Caffeine Monster Software blog

Nintendo Wii U video walkthrough on The Verge Nothing new here, but the quality is much better than...

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 01:33:05 -0500

Nintendo Wii U video walkthrough on The Verge

Nothing new here, but the quality is much better than the shaky cam, noisy show floor footage from E3. I didn’t write much about the Wii U then, so I guess now is a good time.

Nintendo really have their finger on the pulse. The DS, Wii, 3DS, and now the Wii U all seem to have either started, or happened in close proximity with, major gaming trends.
The tablet controller looks great. Ergonomically, it looks comfortable to hold and lightweight. I’m a fan of the circle pads too.
I suspect the one tablet per console limitation will get bumped up to two. However, I fear the resistive touchscreen is here to stay. It has some benefits, but a capacitive multi-touch screen is so much more versatile.
Using the Wiimotes is a great idea, but it means we’re stuck with relatively primitive motion controls for longer still. I worry that developers will continue to largely ignore MotionPlus.
It’s always exciting to see what wonderfully creative games Nintendo showcases their crazy new input devices with. The games look so fun and playful. They look especially vibrant in HD. Some of these demos will end up being system sellers at launch, as with the DS (Yoshi Touch & Go), and the Wii (Wii Sports).
It’s a shame that indies won’t get their share on the Wii U. Nintendo’s consoles (more so than Xbox and PlayStation) could benefit from AppStore-like games because there’s so much more potential for novel, smaller scoped ideas. It’s more complicated than that obviously, Nintendo can’t afford to devalue software like Apple can. But there are ways around that, and I fear that Nintendo isn’t even trying.
E3 2012 can’t come soon enough.

My 2011 in games

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 02:13:22 -0500

2011 has been an incredible year for videogames, so I’ll get right to it! This list isn’t ranked, except for the Game of the Year, which is. I’d take forever agonizing over how to rank the rest of them, so I won’t bother.

Let’s start with all the great games I didn’t play. Shogun 2, Bulletstorm, and Saints Row 3 sit idly in my Steam library, waiting for me to click “Play”. On my desk is a stack of unopened games, including El Shaddai and Catherine. Then there are the games I haven’t even bought yet. I’m looking forward to the typical first quarter lull to get cracking on them.

Game of the Year

Although if the coming first quarter is anything like the last, that may not happen at all. 2011 eschewed any feeling of anticipation by delivering my Game of the Year early. Predictable as it may be, that game is Portal 2.

Portal 2 added more everything to the mix and explored it deeply, but it never felt tedious or drawn out. The new mechanics fit in so naturally, adding complexity to the puzzles without sacrificing the elegant controls. The story too was more elaborate, but the storytelling remained brisk while still finding new ways to make us laugh and surprise us.

And therein lies the beauty of Portal 2: it’s full of surprises all the way through. From the hilarious opening sequence, to an ending that was more epic than it had any right to be, to all the gags, new mechanics, and brain-twisting levels in between, Portal 2 had me guessing, and grinning, all the way through.

Almost a revolution

Similarly, Deus Ex: Human Revolution had me gripped from start to end. While it wasn’t perfect (insert mandatory boss fight complaint here), it delivered on it’s promise of freedom and choice within a surprisingly compelling narrative. The game had me constantly re-evaluating my tactical position during missions, and better still, my moral position on the issues.

Human Revolution’s greatest achievement is that it refined the Deus Ex formula without sacrificing depth. But it also never reached for anything beyond remaking a decade-old game. I would have loved to see a world that felt more alive, NPCs that felt like more than quest dispensers, and so on.

Even so, it’s clear that the team at Eidos Montreal delivered on an incredibly ambitious project. Thief 4 is in good hands.

Bending the rules now…

Let’s talk about two games that weren’t released in 2011. I recently bought a PlayStation 3, and at the top of my “PS3 exclusives to play” list was the Uncharted series.

I played through Uncharted 1 & 2 back to back, and loved every minute of it. The series has a bit of an identity crisis, unsure of whether Nathan Drake is more Indiana Jones or Marcus Fenix. It’s the former parts, the adventuring, leaps of faith, brawling, and nail-biting chases around a breathtaking setting that make the Uncharted series special. The shooting sequences, while not bad by any means, were just not what I wanted out of the games. I turned the difficulty down to easy, and genuinely had more fun. The sequel leans more toward the adventuring, and is a much better game because of it.

