Customizing the Program

[MysteryJayhawk]

The Bliss game is an immediate hit in our marriage. I'm sure other people have had the same experience. My wife enjoyed it as much or more than me. We played longer than I wanted but I didn't rush her because she was having such a good time. May God bless this game to many more couples and bless you, Don and Suzanne for developing it. We enjoy and greatly appreciate Bliss!

We highly recommend Bliss to married couples. We have a box full of discarded romance board games. You have developed an excellent romance game built on Christian values to enhance and encourage the marriage relationship. We thank the Lord for Bliss. I am certain that the Lord will use Bliss to His honor and glory to help people; married couples improve their relationship.

I would like to contribute my ideas. The basic game is generic to appeal to a wide audience. We are not suggesting that you change this but we would like to customize the game more to our liking. We would like to tailor Bliss to our tastes, to include things we like and exclude things we dislike and also have endless variety in a more intuitive or less complex way. We don’t want Bliss to get boring so that we won't play it anymore.

Obviously, the “Action Editor” provides the capability to provide customization. We like having this customization available. However, the game will improve if there was a simpler more intuitive way to customize Bliss. What I am suggesting is a “Beginner Mode” option that would not involve the more complex methods used in the “Action Editor.” However, the full “Action Editor” would still be used in an “Advanced Mode.”

Genealogy programs come to mind. Genealogy can become quite complex because it involves relationships much like the marriage relationships enhanced by Bliss. A good example may be seen at The Master Genealogist. http://www.whollygenes.com/.

The advantage of a “Beginner Mode” is that it would allow someone new to learn Bliss and advance at their own pace to avoid the more complex “Action Editor” or “Advanced Mode.” A “Beginner Mode” would involve default options but would allow users various ways to customize the program for first-time user preferences.

In other words, the developer would provide a means for the first-time user to customize Bliss in a simpler more versatile, intuitive method or way by using different options such as rating actions, arousal or “passion” levels, and etc. to adjust their preferences without having to use the more advanced “Action Editor” or “Advanced Mode.”

The preferences could include features that people have recommended such as the ability to “rate” actions by simply clicking on a radio button to give the action a “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” and the option to “never again” see the action and also the ability to determine the frequency of the action in the game.

In our experience playing Bliss actions did repeat somewhat frequently. The players should have an option to select randomization or a way for action 1 to be followed by action 2 and so forth. The game should be more versatile and intuitive for first-time users.

Greater control for the first-time user should be a priority. The user should have the ability to determine what type of action should come first and what type of action should follow. Also, arousal or “passion” levels could have controls so that certain actions only occur at predetermined levels. We would also like the actions to increase or decrease the arousal levels. These various levels should be adjustable.

In addition, property or “situations” should have a means to be added and controlled in a similar way as the other features already mentioned. To simplify this there could be “Beginner Mode” defaults to select for first-time users that do not use the more complex graphics used in “Advanced Mode.”

The general idea that I am trying to suggest and advance is to intuitively implement greater control or versatility through various options to customize this already awesome romance game for first-time users by adopting a “Beginner Mode” and while continuing to use the current “Action Editor” in an “Advanced Mode” for long-time and more technical users.

I feel certain that these suggestions can be implemented fairly easily. I hope you like my ideas and that the ideas benefit Bliss and its users. Again, the main idea is just to provide simple intuitive ways for first-time users to have greater control to make Bliss more versatile. Thanks again, for this fun, exciting partner-enriching game. By His grace and for His glory!

[Don]

Hi,

You have suggested a lot of interesting ideas here. I think part of what you are looking for may already be in the game in the Profile Editor. When you reach the screen where you enter your beginning and ending Passion Levels, on the bottom center of the screen there is a Choose Profile button. Pressing that takes you to a screen where you can create, edit and delete profiles. A profile is a set of preferences that apply to a specific user. If you crate a profile with the same name as your user name, it will automatically be used each time you play.

The profile editor allows you to specify at which Passion level each category of actions are allowed. For instance, if you set French Kissing to a 6, then you will not get any actions that involve that unless you are at level 6 or higher. If you don't create a profile, the default profile is used.

Actions are not assigned directly to a passion level, it is more complex than that. When you create an action, you tell the system what cateories it fits in. For example, you might specify that an action involves Hugging and French Kissing. When the game is played, the program will look at each players profile (or the default profile if they don't have profiles). The game will see that the action involves French Kissing, look in the two profiles and see what levels the players have set for that category, and that will determine the passion level at which the action can be used.

Thus the same action might run at level 4 for one player and level 7 for another, depending on their profiles.

The passion levels can be increased or decreased by the players at any time using the arrows above and below the level indicators.

Let me know if this makes sense and helps any, and I will look at many of these ideas for our next major release.

Thanks,

Don

[MysteryJayhawk]

Hi Don,

Bliss is wonderful! We wouldn't want you to take anything away. Yes, we are aware that almost anything and everything is already there and perhaps that is sufficient but we also believe Bliss can be improved and enhanced. We wonder, speaking from experience of course, if a "shell," "training wheels" or a "Beginner Mode" wrapped into Bliss where all a first-time or beginning user has to do is checkmark a box or radio button to make some first-time or beginning user preferences, if it wouldn't be advantageous. The game already has capabilities to do almost anything and everything but there is a learning curve involved to enhance play. If you can simplify the game by providing the intuitive means to set some basic and perhaps additional mid-level preferences or selections, behind the curtain so to speak, it will better enable first-time, beginning or less technical users to better utilize Bliss. Anything a person can do without reading instructions is better by my way of thinking. Good Luck, we love Bliss!