Initial Beta Feedback
TL;DR
- feature request: random seed generation of terrain tile layouts (floor + walls) for fast map building. Ala, [Donjon](https://donjon.bin.sh/5e/dungeon/) for Talespire.
- feature request: a toggable setting to randomise the tile pattern or rotation between placements so that they don't look so repetitive (specifically for floor tiles).
- feature request: search input for the tileset UI
- enhancement: highlight the asset within the tileset UI when clicking a tile piece that has already been placed on the board so that it and the tileset it comes from can be identified.
- enhancement: tileset UI, collapsible categories (walls, floors etc..) so that it is easy to find specific kinds of tiles within the set.
- enhancement: change the background of the rail road tile pieces to be transparent so that they work with any terrain tile.
...and a whole lot of love for TailSpire ❤️
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Overall I am thoroughly pleased with Talespire, even for a beta, the product is looking mighty polished! You guys should be so proud of what you have accomplished so far, and I am excited to see what improvements you will be bringing to the product in the near future.
I had a chance to play around with TaleSpire for the first time this weekend and so I wanted to provide some feedback and suggestions as a first time user.
To evaluate it's capabilities I wanted to use the software as I would as a DM, and so I wanted to build out a map as I would for any game I would plan.
For my D&D group, the party is about to enter into a mine, so I decided to use this as the basis for what I wanted to build.
I was happy to see that there were some cavern tilesets, so I used them. Aside from wanting some more variety in tiles, the ones that shipped with the beta looked great.
The mines the party are entering are large and vast, and so I hopped onto [Donjon](https://donjon.bin.sh/5e/dungeon/) to generate a map to use as inspiration. I was able to replicate the layout fairly close to what was generated, but after two hours I was starting to feel fatigued and hadn't even covered a quarter of the mines layout. See [Screenshot of board](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EVS7W_ZU8AAcVup?format=jpg&name=large).
What would be wonderful is if TaleSpire could randomly generate a set of floor and wall tiles based on a random seed and some settings (such as size, type etc..), this would be a huge time saver and would serve as a starting point for me to customise, rather than having to painstakingly place each tile individually. I mentioned the map generator tool Donjon, something like that in its implementation would be perfect as a starting point.
Another nice to have feature would be to have a feature that can be toggled on and off to ranomise the texture of the tile used - specifically floor tiles, so that the pattern doesn't become repetitive. I was doing this manually by rotating floor tile pieces at random, but it would be nice for this to be automatic (and more intelligent) without the need for another mouse click.
I can't recall off the top of my head whether this feature already exists or not, but one issue I have found with other map building tools is remembering which tileset a particular asset comes from. If it doesn't already do this, it would be nice if the asset was automatically highlighted in the tileset when clicking on a tile piece that has already been placed on the board. This is particularly useful when mixing and matching different tile pieces from different sets.
Additionally it would be nice if the individual tiles were grouped into collapsible categories (walls, floors etc..) and that the assets could be searched for via a search input. Not so much of a problem today, but I imagine as you add more tile sets in the future, this would be useful.
Finally I really like the inclusion of the rail road tracks and mine carts for the cavern tilesets, as they definitely fit with the theme I am going for, for this board. I did notice though that the corner piece of the rail road tracks has a completely different background texture compared to the other tiles used for the cavern floor, and this sticks out like a sore thumb. Would it be possible to make the rail road tile pieces have a transparent background so that they may be placed on top of any terrain floor tile?
I hope you find this feedback useful. If anything in this post needs clarifying, please let me know, and I'll do my best to elaborate.
I cannot wait to see what exciting improvements you work on next. Congrats to everyone at Bouncy Rock!