I don’t usually have patience for the gameplay/cutscene method of storytelling, but Uncharted proves that it’s possible to get it right. It helps that the story and dialogue are great, and the characters are likeable, but the key is in the pacing. Cutscenes are to the point; they develop the characters with punchy dialogue and occasional exposition, and push the story forward by way of your next objective.

What they don’t do is steal all the best parts. You’re never watching the exciting set pieces, you’re playing through them. And the set pieces are incredible. Uncharted feels like it’s having an arms race with itself, constantly trying to out-do the last crazy situation it threw you into, while escalating the size of things being blowing up. I’m not even sure how Uncharted 3 is going to top this.

The best thing I can say about Uncharted is that when the credits were rolling after my back to back play through, I seriously had to restrain myself from unwrapping Uncharted 3.

POW!, ZAP!, etc.

I rounded out the year with Batman: Arkham City. I haven’t played it for too long, but so far it’s everything I hoped: a bigger, better Arkham Asylum. The open world makes traversing the environment even more satisfying than before, and the melee combat is still the best out there.

Videogames for public transit

In the handheld world, my DSi had one more good game in it left before being relegated to my pile of retired tech. That game was Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, a wonderfully told story played through an innovative blend of adventure/arcade game puzzle solving. I’d expect nothing less from the brains behind Phoenix Wright. Also features splendid character animation, the likes of which reminded me of the original Prince of Persia.

Super Mario 3D Land gets Handheld Game of the Year though. Traversing the world is as fun as ever, especially without having to deal with a camera. Although the level design is not quite as inspired as the best of Mario Galaxy, the game has you hopping through worlds, ideas and one-off mechanics at an alarming pace unheard of outside of Nintendo games.

Compulsion loops

Jamestown did the impossible: it made shmups accessible without compromising the level design or mechanics. Instead, Jamestown uses a difficulty system that hooks you in on easy, but then forces you up the difficulty levels as you learn how to use the mechanics effectively, and (eventually) do a bit of level memorization too.

It was also responsible for my most heart-breaking game experience of the year: getting to the final sequence of the final boss with no lives left, and getting hit by the bosses very last bullet. I was too devastated to retry a million+1^th time, but I got my revenge the next day.

Joe Danger SE is Excite Bike with a thick layer of “CUTE!” and more medals, stars, points and best lap times than any mere mortal could ever hope to receive. And yet I try over and over again.

Games like Trials HD left me cold, but Joe Danger’s cute aesthetic ensures that your initial grin is never quite wiped off your face, even if it is competing with gnashing of the teeth and general sweary-ness.

It’s the plethora of ways to finish the level that keeps me going. I’ve yet to win a “best lap time” medal, but what about collecting all the stars? Hitting all the targets? Pulling stunts for the whole level? Now how about all of the above in a single run? You end up failing over and over again, but Joe Danger never fails to be an enjoyable experience.

Uncharted 2 indicates when the game was last saved before selecting Restart Checkpoint. This saves...

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 01:10:23 -0500

Uncharted 2 indicates when the game was last saved before selecting Restart Checkpoint. This saves yourself the trouble of wondering, “how far back do I have to replay?”, and helps quell the age old paranoid-save-before-quitting habit.

As a bonus, there’s also no need to display immersion-breaking “Checkpoint reached” messages in the game.

Designing the visual language for Orbit1

Mon, 05 Sep 2011 18:26:00 -0400

When working on the graphic design for Orbit1 I decided to take a minimalist approach, with simple geometry and flat shaded colours, but with just enough glowy bits to make the whole thing come alive. I wanted the design to communicate the rules of the game for beginners, and be easily readable as it’s played.

The player ships follow the classic Asteroids design. It’s a classic for good reasons: I tried doing more with the geometry (at some point I had unique ships designed for each player), but the detail ended up being detrimental to the readability. The colours are CMYK. (The “K” in CMYK is technically black, but white just worked better.) They contrast nicely with each other, as well as the background and other game elements.

For the orbs and enemies, I wanted to communicate good and bad in a simple, effective manner. The colour choice is obvious: green for good, and red for bad. The less obvious part is that the orbs have curved, smooth geometry, and the enemies have sharp edges.

(The blackhole is an exception, where it’s an enemy and it’s red, but it’s a perfectly smooth circle. Again, the circle just worked better.)

