Angled Whiteboards

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!

First you get a Valentine, then you get Vista.

Here’s the official statement:

Look for support and compatibility with Vista to begin on 2/15, depending on your video card. GameTap is dependent on updated video card drivers from hardware manufacturers like ATI, Nvidia, and Intel. Different video cards will be supported as those companies release their updated drivers. Even though GameTap is currently incompatible with Vista, we are fully committed to supporting Microsoft’s new operating system. Our technicians are hard at work at making the service compatible.You can find a list of supported video cards on the GameTap website or visit the GameTap KnowledgeBase for more information.

The rest of the February 15th update is wrapped around performance and usability (including a number of features you’ve asked for in the Suggestion Box). Here’s a peek at things to come:

We’ll have a whole lot to talk about, very soon!

This week, GameTap busts out the puzzle action. Stress yourself out with the Lemmings-like Chu Chu Rocket — or go slow and methodical with the thinking man’s Lode Runner, Pyramid Magic. This is one game where I’m very happy with our built-in save-game feature. No more writing down and losing weirdo passwords!

As for Buku Sudoku, this is the first non-paper-based Sudoku I’ve really given a shot and I gotta say: if this is your first Sudoku experience, do yourself a favor and turn off the hints and error correction. Talk about robbing yourself of a challenge.

Also, you might notice that there’s a GameTap client update on your way in. It’s super-minor, behind-the-scenes plumbing work. Think of it as a stage-setter for … the future.

New Games:

• Arthur’s Pet Chase
• Arthur’s Computer Adventure
• Buku Kakuro
• Buku Sudoku
• Chu Chu Rocket
• Pyramid Magic

New on GameTap TV:

• GameTap News: Best of PC
• GameTap Tracks: The Hold Steady
• Sam & Max: Kitchen Consequential
• Sam & Max: The Tell Tale Tail
• SeaLab 2021: Legend of Baggy Pants

We just flipped a switch behind the scenes that seems kinda minor on the surface. But we think that it has the potential to dramatically improve the experience of chatting in a Challenge! game lobby. That switch? The one over by Andy’s desk that reads PROVIDE CHAT HISTORY EVERY TIME SOMEONE ENTERS THE ROOM. (It’s bright orange — but pretty heavy and slathered in industrial gear grease. Sorta looks like this.)

Why did we just now flip the switch? To be honest, in all the hubbub of getting online multiplayer games and contender status and chat lobbies up and running, I’m not quite sure we even realized that it wasn’t working that way. After all, when you’re busy messing around and developing a feature like chat, it sure can seem like there’s a lot of hustle and bustle and [fake, often unpublishable] conversation happening. Even once we launched the Challenge! games, the lobbies were full of folks hanging out, setting up Galaga stand-offs, smack-talking, and just shooting the breeze.

But then the dust settled, and we noticed the social effects of not having a chat history. Unless a very fast and furious conversation was in progress, every time a person entered the chat room they were confronted with a blank slate. And then they were on the hook to kick things off. The result? Everyone ended up in the undesirable role of first-to-speak. Not a conducive setup for instigating chat.

Now that we’ve flipped the switch, it’s different. You enter a chat lobby and automatically see the last 20 lines of conversation. You can get a feel for the flow of the room. You no longer get the sense that everyone’s counting on YOU to get the party started. This is our theory, at least. Folks are going to have to get accustomed to the change and maybe even relearn how the chat lobbies operate. We’re going to be closely watching to see the effects of this change, but our initial assumption is that it will be nothing but positive. So look for us online — and feel free to leave messages for us to test it out. The conversation in Street Fighter Alpha 3 is going to be flowing non-stop, but grafitti up something in Zoo Keeper and we’re sure to see it.

This week promises to be pretty big for GameTap. We kick things off with today’s release of GameTap version 1.7.

With this release we focused on a number of primarily usability-based enhancements. We intend to detail out a good majority of them in individual design-path posts, but in the meantime here’s the list:

My Favorites Subrings — The ring that previously held just your favorite games has been expanded to include a subring of all the games you’ve downloaded AND a subring of your 20 most recently visited games (across sessions!).

GameTap Picks Subrings — Until today, this too was just a single list of games. Now we’ll have a dedicated subring of new games, the week’s theme, and others that can change from week to week.

Coming Soon Infocards – While we’ve always had a basic list of Coming Soon games over in GameTap TV, we can now provide even more information via actionable game Infocards. Add them to your favorites (and exert parental controls) before they’re playable.

GameTap Home – We made the posters more easily clickable, enhanced the button messaging and visuals, and redesigned the Challenge!/Leaderboard ticker.

Game Types — Games are no longer limited to one-per-genre. If a game is puzzle-y AND arcade-y AND a Challenge! game, then you’ll find it in all three Game Types subrings (as our catalog evolves to take full advantage).

Search — We removed the browse buttons (they were often mistaken for search filters), added some search tips, and defaulted the ring to show ALL games right off the bat.

Finally, there’s a bunch of other small-ish (but fun from a design perspective) good stuff: a redesigned Infocard close button, a warning form on clicking off to a pdf manual, better button labels and messaging when attempting to leave a game in-progress, a glassy (non-flat) Edit Controllers button, better display of estimated time remaining download info, direct links from My GameTap Leaderboards rank to game-specific buddies leaderboards, sort memory in My GameTap Leaderboards, better display of ratings in Personal & Family Filters, and a few other minor fixes here and there.

I’m pretty pumped about these changes, and I can’t wait to talk about how we came up with some of them. Any time my favorite software/game/OS/etc. gets updated, it’s fun to just get in there and mess around with it all (even before I figure out how it improves my experience). That said, get in there, get to messin’, and let us know what you think!