Posted: February 8th, 2010 | Author: fsouki | Filed under: Design Notes, Game Design | Tags: app store, apple, iphone, mobivery | No Comments »
Today I attended the introduction class to a week-long seminar on iPhone development (one year and half too late, probably) which will be in charge of several representatives of Mobivery, a Barcelona-based mobile content development company which currently has 190 applications in the Apple App Store.
Besides from a very informative fly-through of the whole process of getting an app into the App Store - starting with “you need a Mac” and going all the way to “you can choose from different pricing tiers” - the representative presented us with some data from different case studies taken directly from the apps they have developed and put up for sale or download. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: December 14th, 2009 | Author: fsouki | Filed under: Design Notes | Tags: Daniel Nelson, thumb sticks | No Comments »
Daniel Nelson, programmer at Neversoft Entertainment, has this to say about the thumb sticks on console controllers:
Few controllers report zero magnitude at their rest position. Each controller reports a different magnitude at rest, and the same controller will report different magnitudes each time it returns to rest. Additionally, different controllers report different maximum magnitudes when pressed fully in a direction, and the same controller will report different maximum magnitudes when pressed in different directions.
He goes on mentioning how you can mitigate this issue by implementing dead zones, but I find it extremely interesting because it’s exactly the sort of problem that we never think about until we encounter it in our designs. Every time we pick up a console controller, we take reliable thumb stick response for granted, but that does not mean that it does not pose a challenge to developers.
Posted: August 7th, 2009 | Author: fsouki | Filed under: Design Notes, Game Design | Tags: Game mechanics, Henry Hatsworth, Rhythm Heaven | No Comments »
I have been playing Henry Hatsworth for a while now, and have been somewhat enjoying it, though it definitely has its ups and downs. Something I cannot stand, however, is the starting screen.
Don’t put anything in your game that goes against the player’s wish to play. That’s a good rule to design by. And the very first thing you encounter when you turn Henry Hatsworth on seems to go against that.
It’s a very simple flaw: the start menu is located in the bottom DS screen, the one we are accustomed to interact with using the stylus. But for some reason the screen won’t take stylus input, so you must use the D-pad and buttons no navigate it. It looks like a minor detail, but the game definitely sends some mixed messages by not letting players interact with it in the most intuitive way.
The complete antithesis of this is Rhythm Heaven. That game is all about using the stylus to touch and flick, touch and flick. And the starting screen won’t even let you play them game unless you prove you can flick with the stylus. After you turn it on a little icon appears, prompting you to flick it. Want to play this game? You better learn how to flick!
I find it hard to believe that Henry Hatsworth’s starting screen was playtested much, if at all. True, it’s just a starting screen. But it’s precisely the first thing your players will interact with, so you better take good care of it.