The other elements of the game (the background and board) use a neutral design scheme. I went with medium blues and circular geometry (to reinforce the orbit theme).

I didn’t get everything right the first time around: In an earlier build of the game, the board was orange (quite similar to the red enemies). A common question during testing was, “will touching end edge of the board kill me?” Clearly, this was a huge oversight on my part, and was promptly fixed. It makes visual design a somewhat thankless task: get it right and nobody will notice, but if you get even one part wrong it’s a glaring issue.

But it’s worth it because it’s another small step toward making a game that easier to learn, read and play, minimizing the use of those pesky text instructions.

Timeli pricing (or lack thereof) update

Fri, 12 Aug 2011 02:48:16 -0400

Due to circumstances beyond my control, Timeli is now free to download from the App Store.

I understand that the early adopters must feel pretty burned right now, and for that I apologize. But I’d also like to thank you guys for your support. Your kind words and constructive criticism helped me through Timeli’s “growing pains”, and never failed to renew my enthusiasm when the work got overwhelming. In short, Timeli would not be this great without you guys.

I’m really excited about Timeli having the opportunity to reach many more people. While the money was nice, my primary goal has always been to just write great software, and hopefully make a difference in peoples lives. I’d much rather give Timeli away than, say, drop it entirely.

Visit the Timeli website to learn more, and download a copy today.

Nintendo's Portable Problem

Fri, 05 Aug 2011 02:22:54 -0400

Last week, Nintendo admitted that sales of the 3DS weren’t living up to their expectations, and outlined the steps they are taking to revitalize the platform. They plan to start with a price-cut later this month, and follow through with a strong lineup of games into the holiday season.

In a post-App Store world, some argue that selling $40 games on cartridges is an antiquated strategy. Instead, Nintendo must follow recent trends and sell sub-$5 games via download. Some even argue that Nintendo should develop games for the iPhone as well. I believe these are knee-jerk reactions to a more complicated problem.

On Being Second Potato

The first and most important reality that Nintendo (and Sony) have to face is that their devices now play second potato to the smartphone. People used to carry around a mobile phone and a DS because they served different purposes. Now that a smartphone does everything, the handheld console is left behind at home, or worse still, to languish on store shelves.

With no chance of usurping the smartphone, Nintendo’s only hope is to make a device so effortless to use and carry around that people will carry it along with their smartphone.

This means the device must be small and light. The battery life needs to last days or weeks. Games should boot up in seconds, and players shouldn’t have to sit through 5-10 seconds of company logos. Swapping between every game shouldn’t require a power cycle and fumbling around with cartridges.

Speaking of cartridges…

Yes, they are frustrating to carry around and swap out, but I’m not convinced that $40 cartridge-based games need to go in order for Nintendo to succeed. Customers are willing to pay for a quality product. The issue is that every 3DS game is just not worth $40. Games with a smaller scope should be sold at a cheaper price via download. I’ve said this before:

Looking at my DS collection I see epic games, the likes of which could never exist on an iDevice. But I also have smaller games like Picross, Meteos, Electroplankton, etc, that would benefit from a lower price, and with the option to play “whenever”. The latter is especially frustrating, as keeping a collection of cartridges in my knapsack seems archaic, akin to lugging around an entire collection of audio CDs.

(In hindsight, “could never exist on an iDevice” is perhaps an exaggeration, but at current App Store prices it certainly wouldn’t be a financially viable strategy)

Software is Nintendo’s most valuable asset. Mario, Link, Samus and company are largely responsible for Nintendo’s explosive sales and profits. Undervaluing that would be catastrophic to their business. However, the presence of cheaper downloadable games with a smaller scope does not stop customers from purchasing the more “epic” cartridge-based games at higher prices. Look no further than Xbox Live Arcade or PlayStation Network for proof.

An additional benefit would be that players would have access to all their “snack sized” games downloaded on the system, and a deeper, longer-term game in the cartridge slot. More games, less fumbling around.

The eShop for the 3DS is only an incremental improvement over Nintendo’s previous offerings, which still falls well below the standard set by the iTunes App Store. Not only does Nintendo need to step up their service here considerably, but they also need to produce quality games for the eShop, and put serious marketing money behind it. This will in turn encourage third-party publishers and developers to make quality downloadable titles for the 3DS.

