Show HN: iPhone word game I created in 5 days - Word Fever
app.net
app.net
The icons on the opening page take up a lot of space - the bottom 1/4 of the page - and compete with the app for my focus. I would suggest separating them from the start button with some space & moving them a little closer to each other. Maybe even shrink the size of those buttons.
Since I'm mentioning focus, I think the tiles kind of get lost during the game, too. There isn't really anything that makes them stand out, and they are surrounded (crowded) by several large buttons. The visual focus should be on the tiles and the word line. The other buttons should be out of the way.
When playing the game, the shuffle button is too close to the bottom row of tiles. Maybe swap its position with the pause button & move them both down, away from the tiles. Also, I occasionally press "shuffle" rather than "submit", and I'm sure it has something to do with the buttons' positions.
I'm still unclear about the bonus & combo multipliers. What's the point of the combo multiplier? Does it effect my score at all? And how, exactly, is the bonus multiplier calculated? Since it affects my score, I'd like to know how it comes about. Maybe it's just me, but feel a need to know these details.
I don't think it's necessary, but I kept looking for a "last word" button similar to the one used in Word Warp. I often want to riff off of the last word, and I'd rather hit "last" & modify the word than type it in each time from scratch. Of course, adding yet another button isn't necessarily a good thing....
Most timed games that I've played will pause when you hit the countdown timer. You may be able to gain some more space by eliminating the "pause" button all together & implementing the "hit the timer to pause" feature. (I'd say it's common enough to be an expected feature of timed games.)
I really like the portrait view. Holding my iPod in landscape just doesn't feel as natural to me & I tend to use landscape games less and less. I know that's just a personal preference, but I think you got it right.
Overall, it's a fun game. I often test free games & then delete them, but I see this one staying on my iPod. Good job, and good luck.
The bonus and combo multipliers are explained in the Help section (press the "?" tile on the game screen before or after a game (or when its paused)). Basically the combo multiplier goes up 1 each time you spell a word with the same set of 12 tiles. If you hit shuffle, the combo goes back to 0. The bonus multiplier goes up each time you spell a word, and the amount it increases depends on the length of the word (the longer the word, the more the bonus increases).
I'll consider the "hit the timer to pause" feature. I hadn't noticed that in many other games, but it makes sense.
Thanks for the other feedback, too. I'll consider it for updating the visual layout.
Why did you decide to go portrait instead of landscape?
What was time spent on design (not the graphics, but planning the interactions and the rules of the game) versus time spent on implementation?
edit: Also, do you have any go-to books that you use for game/app development?
Idea design: one night maybe. Wanted to think of the simplest yet compelling rules for a word game that used scrabble-like tiles. Some interactions were tweaked along the way because of the physical layout on the screen, but most everything was thought up that first night.
Time on implementation: a few days. Getting the whole game engine working was pretty fast, then just integrating the logic with the interface took a while. Learned about (and added) multi-player through Game Center in one sit-down session on a Friday night.
The part that took the longest (it feels like) was just entering all of the Leaderboard and Achievement data into the Game Center console on Apple's site. Then of course writing the logic in the game to trigger each achievement when they should be unlocked.
The graphics: several hours, probably a total of 10. Tweaking the tiles took the longest.
edit: added to answer parent's edit: I don't have go-to books really. This was the first game I've ever written (except for Rock, Paper, Scissors in BASIC when I was 9). So I just was learning as I went. Usually I just use Google/Stack Overflow for technical questions, but for the game part I just mashed together observations I had made while playing other apps (especially word games lately).
Does Hasbro (owner of Scrabble) have any IP protection on the wooden letter tiles with a number in the corner? Seems like a small thing, but it wouldn't shock me. And could be an issue if this gets big.
Any chance it goes open source? :)
Good job btw
I know you guys aren't so hot on Notifo any more, but is there any chance you could have a look? It's putting a serious damper on my participation here!
All the design was done by me as well... it's not the sexiest, but I think it is good enough for now. I used Opacity - http://likethought.com/opacity/ - to create all the graphical assets, which was a real time-saver.