From your comments, I think I understand why the "choose an octave" thing was such a hard choice, but I think what you settled on was quite possibly the least intuitive option for me. Even once I thought I understood how it worked, it kept jumping around on me every time I wanted to try another note. It was frustrating enough that I wouldn't come back to the game over it, because I can't even practice with it until I do get the hang of it with the "one puzzle a day" limitation. And most of the comments support that it wasn't intuitive for the majority of people.
Virtually everyone has at least some relative pitch, enough to know "the next note should be right/left of the last one." Moving the whole octave, and only really showing that with the highlights on a tiny keyboard above is just confusing.
I'm one of those people who virtually never puts my phone in landscape mode, but I would rather unlock landscape mode for one puzzle a day so you could display the full range of applicable keys for the featured section of the song than try it the current way again.
There is one question that I haven't entirely figured out how to ask but am curious about -- if we let you adjust the octaves, and if you select the correct note but the wrong octave, would you want the game to highlight the note as "green" (correct) when you submit the attempt? Or would you prefer to have to guess the right octave along with the right note before the answer is accepted?
(Unrelated side note: I am a desktop person, and thus surprised that so many people are playing it on their phones, haha. I'll have to check the google analytics for that.)
I really like this idea! Maybe the 4th color will be pale green (aka you're close)
> Another recommendation: make an easy mode in a single octave for practice. Allow progression to more octaves once easy mode is mastered.
This is unfortunately hard to do in the regular daily game cadence because I'd have to limit myself to songs that span only one octave within the first 6 notes, but I can definitely see it as an easy mode feature in "practice" mode. I'm also thinking that ironically, fixing the octave makes it easier for users because it limits the choices, so maybe:
1. easy: the octaves switch for you
2. normal, hard: you have free reign to switch octaves, but right_note && wrong_octave === pale green tile
Consider if you can simplify the game so that it's only played on one or two octaves, and the full range is shown at all times. I believe that's the best way forward.
Maybe a simple mode (one octave) and an advanced mode (more octaves..).
Thanks for the nice game! And because there is a keyboard right there to compare with the recording, this is just as much a game of relative pitch as it is perfect pitch. (With that said I don't mind the name, it is a fun one and can be good branding.)
I think your current implementation of choosing the octave for us is good, but it would be nice if it was possible to play the notes without guessing them, and thus causing the octave to change(ie moving to the octave of the next note).
If I understand OP correctly that should help with their issues as well. I don't know what an "e" sounds like, but if I'm allowed to play the tones,I can quite accurately decide if it's the correct note or not.
I didn't try hard mode yet, but I suppose one of the harder difficulties could be that you have to choose octave as well. That'd really make it difficult!
I don't think this would really be an issue, since anyone who played the sample and then played their entry would immediately hear that it isn't the same.
Virtually everyone has at least some relative pitch, enough to know "the next note should be right/left of the last one." Moving the whole octave, and only really showing that with the highlights on a tiny keyboard above is just confusing.
I'm one of those people who virtually never puts my phone in landscape mode, but I would rather unlock landscape mode for one puzzle a day so you could display the full range of applicable keys for the featured section of the song than try it the current way again.