Noun Town & Drunkin' Bar Fight question and a suggestion for all game developers

[DebraFi]

I purchased Noun Town and Drunkin' Bar Fight and like the games; but, I have a problem that I haven't been able to get help with from Meta reps, on Facebook chats, contacting the maker themselves or on Reddit. The search terms do not find an answer in the community forums for these two games.  If anyone knows the answer for Noun Town or Drunkin' Bar Fight, I'd greatly appreciate it and would share it with others who have reached out to me on Reddit with the same questions and not being able to find the answer.

Representatives from Noun Town responded, but don't know how to fix the issue either.  They stated they did escalate it to another part of their team that might address this in a future update.  Drunkin' Bar Fight never responded to me. I This question actually links to a suggestion I would like to make for all game developers.

Sometimes I have to go a while before playing a certain game again for various reasons.  If I did not play the game for a long time, I may forget how to do certain tasks with the controllers.   In Noun Town, I accidentally hit an option to never see a reminder of how to learn more about an object.  I also had to stop playing for a bit and forgot the words I learned.  I am not given the option to start over as a new player so I can go through the tutorial again and make sure not to click the option that permanently prevents me from learning how to find out more about an object again.  I've tried uninstalling the app, even having Meta refund my monies and repurchasing the app; but, it still remembers me.  There is a "help" option, but it does not address this issue, nor does it allow you to revisit the tutorial where you learned this information.  

Drunkin' Bar Fight comes with barely any instructions.  There are a few things my husband and I need more information about, eg, what do some of the options on the controller do and how do you earn them, but the information is not available.  We've tried toggling and clicking on everything; but, cannot find it. 

Many games have a simple option for these things.  They either have where you can click on a button and a quick picture comes up that shows you what each button, trigger, etc. can do; they have a printed out instruction option or you can replay the tutorial.  This is of great help if you have many games and haven't played one for awhile and need a refresher.   Some offer the ability to start over as a new player or add a second player who goes through the introduction again.

Many players are also of the older generation like I am.  We come from the days of Atari and Nintendo.  With taking care of young ones, our parents, working, etc. - you have limited time to play and sometimes just want to jump in a game without having to learn everything yourself.  I know it's the fun thing to figure out how a game works; but, it would be nice that there was an accessible area that contains instructions for at least all of the hand controller functions, how to get/earn new levels in the game, what bonuses/special weapons can be earned through the game so we know what the heck they are if we earn them, etc.  Those who want to discover on their own can ignore that section; but it is there for those who do need it. 

Hopefully all of this was understandable.  Thank you for any and all help.

[Chundvar]

Hey @DebraFi! I moved your post over here because I think this is a good discussion to have, but Get Help is primarily used for troubleshooting issues with headsets. Curious to see what the community thinks about this!

[DebraFi]

Thank you so much.  I'm still learning my way around forums.  I greatly appreciate the assist.  Take care and have a great day 🙂

[DaftnDirect]

Hi @DebraFi

many games now save the player's progress on Meta's servers rather than on the headset, so uninstalling and re-installing a game won't affect your progress. this is usually a good thing but it means that if you want to start a game again... and the game doesn't have that option built-in... you have to go to your Cloud Backup page on-line, and delete the backup there.

I don't have Noun Town or Drunken Bar Fight, so I can't test it for you but it's worth checking.

You should be able to see your backups here: https://secure.oculus.com/my/cloud-backup/  , have a look and see if the games are listed and whether you have the option to delete the backup. That may be all you need to do to start the game again... although uninstalling and reinstalling the game at the same time wouldn't do any harm.

[DebraFi]

I'll give it a try and let you know if it worked.  Thank you so much 🙂

[DebraFi]

I found the page and bookmarked it for future reference.  While it shows Noun Town as storing in the Meta Cloud, it does not give me the option to delete the back-up.  I do appreciate the information, thank you for sharing.

[DaftnDirect]

mmm just checking... did you buy the games from the Meta store or were they from Steam to run on PC with your headset? sorry I should have asked before!

Steam game saves have to be deleted from your Steam library (right-clicking on the game and unticking the 'keep the game saves on the Steam Cloud' option.

If they're from the Meta store, I'm running out of ideas!

[DebraFi]

The Meta Store.  I appreciate all ideas because you never know when something that may not be right - could spark an idea that does work.  Thank you again.

[DaftnDirect]

Ok, I can only think that there are some residual files left on the headset, even after they’re uninstalled. I’d need to buy the games to find out… perhaps someone else can confirm. It’s a shame the games don’t have the option to restart… or replay the tutorials at least. It would be nice to think that developers read these threads!