Angled Whiteboards

Dinah and I have had a blast launching this little site in the waning months of 2006. And while the last couple of posts have been a bit light on the design and behind-the-scenes side of things, rest assured: we’ve got plenty to talk about in ‘07.

Thanks to those of you who’ve visited, emailed, and commented so far. Stick around! We’ll be back with more in the new year. Here’s a somewhat cryptic visual preview of things to come:

(Every week or so, we round up what others are saying about GameTap and present a sampling of the chatter. Let us know if you see other GameTap-related posts out in the wild!)

• Stewart and Amber both had GameTap on their Christmas lists. Stewart wanted you to give it to him; Amber wanted you to give it to others. If only you knew them both…
• Andy’s got a different kind of wishlist. (What, is Super Football not 3D enough?)
• FatsoCastro provides a fun play-by-play of his first night with GameTap.
• Deg (an Angled Whiteboards commenter!) is journaling his experiences deep in Myst Online. So deep, in fact, that I have no idea what he’s talking about (Bahro screams? Hinged versus sliding doors?). But it sure sounds all kinds of intriguing.
• John found one of the Commodore 64’s must-have games: The Movie Monster Game. Sounds perfect for those folks who want a little strategy mixed in with their Rampage-ing.
• Nick’s got GameTap in his year-end best of pop culture list.
• sol.id.if.i plays Sam & Max while severely intoxicated.
• Greg at 4 color rebellion gives that same game a sol.id (and seemingly sob.er) review.
• Wingless Angel needs a controller and some New Year’s plans. Are people still camping overnight for consoles? Kill two birds with one stone!
• RadarRider puts GameTap/Sam & Max in the same company as The Snohomish County Public Utility District, powerful antibiotics, and his lovely wife. The rare trifecta (plus seven others)!

I’m home this week enjoying a nice holiday break with the family. X jr. is still addicted to these Freddi Fish games we seem to have a million of. I finally started in on the 2nd Sam & Max episode (a few moments in and I realized that this whole monthly episode thing with callbacks to previous jokes is going to be fun). And since we’ve both got GameTap locked down, Mrs. X is busy trying to manage a severe Viva Piñata addiction in the other room.

Oh, but look at this week! Another Freddi Fish! And Deus Ex. Yes! When you grow up a Mac nerd, you tend to miss out on the marquee PC games like this. Oh, how I love Boot Camp.

New Games:

• Alien Blast
• Astro Chase
• Deus Ex
• Freddi Fish 3: The Case of the Stolen Conch Shell
• Pajama Sam : Life is Rough When You Lose Your Stuff!
• Putt-Putt Saves The Zoo
• ToeJam & Earl
  

New on GameTap TV:

• Quick Hit: Calexico
  
• SeaLab 2021: Der Dieb
  
• Sam & Max: It’s Dangly Deever Time
  
• GameTap News: Too Human

Sam & Max: Episode 2! In there today! Right now, even! I still haven’t played it yet; I’m treating this series all special and traditional-like and am making myself wait for it to go to production before I jump in. (I also refused to watch The Wire any earlier than the Sunday it aired this season — even though HBO on Demand and various torrenting pirate “friends” tried to suck me in.) As for the game itself, this latest post from Telltale warms my heart for sure. Just to see them outwardly acknowledging the very specific demands of its fans is encouraging.

Also big: Myst Online is getting all official and kicking off the story today. Still a beta, but the game is moving forward into narrative-ville. AND no more vault wipes: your carefully detailed, bearded, Sam & Max-shirted, red-eyed, yellow-haired, shorts-wearing, barefoot avatar is in it to win it from here on out.

New Games:

• 3D Ultra Mini-Golf Adventures
• Freddi Fish’s One-Stop Fun Shop
• Myst Online: Uru Live (FINAL BETA)
• Pajama Sam’s One-Stop Fun Shop
• Sam & Max: Episode 2 “Situation: Comedy”
• Spy Fox “Operation Ozone”

Now with Challenge! multiplayer support:

• The New Zealand Story

New on GameTap TV:

• GameTap Tracks: Barenaked Ladies
  
• Quick Hit: Thievery Corporation
  
• SeaLab 2021: Swimming in Oblivion
  
• Sam & Max: Christmas, Bloody Christmas
  
• GameTap News: Wii in 2007

Button labels can be tricky. Get the labels right and users fly through dialogs with ease. Assign labels that are slightly off and you present a mental roadblock every time the user is required to make a decision.

Which brings us to one of the minor, likely unnoticed changes in GameTap 1.7: what happens when you try to leave a paused game? Prior to 1.7 we landed on a fairly common and standard couple of labels for the dialog:

No, I don’t want to continue playing. So Cancel, right? Oh wait, no. I DO want to continue to leave this game. So Continue? Wait, what? Part of the problem is that Continue and Cancel are somewhat divorced from the context of what you’ve just elected to do by closing the InfoCard. So you have to reread the dialog text to make sure you know what you’re doing.

Sure, this isn’t the end of the world. If you go back and read the text, you’re likely going to end up just fine. The issue here is that you end up stuttering over what should be a relatively easy decision.

So what’s the fix? Yes and No labels? Yes, I’m sure I want to leave. Or No I don’t want to leave. But we’re still left with labels that require you to read the dialog text. Are there any labels that don’t require that? Labels that fall in line with the action you’ve just taken (clicking away from the paused game)? We think so:

Of course, working through this kind of “fix” is nowhere near as exciting and glamorous as adding Buddy Leaderboards, designing a screen name popup menu, or even providing a Downloaded game subring. But it’s all part of the deal: making GameTap a better experience from the dinkiest of dialogs to the coolest of games.

(Every week or so, we round up what others are saying about GameTap and present a sampling of the chatter. Let us know if you see other GameTap-related posts out in the wild!)

• Slack3r78 is doing his part to keep the Evil Avatar community up to date with our version changes. Thanks!
• Amber has a theory about GameTap and our plans for the world.
• SenorWeird reminds me that I too need to play The Incredible Machines.
• Malsie Monster keeps it short and sweet. (While listening to Crispin Glover of all people…)
• akimbo_beretta found a gem in The Last Express. His MSPaint crack makes me laugh.
• John is coming around thanks to the mix of GameTap Originals and classics (one of which is the Atari 2600 version of Crystal Castles — I still find myself playing the arcade version and singing cereal commercials (featuring a 13 year old Jack Black?!)).