Font Face & Legibility Is Good Overall

One of the comments I often have for early access games is that their font is difficult to read, or their UI elements are unexplained. Right from the start, I was able to hover over the icons to learn what they were. Font size is good.

The only places where I'd caution you on font are your combat alerts, the 'creatures remaining' text near the wave counter, and the resource bar below the action bar.

Alert text during Wave 5.

The varying font colors don't seem to make sense (why is Magic in pink? Armor weight in brown? Remaining enemies in grey?), and the lighter colors are very difficult to read over the road. I don't know how vital these messages are (do I really need to know if it's a Magic attack? Not sure.), but if the player ought to pay attention to them, they ought to be more legible.

Second, the text next to the wave counter is difficult to read -- it could be that the text is too narrow, and the contrast between the black and red too low. Either way, it's hard to read.

Third, the resources bar is very small, in comparison to the rest of the UI. Since resource management seems to be a large part in planning one's army, I'd expect the resource bar to be larger.

Resources Bar

Recommendations

• Consider adding some kind of translucent background behind the text to show contrast between the alert text and the environment. 
• Consider changing the font size or placement of the 'X creatures remaining' - it's difficult to read currently. Alternatively, if it's not entirely necessarily to constantly see how many monsters are remaining, consider implementing what Path of Exile does: in chat, one can type /remaining to see how many monsters are remaining in that area. But maybe it's better to know at all times what's left -- I'm not sure.
• Consider increasing the font size of these resources, and potentially make this bar more prominent. I understand that that UI is currently a placeholder -- but I would recommend making this bar stand out more, considering its importance.

Where Did The Mercenaries Go? 

One question I had after buying mercenaries was, "wait, where did they go?" Because buying a basic fighter or worker had an immediate effect, I expect to immediately see the mercenaries appear next to the Barracks. Instead, it looked like the mercenaries I bought appeared closer to my king, in the "beacon" area? That wasn't at all what I was expecting, so I bought quite a few more mercenaries than I intended.

Recommendation 

After a player buys a mercenary, include some kind of visual effect. If they can't appear adjacent to the town or barracks, have some other kind of visual effect that shows that the purchase went through successfully. In your tutorial, you'll need to explain that you don't place your mercenaries -- that wasn't clear to me, and I honestly couldn't them on the map after I bought them.

Explain Terminology & Mechanics

One thing to be aware of is that not all players know what "tanky" or "squishy" means in descriptions. If you're familiar with games, you know these things, but consider that not all of the people who will pick up your games will understand those terms. Instead of using shorthand terms, be sure to elaborate. For example, "tanky" can be "strong fighters who can take a lot of damage before falling." Or something.

In addition, when you eventually make the tutorial (which I strongly recommend you prioritize before the closed beta), be sure to explain all of the controls (yes, even right click to move).

Recommendation 

Remember that not all of your players are starting out with your knowledge of the genre, and design accordingly.

Confusion About Map Setup

Another question I had was about why my fighters moved(/teleported?) near the king after they defeated the wave. I wasn't sure why they did that, and I didn't really want to relinquish control of them. I tried to select all of them simultaneously and right click to move them into the right lane -- but I couldn't do that. It felt somewhat bad to have to relinquish control and watch what happened during a round. Maybe that's just how the demo is designed, but I hope eventually I'd have more control about where my fighters go intra-round. Otherwise I feel helpless.

The other thing about map setup was I got a notification: "Don't leave your area." I'm not sure what my 'area' is. The entire left lane? Can I not move anywhere else? Why not? Aren't my mercenaries in the right lane? Why can't I have my fighters join them?

Recommendation 

If players aren't allowed to let their fighters leave a specific area during a wave, make sure that they have something else to do to occupy themselves. In addition, if you haven't considered this already, think about animating wave-survivors flying/walking/running to the bridge before the king. Having that animation would help show where the fighters are going -- otherwise it's easy to lose them.

Team Differentiation

One other issue that I had in Legion TD 2 was differentiating between my team and my opponents. Consider the following picture, for example:

Which are the enemy creatures? Which are my creatures? Who's winning? I'm not sure, entirely. Team differentiation is also difficult on the mini-map,

In the map, my fighters are pushing back on yellow's wave of monsters. Considering the size of the mini-map, and the trapezoid on top of the mini-map, it's tricky to see what cluster of monsters is mine. And woe be to those who are colorblind!

Recommendation 

• Consider changing the health bars of enemy units to be red to black, and friendly units green to black. That way, one can tell who's winning. If you plan on having color-blind settings, green can become blue and red can become orange. There's a good Reddit thread here about changing Dota 2's settings to be more colorblind-friendly.
  
• Consider giving enemy teams different shapes, in addition to colors. For example, red could always be red diamonds; yellow is yellow circles; green is green triangles; blue is blue squares. That way, a color-blind player is better able to tell units apart on the mini-map.

Final Thoughts

• Make sure to explain combat icons! I didn't cover that in a section, because I assume you'll cover it in a tutorial.
• The idea of upgrading a basic unit (the Aqua Spirit) into something else wasn't immediately clear to me -- I stumbled on that feature, and I'm not sure why I would want to do that as a player. 
• Initially, I didn't realize that buttons 1 - 5 were essentially opening up different menus from which I could select more fighters/mercenaries -- I thought they were things I could place as well. I learned my mistake pretty quickly, but I thought I'd share that initial train of thought.
• Overall, a great first start at a demo!

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Sorry for the long delay between writing! I was in Texas earlier this month for an interview, and then have been busy with other stuff since them. Busy bein' an adult. Or something. Next week I'll be sharing a guest post! Exciting stuff!

Until then, thanks for reading.