Next move

Nintendo’s current plan (price cut, and a quality games lineup) will help sustain the 3DS through the holiday season, albeit without the spectacular numbers they are used to seeing.

Nintendo’s next move will give us insight into what they are thinking. When they announce new hardware, I expect to see a much sleeker 3DS. That’s almost a given. But a bolder move would be to drop the 3D screen altogether. Nintendo have already been shying away from it, referring to the 3D screen an optional effect. Why not get rid of it entirely and reap the benefits? Namely, dramatically better battery life, a smaller form-factor and cheaper hardware.

New hardware, along with an aggressive digital download strategy will put Nintendo back in a commanding position. From there, it’s all software. The 3DS would only be another Brain Age or Nintendogs away from being a smash success.

Toru Iwatani, creator of Pac-Man, on focused design: […] one needs to consider what the...

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 01:04:44 -0400

Toru Iwatani, creator of Pac-Man, on focused design:

[…] one needs to consider what the player is looking for at all times. You can get the theme for a game by reflecting on that, and once you have a theme, you can start making a concept based on one or two keywords. You keep these two or so concept words in mind at all times as you design this or that part of the game.

If you run into a design aspect that’s giving you trouble, you put it up to the main concept keywords you’ve come up with, and you keep it if it works and discard it if it doesn’t. That’s how you think about it. Developers need to ask themselves “How do I want the player to think about this game?” They need to be able to say “I want them to respond like this.” Answer that question with a simple word or sentence. That’s important.

(via Game Career Guide)

Great advice. Iwatani suggests keeping these keywords “in mind”, but I’d encourage writing them down. It’s easy to lose sight of the initial vision when you’re in the thick of things.

It’s also great how he highlights the importance of the one sentence description/pitch, not from a business perspective, but as a tool for focused design.

How L.A. Noire failed to learn from a generation of adventure games

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 02:26:56 -0400

L.A. Noire was one of those games I was excited enough about to just outright buy on release day, sans review, and without even reading much into the previews. An adventure game with Rockstar Games quality setting, mechanics & polish? Sign me up!

Turns out that Team Bondi aren’t really up to the Rockstar level of quality I expected. It’s also evident that not a single designer at Team Bondi ever actually played a point-and-click adventure. L.A. Noire is a terribly broken game, not because it tried to be new and different, but because it failed to learn from a generation of adventure games.

L.A. Noire alternates between two sequences: investigations and interrogations. Both are broken in their own unique way.

The investigation sequences task the player with looking around for clues at a crime scene, analogous to the good ol’ pixel hunt of a previous era. But the world is 3D, the camera is dynamic, and the crime scenes are large, open spaces. Adventure games are designed with a fixed camera to focus the player’s attention on the important objects in the scene. Here, there are literally an infinite number of perspectives in a scene. The pixel hunt has just turned into a voxel hunt.

Interacting with objects is handled in a similarly ham-fisted manner. When you get close to an object of interest, the controller vibrates and a musical note plays. Which works, I guess. Except, I have no idea what or where this object of interest is! I sometimes found myself literally turning around in circles stabbing the A button until something happened. More frustrating still, is that I would end up examining the same few objects over and over because I wasn’t sure what the game thought I was looking at.

After finding a number of clues, the sequence mercifully comes to an end, and the player must interrogate a witness to learn more about the case, or to crack it entirely. These sequences sound exciting, but are more broken still.

The player presents a question in the form of a clue selected from the in-game notebook. After the witness replies, the player chooses Truth, Doubt or Lie. The difference between Doubt and Lie, is that the latter requires the player to present a piece of supporting evidence, where the former is more of a hunch.

The problem is two-fold. First, the player has no clue what response each option will lead to. Truth is pretty obvious. But Doubt is pretty hit-and-miss. Sometimes Cole, our “hard boiled” protagonist, will gently lead the suspect on, and other tim- YOU DID IT AND YOU’RE LYING! DO YOU WANT TO GO TO PRISON? DO YOU?! Cole’s schizophrenic responses are about as jarring and frustrating as that last sentence.

The bigger problem is the player gets exactly one shot at an ambiguous answer to what is often an ambiguous question. The interrogation sequences remind me of multiple-choice exams. Do you remember raising you hand, and asking the proctor, “Both these answers seem right to me, which should I choose?” only to be told, “choose the most correct one.” It’s that, in videogame form. But it’s worse, because whereas an exam question has an objectively correct answer, the questions in L.A. Noire genuinely have multiple answers that are correct.

