Feedback about 3 player chess from the Low-fi crew

Took the train up to Gateshead with the Low-fi crew who have apparently been enjoying playing 3 player chess and having silly conversations via the chat facility.

They were very complimentary about the way the game's new rules operate and also gave me some very useful useability feedback for the game. Here are their observations- with possible solutions:

1) The chat windows within the games are not deep enough- at the moment you can only read two comments at a time. If you're having quickfire chat with 3 people it's easy to loose the thread.

solution- this could be solved by making the entire module deeper, putting the input text on the same line as the name and narrowing the space between seperate entries.

2) There's no way to see what the last move was. This means that if you loose concentration or have to leave the screen for some reason it's hard to work out what is going on.

solution- either cause moves to be animated on all players' screens or make the most recently moved piece flash. It would also be useful to be able to recall previous moves.

3) when logged into the lobby, there is nothing to indicate that players are involved in a game. This can be pretty alienating and confusing to a first time player, leading one to feel that one's chat is being ignored

solution- in the lobby it would be useful to indicate how many people were logged into the multiplayer game altogether and to indicate which game they were playing or viewing.

4) players don't always notice that they are in check.

solution- create a check alert:-) - ruth