1. This is really cool. Also scary. I think I might be the target market for this, I've long known that communication is my greatest professional weakness at this point, and within that, brevity is something I gotta learn.
2. I did one of the games (CVS, pharmacy, chemistry) and it was terrifying! By which I mean "I think I might be exactly the sort of person who needs to be FORCED to do this, and I did so, and it was DIFFICULT AND UNCOMFORTABLE", which means your thing works. :D
3. I had to copy the original text to a side buffer so I could refer to it while I was writing. It would have been better if I could see it, and the required words, on one part of the screen (left? top?) while I entered my new text somewhere else.
4. The timer didn't seem to work for me (firefox, linux), but that's fine, there's no way I could have gotten it done in time, and seeing the numbers decrease would have made it even harder. ^_^;;
5. I understand that "grading" in any sense is hard (you need a human), so I appreciate offering the example "correct" response, but you know what would have been even better? several "valid" rewrites, and perhaps a few that aren't! What I mean to say is, as an admittedly poor writer, seeing both an example of what to do and what not to do could be of use.
6. I wish there were a way to spend 1/20th as much for 1/50th of the paid product first, before committing to buy the whole thing. There's a large psychological difference between $5 and $100 and I'd pay $5 right now to test out the paid version 10 times, even though I'll probably pay $100 for it, later. I might not though! I might forget! But that made my brain hurt so hard I'd drop $5 without a thought.
7. A difficulty level for each game would be FANTASTIC! Can you do that? Perhaps just 3 levels. That way people like me who are looking to take their writing ability from "completely horrible" to "acceptable" can have an easier time.
There's a "Show Required" button in the bottom-left of the gameplay screen (i.e., the screen with the timer) that shows the original text with the required terms underlined. Do you see that button?
> 4.
That's weird, because I only use Linux and mostly test in Firefox. If you happen to see any console errors or other clues, feel free to post them.
> 5.
Totally agree. I might establish a forum to make this more feasible, not sure yet.
> 6.
I can understand that notion from the consumer side, but as a maker, I've never had any luck with small voluntary payments. For this particular venture, a major component of the value-add is uncapped access to real human feedback, and this cannot be scaled. Because of that, I can't justify charging anything lower.
To come at it from another angle, I think $100 (or even $300) to learn a life skill that can drastically improve your personal and professional life is a great deal. Especially since the cost of many professional writing courses can be several times higher, in spite of being (in my opinion) much less effective.
If you're hesitant to spend the money, that's fair...consider joining the email list to stay in the loop. Or spend the money, and I'll just give it back to you if you have any regrets :D
> 7.
Interesting, haven't thought about such a thing. Maybe I'll consider it!
> That's weird, because I only use Linux and mostly test in Firefox. If you happen to see any console errors or other clues, feel free to post them.
OK, I can now reliably repro!
At the first screen, _click_ play. Then press enter 5 times.
Every time I do that, I get a stopped timer and no starting text. Same when extensions are disabled. I don't see any obvious errors in the console, other than "Autoplay is only allowed when approved by the user, the site is activated by the user, or media is muted". Which I'm pretty sure I see when I use the mouse to click.
edit:
Refined it a bit more. Every time I use the mouse to click the final button "Go" it works as intended. Every time I press the enter key instead, I get the timer stop & no starting text bug.
I hope you can get some amusement in the fact that I'm procrastinating writing a design doc for work by debugging your writing app. :D
Yup, I did. Also, I noticed that some times the game starts up with the required text, but sometimes I get a blank page.
>other clues...
On it! I triggered the timer stop again by going back and forth using your back links a few times. Another difference is the first time I used the site, I proceeded only with the enter key, not a mouse click. I'll poke at it for a few mins and see if I can find an easy repro case, least I can do...
> or even $300...
I'm afraid to tell you what it would be worth to me, if I knew ahead of time it worked. ;)
I wasn't trying to say "I think $100 is too much for this sort of thing", lol no. (I'd pay $$$ for something like this + a human to evaluate, coach, and push me in the right direction)
I was trying to say "I bet you'll get way more sales if you offer a bite sized trial AND the full package".
> Or spend the money, and I'll just give it back to you if you have any regrets :D
(I was already mentally gearing up to commit to buying it, and trying to do at least 1 a day starting with my next paycheck, tomorrow. ;) )
> Maybe I'll consider it!
Please do! I've now gone through a few times to see different prompts and I'd love a easy, medium, hard tag, because some are much easier than others, and, psychologically, being able to choose those in advance makes it easier for me to force myself to actually do it.
Ran in private mode w/o extensions, still can repro. There's gotta be some difference between giving the final button a click, and whatever happens in a browser when I press enter. I don't know anything about browser programming but hopefully that helps you find it.
1. This is really cool. Also scary. I think I might be the target market for this, I've long known that communication is my greatest professional weakness at this point, and within that, brevity is something I gotta learn.
2. I did one of the games (CVS, pharmacy, chemistry) and it was terrifying! By which I mean "I think I might be exactly the sort of person who needs to be FORCED to do this, and I did so, and it was DIFFICULT AND UNCOMFORTABLE", which means your thing works. :D
3. I had to copy the original text to a side buffer so I could refer to it while I was writing. It would have been better if I could see it, and the required words, on one part of the screen (left? top?) while I entered my new text somewhere else.
4. The timer didn't seem to work for me (firefox, linux), but that's fine, there's no way I could have gotten it done in time, and seeing the numbers decrease would have made it even harder. ^_^;;
5. I understand that "grading" in any sense is hard (you need a human), so I appreciate offering the example "correct" response, but you know what would have been even better? several "valid" rewrites, and perhaps a few that aren't! What I mean to say is, as an admittedly poor writer, seeing both an example of what to do and what not to do could be of use.
6. I wish there were a way to spend 1/20th as much for 1/50th of the paid product first, before committing to buy the whole thing. There's a large psychological difference between $5 and $100 and I'd pay $5 right now to test out the paid version 10 times, even though I'll probably pay $100 for it, later. I might not though! I might forget! But that made my brain hurt so hard I'd drop $5 without a thought.
7. A difficulty level for each game would be FANTASTIC! Can you do that? Perhaps just 3 levels. That way people like me who are looking to take their writing ability from "completely horrible" to "acceptable" can have an easier time.