A quick (almost spoiler-free) example is the girl who insists, “nothing unusual happened last night”. Do I bring up the car accident, or the rape incident that followed? In my detective-o-mind, bringing up the latter would be insensitive and a bit too aggressive, so my approach was to start slow and gently lead her there. Not so, decrees L.A. Noire.

(As an aside, I did like that L.A. Noire was not afraid to use mature themes, and actually deal with them in a mature manner)

L.A. Noire was an opportunity to reinvent the adventure game genre with dizzying production values for a modern audience. Instead, the game is more broken and backwards than the adventure games of the 90s. While some of the issues could have been solved by simply reverting to what was done in the past (like fixing the camera perspective), I’m convinced a great design team could have solved these problems in a more modern way. Clearly, Team Bondi is not that team.

Announcing Orbit1 for iPad

Wed, 20 Jul 2011 05:37:19 -0400

I’m excited to finally announce Orbit1 for iPad!

Orbit1 is a multiplayer action game played with just one button. The player controls a ship orbiting an arena. Pressing the button makes the ship fly away from the center, and letting go of the button makes it dive back in. Holding the button for a longer time pulls a 180°. Collect green orbs to score points, and avoid the red enemies. The most fun though, comes from trying to destroy the other players by swiping them from the side or from behind.

I unveiled the game last night at the Seattle Indies Expo. I honestly wasn’t sure what to expect, but night was fantastic! There was a great turn out, and the Orbit1 booth was packed for three hours straight. It was tiring but incredible to see everyone having so much fun with Orbit1, and all the other great games there too.

Orbit1 is coming out in September 2011 for iPad. Sign up on the website to receive an e-mail on release day. You can also follow along here and on Twitter for all the latest news.

Prince of Drama

Wed, 13 Jul 2011 01:56:39 -0400

I’ve been reading Jordan Mechner’s old journal over the past few weeks. In his words, “[it tells] the story of how Prince of Persia came to be, and almost didn’t”. It’s a super gripping tale that I highly recommend reading.

It occurred to me though, that I never finished Prince of Persia “back in the day”. So a few weeks ago I fired up Boxer (an excellent DosBox app for OS X) to remedy this oversight. After the first six levels of muscle memory, I got past my old enemy, level 7, and eventually defeated the Grand Vizier and rescued the princess. A mere seventeen years after I first played the game.

Incredibly, the game holds up well. What strikes me as being ahead of its time is how it feels cinematic without relying on cutscenes, an idea that Valve popularized many years later. There is a short, seemingly nondescript, sequence in level 8 that captures this perfectly:

The Prince is running down a long hallway. As the hallway turns to a ledge, he come to an abrupt stop. Peering over the chasm, he judge the distance to the far side. He takes a few steps back, gets a running start, and launches through the air. His landing is less than perfect, but he fumbles and grabs on to the far ledge. The screen flicks to what lies below: the Prince hanging from a ledge for dear life, and a bed of spikes, which thrust outward. The spikes recede as he pulls himself back up and continues on his way.

Can you imagine this kind of drama in a modern game? Are you also picturing the player’s half-hearted jump transitioning into the overproduced cutscene jump?

Prince of Persia communicates drama without cutscenes and scripting. Instead, its set pieces are put together using the game’s mechanics. This works remarkably well because the mechanics are designed to have an implicit dramatic quality. The run/jump/grab mechanic of a 4-tile wide jump implicitly makes all 4-tile wide jumps more dramatic. The spike activation timing make all leaps of faith more dramatic. And so on.

There’s something exciting about dramatic moments happening without all the obvious sign-posting of a scripted sequence. It also means that when Prince of Persia has the occasional set-piece, it feels even more special.

But most importantly, there’s almost an emergent quality to the cinematic feel of the game. I have no idea if Jordan Mechner designed the sequence in level 8 to be as dramatic as I imagined it, but he certainly designed the game to spark my imagination.

And that, I think, is even more powerful than a meticulously designed a set-piece sequence.

Show Your Working: Designing Timeli 1.3

Fri, 20 May 2011 02:04:02 -0400

Timeli was designed for projects that last weeks & months. It can be used for shorter days & weeks projects, but the experience isn’t great. The goal for Timeli 1.3 was to fix that.

