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Development: WordPop New Features

In my last post I talked about the process in selecting new features. Over the next few weeks I will go over the features one by one that are being added.

Add Trainee Tips– WordPop has been praised on its ease of use (thanks Mom), however there are several rules that need to be learned. A few trainee tips at the right time can make all the difference in learning how to play. Two examples would be adjacent letters and how to use the bonus tiles. Thus one trainee trip will explain to new players that each letter needs to be adjacent to the next when a word is being created. The second is explaining that a bonus tile can be picked up and placed on the grid when there is an open space. The tip will also offer strategy advice on when to use bonus tile. All of our games have trainee tips except for WordPop (and WordPop was a bit jealous).

The key for making trainee tips work is to keep them to the bare minimum and to display them at the correct time or they become annoying. We know which tips to display from the feedback from players and by watching the player play we know exactly when the right time is to display them.

Add “Reset” tips in “Preferences” – This is a button we add to the preference page under the “Game” menu. This is useful when a player wants to show the game to someone who has never played before. The experienced player can “Reset” the tips so the new player can learn the rules while playing which is a lot more fun.

Add “Show Player Tips” to “Preferences” – This allows existing players to turn off the tips since they usually don’t need them. However, the trainee tips include strategy tips that even the most experienced player might learn from.

Add “Use System Sound” to “Preferences” – We’ve added this feature to Farkle Dice and Word Monaco Solitaire. This setting will default on and will use the sound volume controlled by the master volume control. This has become very important as many Windows Mobile devices are also phones and players are very specific on the volume setting. Plus, sound effects should mute when a call comes in, this setting allows that to happen.

Here is an example of Preferences for Farkle Dice that includes the above features.

Farkle Dice Preferences

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

OK, this first list is not the most sexy of the new features being adding but for new players it will make for a better playing experience. Next time, new features requested by experienced players.

 

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Development: WordPop Menus

Well, it took a little longer than planned, but I have the splash screen, start screen, and the menus all visible in our WordPop overhaul. The screenshot is WordPop running on the new framework in a Windows Mobile 5.0 emulator.

WordPop First Screen

What sidetracked me and took some time to sort out was a subtle change in the way menus are created under the WM5 SDK versus the PocketPC 2003 SDK we were using for all previous titles. Starting in Windows Mobile 5.0, Microsoft was encouraging software to stop using the menu bar that had been so common. Instead, they wanted you to use a two softkey approach. The menu bar is replaced by the softkey bar with only two slots for text items. The user would click on these to reveal a menu or to perform a common command. The advantage was that WM5 devices would have two softkey buttons on the face of the device, so the user could interact with the common command or the menu via device buttons alone (no need for a stylus). They wanted you to do something more like this at the bottom of your screen (this is from the Solitaire game):

Softkey bar

However, this prevented us from providing our two graphic menubar buttons that started a new game and toggled the sound muting. We happen to only have two menus, but this still didn’t fit our needs. So, I opted to override the softkey bar and continue to use the older-style menu bar.

Furthermore, the way menus are described in the resources of the application had changed slightly to accommodate the new softkey bar. That meant changing how I described my menus to fit. All of this was poorly documented because they really want me to use the new look.

It’s all there, now, though. I will continue on by hooking up the standard dialogs WordPop has (About Box, Purchase Info, Preferences, etc.). I would like to hear from you about my decision to stick with the older style. I’m sure Todd would like to hear your thoughts, as well.

It’s always a balance between what we as the developers want to provide, what the customers expect, and what standard UI Microsoft would like for us to conform to. Let us know what you think.

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Prizes: WordPop Contest Winners

Great words by great participants. Below are winners from both the longest words, fastest posts and two random winners chosen at random.

Congratulations to all the winners.

jmw6z (longest word was looters)
Tresa
lalbert887
Deeja

If you have not already contacted me for your prize, please do so by replying to this newsletter.

Click Here to Play Smart Box Design Games

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Development: WordPop New Features Coming

Over the next few months I will describe the features that will be added to WordPop and the rationalization behind them. Most companies do not share why they add or not add certain features and some of the reasons might surprise you. There are many reasons why features are added. For us they fall into the following areas.

  1. Was the feature requested by several players? Requesting a feature alone is not enough to get it in. The team discusses the feature. How will it add to the game? Does it enhance game play? Does it affect difficulty? Can it be added safely? How much time is involved adding it? Do we have the expertise to add it? Can we support the feature? Does it need to be explained to the player or is it intuitive? Does it differentiate the game or make it more like an existing game? But the bottom line is — IS THE REQUESTED FEATURE FUN?!
  2. Is there a bug in the game? With so many different devices the game may work 100% on a Treo 700 but have problems on a 750. I catalog all bugs reported into a bug database. The team tries to repeat the bug. If we can repeat it, we can usually fix it. Typically if a bug impedes game play we will fix it in a timely manner. The bottom line is — IS THE BUG KEEPING THE GAME FROM BEING FUN?!
  3. Is the game still competitive? As time goes by, competition will no doubt come out with similar games with more features. This is good as it forces us to rethink our game. The bottom line is — IS THE COMPETITION’S GAME MORE FUN?!
  4. Can the game be more fun? We play our games a lot. And being designers we are always looking for something to add. If the team finds the game not keeping their interest we’ll add a new feature, such as a new level or new art, to keep the game fresh. The bottom line — CAN THE GAME BE MORE FUN?!

In my next post on features I will describe the several new features being added. I’d love to hear your feedback on some of these features.

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Development: WordPop Preferences

I’ve finally laid the groundwork for the WordPop update. I’ve built the skeleton on top of our proprietary framework. The original WordPop for PocketPC was based on an attempt we made to share a framework between the Palm and PPC versions which was a moderate success. In the end, though, we felt we’d get better performance with separate frameworks and I wrote a new one for Farkle which also got used on Word Monaco. WordPop now gets to join the club.

I’ve been working on the prefs structure lately. The prefs for the original were done in a non-standard way for PPC devices and were susceptible to loss in certain reset situations. Since Farkle, I’ve been better about it and it’s time to fix WordPop. I will also have to write some code to read the old prefs and maintain the Best Words and High Scores after an update. I always feel like I’m corrupting clean code by including poorly written code just to support older versions (even when I’m the author of the ugly stuff, too!). But, even I would be annoyed if I lost the records of my best games, so it’s going in.

Next up, placeholders for all of the different screens in WordPop.

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