Angled Whiteboards

Minor update to the GameTap client today - the only real user-facing change you’ll see in it is in My GameTap/Playlists. Before today, if you moved or copied a game into a different playlist or if you deleted it entirely, we jumped back to the top of the list. (ugh) Now, if you do any of those things, your position in the list remains the same. As for the rest of what’s in today’s update? Just a few bug fixes.

(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!)

• Giovanni is Canadian.
• The Headspin Blogger has some interesting thoughts about 3D UIs — and correctly describes GameTap as missing 1/2 of a D. Where did it go!?
• Nexy needs to just do it.
• teopcigart throws in some interesting thoughts re: Sonic 2 and muscle memory.
• Jared is playing GameTap and reading about the continued XBLA shake-up. They do go together kinda interestingly, huh?
• Jeff finally reveals what he’s been writing all this time. Pretty cool backstory!
• Jonathan placed 4th in the ad-hoc Street Fighter Alpha 3 Jinmaster tourney.
• Evyn! is! not! happy!
• peterb is, though. He does a nice job of spelling out some of the GameTap selling points that we don’t always make so obvious. And a “whooshy and pointless” interface is a positive for him.
• Dwight at the Houston Chronicle does up a nice, insightful piece.
• Darren reviews the feature set enhancements behind 1.6 and 1.7.
• rene_hope reminds us that sometimes it’s the smallest of things that can make or break you.
• agentgray started up another fun Evil Avatar thread.
• Simon at the fantastic GameSetWatch blog continues to show us love. Thanks!
• Colette at Destructoid reviews us as only Destructoid can.

The completely punctual and wonderfully-named Episode 4 of Sam & Max is ready for you.  From the They Used to Be Secrets category, Codename: Skyranger is no more and The Game Formerly Known as Groove Champion got a Nitro Pack (still on the Interstate ‘76 fence?  roushimsx has written up a persuasive overview and a great quick-start guide).

And I’ve got too many games to play.

New Games:

• Interstate ‘76 Nitro Pack
• Sam & Max Episode 4: Abe Lincoln Must Die!
• X-COM: UFO Defense 

New on GameTap TV:

• GameTap News: Video Games Live
• GameTap Presents: Fall Out Boy
• Sealab 2021: Vacation
• Sam & Max: Little Bigfoot 

While the 1.8 release certainly added a number of features, super-attentive GameTap users might have noticed the disappearance of one as well. Starting with this last release, Instant Match has gone into hibernation. Based on usage patterns and just plain seeing it in action, we determined that the Instant Match implementation we’d launched with wasn’t working.

Now we have an opportunity to potentially improve the feature. So. What would you like to see? Without getting into too much detail and biasing your ideas: the initial idea behind Instant Match was to quickly and easily help people find someone (anyone, actually — and without having to directly challenge an indentified player) to play a particular Challenge! game with. Please give us your suggestions, and/or fill out the poll below.

So this was a superfun surprise: over the weekend, AW-regular phorteetoo/evilcagey announced that he’d started up a dedicated [unofficial] GameTap forum at GameTappers.net.

It was just in time, too. I was all set to dirty up this here blog with a post dedicated to my need for help on level 23 of Pyramid Magic. Now, I can just dip in the appropriate thread (thanks for starting that one up, dinah) and get to begging…

In just a couple of days, a number of fun threads have cropped up: digging up GameTap’s hidden gems, a quick-start guide to Interstate ‘76, even a wishlist of games folks would like to see.

It’s a big week for GameTap - version 1.8 is out today, delivering Vista support. But that’s not all - the rest of the update is wrapped around performance, usability, and a few requests from you via the Suggestion Box. To say nothing of Myst Online: Uru Live coming out of beta. And another stealth release AW exclusive easter egg from us.

So, what’s in 1.8? A few weeks ago, we posted a picture puzzle preview - a few of you guessed what the features were (and got a lot of them right). Here’s the skinny:

1. My Favorites becomes My Playlists - now you have the ability to create your own playlists on the fly. Add games to one or more lists and name them whatever you like. Use the new and improved Heart icon on the Infocard or in My GameTap/Playlists.
2. Manage all your downloaded games right up front in My GameTap/Playlists. See what’s downloaded, sort by name, size, or the last play date. Jump straight to the game or delete it from your cache to make room for more.
3. All new game download progress indicators, including a bandwidth meter. Plus, see the download size before you even begin. And, of course, download up to three in the background while you play another.
4. And, speaking of downloading in the background, now the download dots animate to show progress. See at a glance without a hover how much is left to go. And when it’s done, a nice little slide-up alert.
5. Take control of GameTap Home - page through the promos at your own pace or set the slide show going.
6. Don’t know what to play? Go to Search and spin the wheel with Gotta Getta Game. Try it, it’s surprisingly fun (and you might find some hidden gems).
7. Set your refresh rate. This feature got pulled at the last minute because it’s still buggy in Vista. Coming soon to a monitor near you.
8. And, back to game downloads - now you can pause and resume your game downloads indefinitely (meaning when you pause it, it stays paused until you resume it or cancel the download). Sweet!

But wait. There’s more. Here are a few things we managed to tuck in to the corners:

• Audio settings remembered between sessions
• Bypass the intro video - just hit ESC
• Mouse scroll through the subcats in the rings (thanks to Slack3r78)
• Delete a game from your cache right from the Infocard
• “Don’t show me this again” for certain notification popups
• Enhanced game system requirements, known issues, and possible solutions
• Animations that inform - Home animates up to its button in the top toolbar and background downloads animate down to the dot
• Enhanced hover/focus feedback on the promo posters in GameTap Home

And one last thing, for people installing GameTap for the first time. Now you can choose a different location for games and content. For those of you with GameTap already installed (aka pretty much everyone reading this blog), we’ll have some instructions for you soon on how to manually back up and move your games.

All in all, it’s a big week. We can put a checkmark next to dozens of feature requests made in the suggestion box and get busy on the next ones.

Enjoy!