I started out with the relatively simple goal of enabling deeper zoom levels. I figured that as you zoom in every day should be labeled and every week should be marked, like this:

(Before you ask, yes I really do use Timeli to plan updates for Timeli)

But it didn’t feel quite right. You couldn’t tell, at a glance, when a timeline started and ended. So I added daily markers:

For a while, I was pretty satisfied with this. I was very close to shipping the update when I decided that even this didn’t feel right. I realized that when I was zoomed in, it was difficult to get my bearings in relation to the week. Weekdays would help:

Finally, I was pleased! But there was just one thing missing: localization. Dates are already localized in Timeli, with the exception of the header. Here’s how the header looks in Timeli 1.3:

It’s not perfect (the days and years aren’t localized), but it’s a huge step forward.

Once all of that was done, I had to make it all work for printing and e-mail too:

I rounded off the update with a handful of other features (most notably, one day timelines) and some bug fixes.

Timeli 1.3 has been submitted to Apple for approval. Expect it to be on the AppStore really soon!

On Chameleon and Software Licensing

Tue, 10 May 2011 04:04:31 -0400

Craig Hockenberry isn’t super pleased with how Chameleon donations have turned out:

Since March 22nd, we’ve sold 17 shirts. If you do the math, that will pay for less than a week of our time. And considering that we’ve already spent more than a week getting things rolling on Github and preparing a talk at the VTM conference, we’re already running at a deficit.

As he goes on to say, it’s disappointing because the talented folks at Iconfactory can’t justify spending a significant amount of time on Chameleon, and are instead left pushing updates around their app development schedule and requirements.

I’m pretty much in agreement with him over the matter, however, I think it’s a little too soon to declare the “exorbitantly priced T-shirt” experiment a failure.

Chameleon is free to use, with an optional donation. This makes far more sense than software licensing as an upfront cost. I’m not about to put down thousands, or even hundreds, of dollars on an API that I haven’t first used for a significant period of time. The same logic applies to donations.

I think a good deal of software developers have a similar view. In six to eight months, when the fruits of Chameleon’s labour really begin to show, if donations are still low that would be time to call it a failure.

Unfortunately, Iconfactory have gone off and replaced the T-shirt donations with a conventional Donate button. I’m not sure it’ll work quite as well. As Internet citizens, we’re trained to think that donations go in increments of $10, versus the $100s that Iconfactory need. Moreover, a physical artifact (even if it isn’t worth much) adds incentive to donate.

A hybrid system would be more effective. Maintain the $500 T-shirt + icons, $250 T-shirt, and a Donate button. As an added benefit, the T-shirt prices set an expectation for the donation amounts.

Hockenberry concludes by admitting, “We’re also painfully aware that we’re new to managing open source projects” and that, “It’s likely that 13 years of selling software is tainting our decisions.” This explains why they expected sales to take on a long-tail graph. Maybe Chameleon will have more of a snowball effect?

Three Years

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 23:00:00 -0400

Today marks the third anniversary of Caffeine Monster Software. It’s been a great three years, and 2010 in particular was awesome.

It started with the pretty low-key release of Orbit One for Xbox Indie Games. For my next project, as a change of pace, I decided to try my hand at a productivity app for the iPad. Eight months later Timeli happened. I wasn’t expected much, but wow, was I blown away by the response! It’s pretty safe to say that Timeli has been my most successful app yet, selling more copies than everything else I’ve written combined! Over the past couple of months I’ve been hard at work refining Timeli, resulting in a dramatically better app than my 1.0 release.

So what does 2011 hold? Timeli is, and will continue to be, my top priority, but I also hope to work on some new stuff. Specifically, I’m dying to get back to writing videogames, preferably the type with lots of explosions and “pew-pew-pew” sound FX. There’s also another app that I’ve been meaning to make. Maintaining this crazy balancing act is definitely going to be the big challenge of 2011.

Finally, I’d like to that you guys for all the support, feedback, and good vibes.

Multitasking Gestures and iOS

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 02:48:06 -0400

The experimental multitasking gestures for the iPad are an interesting and much needed addition to iOS. Having gotten into the habit of using them I’d say they’re indispensable, especially since the double-click-the-Home-button method was never a great solution in the first place.

