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WordPop! for iPad – Flattening the Design

When reading the advice from Apple in the iPad Human Interface Guidelines it is clear the language and tone assumes the developer is coming from the iPhone and is in the process of converting their iPhone app to an iPad app. Thus someone came up with the idea of describing the iPad UI as flattening the iPhone version. This is really just a very odd way of saying, “You have more real estate to use, put everything on the screen that you can that is important, and no need to hide it on other screens like you did for the iPhone version.”

When Jim, Wyatt and I were redesigning WordPop! for the iPad we asked ourselves what additional elements would engage and entertain our players in addition to the game itself. One answer was game statistics. The Best Words and High Score Global List stats are very popular among WordPop! players. They compare the player’s current game and words to other players, which then acts as an incentive to do even better as you want to beat the current high score or best word on the global list. However, the stats were hidden in the menu (two taps away). By moving the stats out of the menu system and onto the game board would result in “Flattening the Design“.

However, we all felt it was not enough to just move the existing stats. Thus we decided to add more fun stats, many of which were recommended to us by players of WordPop! for the iPhone. When the iPad version of WordPop! is released, players will be able to compare their game to several new, important, and exciting stats that will act as another incentive per round and word to do better.

Look for more peeks into our development of WordPop! for iPad in coming blogs. Please share this blog and follow Smart Box Design on Twitter.

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WordPop! for iPad – Which way is up?

The iPad is designed without a specific orientation. Applications will mostly be viewed in portrait or landscape mode, however for games it can be put on a table and viewed from above (such as playing checkers).

One of the first steps in redesigning WordPop! for the iPad was to create some simple layouts for each orientation. At first we were not sure if we had to support both landscape and portrait, as this was not required for the iPhone. There was much debate in chat rooms but it was soon put to rest with this simple quote from The iPad Human Interface Guidelines “Although you might not have supported all orientations in your iPhone application, you must do so in your iPad application.” With that now settled we created a wire frame layout for each orientation. This gave us an idea on how much room to reserve for the WordPop! machine and how much space remained for new features.

One of the new features is displaying the high scores and other data in a fun and refreshing way. Here is a quick mock-up from Jim Patterson.
High Scores Orientation A

This layout works well in but is too wide for the other orientation. The solution is to change what is displayed. Thus when in the iPad is rotated 90 degrees the date column is removed as shown in this very rough mock up.

High Scores Orientation B

Although we do temporarily hide the date it can be brought back instantly by rotating the iPad 90 degrees in either directions. (We did discuss using a smaller font, but it felt too jarring. This solution kept the UI consistent and offered a better experience.)

I think players of iPad games will see some display information come and go when different orientations are used (FYI – Watch the demo of email on the iPad at www.apple.com.  The mail list is hidden in portrait mode which is similar to what we are doing.).

Although supporting both orientations will be a challenge  and add to the overall scope of the project it will add to the uniqueness of the iPad.

Look for more peeks into our development of WordPop! for iPad in coming blogs.

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WordPop! for iPad – Coming Soon

top_scoring_ipad.jpg

We have been having a great time working on WordPop! for the iPad. During March the team will be blogging about their thoughts and tasks as we race to finish WordPop! in time for the iPad release (which is still TBD but we are all watching Apple closely).

After the iPad was announced we had a exciting meeting and answered several key questions.

Q: What did we think of the iPad?
A: We loved it and thought it was going to fill an important niche market.

Q: Could we offer our players a great gaming experience?
A: Yes, the extra real estate will be used to add even more engagement to the game.

Q: Should we create a new game from scratch or redesign one of our current games?
A: We decided to redesign one of our current games and felt either Farkle Dice or WordPop! would be the best candidates. We sent a poll to our registered users and WordPop! was the clear leader receiving over 40% of the votes.

Q: What next steps should be taken?
A. All team members to read the new Human Interface Guidelines for the iPad and to install the SDK to gain access to the simulator.

Check back as I will be writing regularly about our development efforts and I will be posting more images as we get closer to the final look. Above is a screen shot taken from the simulator.

Please comment and let me know what you are interested to hear about in regards to iPad, gaming, WordPop!, etc.

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WordPop New Features Continued

Here are some more features coming to WordPop this fall. All of these features have been suggested by players, either at our bulletin board or direct e-mails to me.

Add Treo Support– I am a big fan of the Windows Mobile Treo line, but it has a unique square screen, while most Windows Mobile devices have a rectangle screen. To support the Treo with the highest quality possible, the art has to be redrawn. Jim Patterson, Smart Box Design’s lead artist, has finished redoing the art and it looks FANTASTIC!

 

Allow a single Undo– When WordPop was originally created, I wanted to make sure the game was challenging, and it is, any by the many wonderful e-mails I have received. However, there have been many requests for an Undo, not to make the game easier, but because sometimes a player would make a mistake. For example, dropping the bonus tile in the wrong spot or rotating the screen by accident. A single Undo will be added to the menu for those rare occasions when a mistake needs to be corrected.

 

Allow the letter “I” as an acceptable word – In creating the word list there are many rules, such as no abbreviations, hyphenated words, and no words that can be capitalized, such as a name or place. For that reason the letter “I” is not accepted as a word while “a” is. I could remove the “a” but this might cause confusion, so I am breaking the rules for the letter “I” and it will now be accepted.

 

Display the Letter When Blank Bonus Tiles are being used – When a word is created it shows up in the word creation area at the top of the screen. When a blank tile is being used, we simply put in an underscore to show that a blank tile is being used there. Several readers have asked for the letter to appear. Thus a lower case letter will appear there and in the “Best Words” screen. You might be saying, “Huh!” the problem is in some cased the player was not exactly sure what word was made with the blank tile, this will make the process complete. This feature is one that is better understood playing the game then describing it.

 

I am looking forward to the new version of WordPop coming out this fall.

 

Keep those comments coming!

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WordPop New Features Continued

Here are some more features coming to WordPop this fall. All of these features have been suggested by players, either at our bulletin board or direct e-mails to me.

Clear Best Words List – When I first designed WordPop with my team we did not think that clearing the best words was necessary. But an interesting problem arose. Sometimes a player makes a word that is really high scoring but is embarrassing, such as,…hmm, I don’t think I will give you an example but if you get the point. Because the word is embarrassing the player does not want to show their Best Words to anyone. The next version will have a button to clear the Best Word list.

Clear High Score List – Similar to Best Words, I did not think clearing was needed but many players e-mailed me that they wanted to start over or their was a score from a friend or family member they wanted to remove. Players will be able to clear the Easy, Medium, and Hard High Score Lists individually.

New Word List – I have had hundreds of suggested words sent to me. Many of them did not make the cut as our word list does not include acronyms, abbreviations, proper names, or hyphenated words. However, we have added hundred of new words including all the official Scrabble two and three letter words and their plurals, inflections, etc. This new word list will also be added to Word Monaco Solitaire for Windows Mobile too.

Splash Screen – The splash screen appears immediately upon launching the game and serves the purpose of showing something while we check the resolution, load in files etc. A minor feature but important.

Check back often as there are still a lot more features that we are adding to make WordPop even more fun and a great value.

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