An open letter to the creators of Parallel Kingdom

UPDATE: Parallel Kingdoms has received several updates since the writing of this post. Many (if not all) of the issues listed below have been resolved.

I’ve been playing with PK the last couple days and have to admit I like the idea, though I am unable to do much with it so far. I thought I’d give you a list of things that might make it more accessible to more people. All of these suggestions are based on my experience playing the game on an iPhone 3G. Mileage will, of course, vary on an iPod touch, original iPhone, or Android OS.

1. Don’t drop all items upon death. Perhaps have 3-5 items that can be equipped or stored in a backpack so that they are not lost on death. This is especially frustrating due to sometimes respawning nowhere near your last location.
2. Use location services to find the player initially, then allow them to walk around a section or “cell” of the game world by tapping. This will resolve issues where a player is in the middle of a fight, receives a phone call, goes back to the game and is now too far from their original location to fight the same enemy as before. This will also allow them to go back to pick up stuff they may have dropped on accident or due to death, but were respawned a great distance away. This could also be used as a method of balance by making the respawn rate of enemies in a given cell great enough that players would still be encouraged to travel to play the game if they wish to continue fighting. Perhaps an area of 3 city blocks would be sufficient. This would be especially helpful to those that do not live in an area where public transportation is a viable option and cannot play while driving to and from work/school/etc. Furthermore, the respawn rate for their cell could be increased if they log in located in a different cell than before, indicating that they are indeed traveling to new locations, and not just spawn-camping a specific cell.
3. If 2 is not an option, then (more accurate) auto-updating of players location as they move around the real world, so that they can run away from enemies in bad situations. Currently, the only viable alternative is to return to the Home screen and reload the app, hopefully far enough from an enemy not to die. Most frustrating because death results in number 1. This would also allow a player that spawns too far from anything useful to quickly and easily travel to something on the map without reloading the app and hoping for a beneficial change in location.
4. Always using GPS to locate, if possible, for more accurate placement. As it stands, the player bounces around the map if they leave the game and come back unless they re-locate using Google Maps every time they reopen the game.
5. Auto-attacking currently appears buggy, or not supported, making the game very frustrating as monsters will continue to attack the player, but the player only intermittently seems to continue attacking the monsters unless the Attack button is spammed. This can get very tiring very quickly, and requires a great deal more concentration than is necessary for a game with MMORPG sensibilities.
6. The ability to purchase healing spells, items, potions, etc. from anywhere on the map via the menu would be very helpful. Also, being able to either pause the game by bringing up the Menu, or quickly selecting healing items by storing one or two on the map screen in the corners would reduce the chances of being killed while attempting to heal a character (thus resulting in losing all your items and often respawning too far from them to recover them). Another alternative would be a two-finger tap, a double tap, or a two-finger swipe across the screen to activate an item (healing, magic spell, weapon) designated using the Inventory screen as a “quick use” item.

That is all I have for now. I hope that some of these are interesting enough to you that they make it in some fashion into the game. I know that some day this game may require purchasing in order to play it, but as it stands, it is too limited for those that live in rural or sprawling metropolitan areas with poor public transportation to be worth purchasing, as well as very difficult in the early stages of the game due to the excessively high death-rate and loss of inventory items with very small chances of recovery. I look forward to seeing updates that improve the accessibility of this game for everyone soon!

Thanks for your time,

Jared