However, these gestures have their own set of problems:

The gesture tracking lags behind the user’s fingers
They discourage apps from incorporating four and five finger interactions
They would not work on an iPhone

The system gesture tracking lags so that iOS can determine whether the user is performing a system gesture, or just interacting with the app. It doesn’t sound like a huge issue, but iOS is so responsive that the lag is immediately noticeable, and very annoying. Even if Apple could resolve this issue, it’s fairly obvious that four or five finger gestures just aren’t practical on an iPhone.

My thoughts on where Apple are going with these gestures are actually surprisingly close to the rumours This is my next posted.

The Home button doubling up as a gesture area is exactly my thinking. Left and right swipes would switch between apps. Swiping upwards would bring up the app drawer. This makes sense in landscape mode too. Swiping up and down would switch between apps, and swiping to the left (or right, depending on the orientation) would bring up the app drawer.

By moving the gestures off the screen, there is no ambiguity over whether the gestures are system or app-level. This allows for the super smooth 1:1 tracking that we’ve come to expect in iOS.

More importantly, by making the gestures begin on Home button, we solve an even bigger problem: discoverability. Gestures are notoriously hard to learn. This can now be solved using knowledge the user already has and a few animations.

When the user initiates the gesture (by touching, but not clicking, the Home button) the app zooms out into a card view (similar to the weather app) with the previous and next app “cards” being partially visible. Because the tracking 1:1 a little swipe in either direction will give the user instant feedback. In theory, the user will quickly discover the gestures because they have already been trained to use the Home button.

Finally, the problem that plagues all capacitive buttons, accidentally activating them, is greatly minimized here. Remember, the Home button still needs to be physically clicked to exit an app. So the worst an accidental swipe can do is suspend (or pause) the app, but once the user notices this and move their finger off the Home button, the multitasking interface is dismissed and the app comes back into play instantly.

Sword & Sworcery EP

Wed, 20 Apr 2011 03:35:00 -0400

Sword & Sworcery EP feels familiar, but it’s unlike anything I’ve experienced before.

Mechanically S&S is a lightweight, but it’s a better game because of it. In fact, the game only grows frustrating when it tries to be too game-like. When the combat is too difficult, or the puzzles too obtuse, you’re abruptly pulled out of the world.

It’s the experience, then, that drives S&S. And the mechanics work because they support the experience. Every tap, drag and long-press is filled with beautiful audio-visual feedback, transforming every simple interaction into a source of entertainment itself.

The world comes alive with the beautiful pixel art, paired with the evocative and dynamic soundtrack. The narrative is told with great restraint, leaving much to the player’s imagination. The writing is poetic, full of character, and occasionally peers over the fourth wall to great comedic effect.

S&S truly shines because all three aspects (the writing, audio-visuals and interactions) work in harmony. It’s a game so confident about its ability to draw you into its world that it doesn’t rely extrinsic rewards to keep you hooked. Instead, it’s your curiosity that compels you to press on. And press on you shall.

S&S feels familiar not because it mimics an existing game, but because it reminds me of a game stashed away somewhere in my subconscious. I’ve long waited for a game that’s not about winning or losing, about scores or times, about attack and conflict. I’ve been waiting for S&S, a game that invites you to an immersive world to explore, discover, and lose yourself in.

Lefty Fail: Tiny Wings

Thu, 14 Apr 2011 02:40:10 -0400

Tiny Wings has a really simple UI: it displays your score and your time remaining (in the form of a day/night cycle image). Unfortunately, the UI is placed in the lower left corner of the screen. While Tiny Wings lets you touch anywhere on the screen to dive, the sole action in this great one-button game, here’s what I tend to see:

It’s certainly playable, but not seeing my score or time remaining is frustrating.

A lefty-flip option to position the UI on the lower-right side of the screen would fix everything.

Timeli 1.2

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 05:16:32 -0400

Another month, another update. Timeli 1.2 adds support for multiple schedules (i.e.: documents), so you can separate work and personal projects, or to plan large-scale projects.

Feedback is welcomed and encouraged. And as always, a positive review on the AppStore is well appreciated.

What Starcraft 2 could learn from Twitter

Mon, 04 Apr 2011 01:49:04 -0400

When Twitter launched in 2007 it only had two features: 140 character messages, and following people. In the four years since Twitter has evolved significantly. Remarkably, its direction was lead primarily by users.

Instead of waiting for new features, users just made them up along the way. They had conversations using the @username syntax. They created #hashtags and retweets too. None of this was supported by Twitter. But Twitter Inc. watched, and as a feature gained popularity, they integrated it and enhanced it. More recently, the Twitter website redesign acknowledged the importance of Twitpic (and other image services), tiny URLs, and other data embedded in tweets.

In short, Twitter became a better service by observing their users, understanding how they used the product, and natively implementing these features. Blizzard should do the same. To an extent, they already do. Starcraft 2 is balanced on the data and feedback of millions of games played.

But what about the UI? Starcraft’s interface can be tweaked and enhanced in the same way. There are many common tactics that presently rely on heavy micro-management skills, but could just as easily be a part of the UI.

Take for example, a classic: worker harass. This is where an opponent will attack your unarmed worker units (the source of your income) early in the game when you don’t have much of an army yet. The response is to pull your workers off their resource lines, and move whatever army you have forward. The enemy usually flees. However, all your workers are now idle, requiring you to redistribute them over minerals and gas all over again. There’s no easy way to select your workers and say, “resume the last task you were doing.”

Formation is another great example. A “ball” of marines are far more vulnerable to splash damage than if they were spread out a bit. Therefore, players are encourages to spread their units out when being attacked by siege tanks, or worse, banelings. Without an internal concept for formation, spreading your units involves clicking on them individually and shuffling them around manually. Not fun when you have 50+ marines!

The UI tweaks for these features are fairly simple: worker units would have a “resume last task” context button, and a group of selected units would have 2 or 3 formation context buttons. So why hasn’t it happened?

It’s mainly because Starcraft is a game of skill and strategy. A player’s ability to “micro” is equally important as their ability to read a battlefield and make moment-to-moment decisions. By making the game require less micro, the focus moves toward strategy. I suspect Blizzard is reluctant to change a winning formula.

However, I think it would have the opposite effect. If the native features are designed to be even slightly less effective than doing it manually, high level games will continue to be skill and micro heavy, while giving us less skilled players a shot. In addition, high level players looking gain an edge on their opponents will continue looking for subtle, micro-heavy exploits in Starcraft 2, and so the cycle will start over again.

Twitter grew in unexpected directions because users were given a simple, but flexible sandbox to play in. Every time Twitter implemented something natively, users got right back to playing around with the formula. Starcraft 2 is far more flexible, and Blizzard already pays plenty of attention to their community. If Blizzard were willing to experiment with the UI, we’d witness an even deeper game of Starcraft 2.

Adjusting the size of a popover in a UINavigationController stack

Wed, 16 Mar 2011 02:32:49 -0400

A minor annoyance I had when developing Timeli was getting popovers to adjust to their “correct” size after being pushed and popped around a navigation stack. Let’s say you have a popover where the current view is 320x400px. When you push a taller view onto the stack (let’s go with 320x500px) the popover resizes appropriately. However, when you pop the view off the stack (leaving the 400px view on top) the popover itself continues to be 500px high.

I developed a surprisingly clean work-around to this. adjustPopoverHeight: forces a popover to resize to its optimal height. Setting the view controller height to 0, and then to another value triggers the resize.

+ (void) adjustPopoverHeight:(UIViewController*)vc
{
    CGSize contentSize = vc.contentSizeForViewInPopover;
    float height = contentSize.height;

    contentSize.height = 0;
    vc.contentSizeForViewInPopover = contentSize;

    contentSize.height = height;
    vc.contentSizeForViewInPopover = contentSize;
}

Then, for every UIViewController used in a popover, add this to its viewDidAppear: message:

- (void) viewDidAppear:(BOOL)animated
{
    [super viewDidAppear:animated];
    [Helper adjustPopoverHeight:self];
}

That’s it!

Why isn’t this behaviour built into the SDK? Navigation transitions get confusing if there’s too much going on at once. I’ve minimized this by creating a two-step animation (the view is pushed onto the stack, and then the popover is resized). While it’s definitely helpful, I’d still be cautious about using this trick for anything more than subtle height adjustments.

Timeli 1.1.1

Wed, 09 Mar 2011 22:55:21 -0500

Shiny new Timeli 1.1.1 is up on the AppStore now. Get downloading! As you would imagine with a 0.0.1 increment, it doesn’t introduce new features, but there are a tonne of little fixes in there. Please send me feedback if you’ve got any, and don’t forget to leave Timeli a nice review on the AppStore!