But let me start from the beginning. I was one of many Scrabulous users who was devastated when the application got removed from Facebook due to legal action from Hasbro. I wasn’t given much time to mope, however, since the developers quickly released Wordscraper, a game with similar rules that allows you to build custom boards.

The flexibility is quite extensive… you can choose to have multipliers anywhere from 2x up to 5x, and they can be placed anywhere on the board. But while this is interesting, it throws the entire notion of balance out the window. For example, look at the board where I scored 592 points (light blues are 4x word):

Looking at the column third from the right, it’s easy to see how one can get 592 points… I ended up with a 64x word multiplier!

Scrabble strikes the perfect balance in the placement of full-word-multipliers: While it is technically possible to get two with one word, it’s rare, and you usually need a bingo to do it. The new configurations in Wordscraper change the game entirely: Instead of avoiding the edges to keep your opponent from getting a 3x word score, you’re avoiding entire sections of the board to try and keep the scores manageable.

It’s an interesting twist, but really, I think it can quickly lead to poor game design. I mean, come on… 592 points? That’s beats my best Scrabulous score in one move, and makes the game not even a reasonable competition. The question is, are there well-designed boards besides Hasbro’s standard? I may have found one… I’ll share it if it bears fruit.

In the interest of fairness, the clarification points out that these numbers may not be generalizable. But I still think they’re interesting, and I have a few ideas about why the numbers might actually be lower:

1. Social Games Require… People: There are certainly some Wii games that are single player, but I tend to have the most fun playing multi-player games with a big group of people, like Smash Bros, Guitar Hero, Wii Play, or Wii Sports. This can only happen as often as I have people over, which isn’t as often as I play single player games.
2. Shorter Average Playing Time: I don’t have the numbers on this, but I can say that adventure games on the Wii (so far) have come nowhere near the 100+ hour behemoths of the Final Fantasy / Dragon Quest franchise.
3. New Markets = New Habits: The Wii is applauded for breaking into non-traditional gaming markets. Well, guess what: Non-traditional gamers probably aren’t as obsessed with games as hardcore gamers.

The last point is particularly interesting, because it begs the question: Who cares? Just because Wii usage might be lower doesn’t mean that gamers get less value out of it, or that it’s not as solid of an investment. Personally, I like that I spend less time on the Wii than other consoles. It lets me focus on the real world from time to time.

But as a designer, I’m constantly faced with people suggesting (often quite obscurely) that software should be more like a video game. There was even an article in the New York Times last year to that effect.

So here we are in 2008, and Spore and Super Smash Brothers Brawl are two of the most anticipated games of the year. What can they tell us about UI Design? My first impression is that they are each taking on quite a bit, albeit in different ways. Software designed this way is sometimes referred to as bloated, suggesting that the scope is too broad and not user-focused. Bloated software often falls victim to slipping on its release date, as well (Cough. Cough).

Time to scope out these games. Is the future of video gaming aligned with the future UI design? Or are these games falling victim to the same usability issues that UI designers have known about for years? I’m diving in after the jump.

Super Smash Brothers Brawl: 27 Modes of Play

Smash Brothers Brawl, like the two Smash Brothers games that have come before it, is a fighting game. As with other games in this genre, the core element of game play involves 2-4 classic Nintendo characters fighting one another.

From the beginning, Smash Brothers has tried to break away from the genre, from using a percentage system to convey character health to their variety of single player modes. These changes added something meaningful in the first two games (an interesting new element and structure around individual play, respectively). But with Brawl, it seems like they are getting carried away.

As of the writing of this article, there are 27 entries in the Game Modes section of the Brawl website. One, released just a couple weeks ago, showcases the various modes, because (emphasis mine):

I’ve introduced quite a number of game modes to you here on the Dojo. However, the sheer number of modes is such that I worry I might have confused some of you with all these explanations. So I decided to rig up a short movie that showcases each mode. There are so many modes that the video moves at a rather brisk pace, but it lets you absorb everything in one quick shot.

… …Or it might just confuse you further.

Sorry about that, but there’s just so many modes in here, you know?

Brawl is definitely stepping up the number of modes from Melee, the last Smash Brothers game released. And Melee offered nothing innovative in terms of information architecture. One primary menu…

… each with a series of submenu choices underneath.

Since the Wii is point-and-click now, Brawl increased the size of the primary menu choices (just like Fitts’ Law says you should)…

…but ultimately it’s still the same menu structure, just with added complexity.

You might be thinking, “Big deal. I play a game to play it, not to navigate the menu.” And you’d be exactly right. But the same can be said for any system out there. Nobody enters a system to navigate a menu, they go in to accomplish a goal.

Navigation is the necessary structure in order to get you to the right content, and wanting your system to be designed like a video game doesn’t change that. In fact, pushing the envelope too far on that front has been known to cause more harm than good, as was the case with the 3-D mailbox application.

Spore: 5 games in one, or one fluid game?

Spore has been getting a lot of buzz for years. In fact, I remember the day in Game Design two years ago when we watched one of the first videos showcasing the fledgling ideas for this game.

My first impression wasn’t far off from Zack Stern’s: The individual phases looked interesting as stand-alone games, but it was the integration between the phases that struck me as having the greatest potential to be interesting, from a design point of view anyway.

After reading the latest round of reviews, this point is still a little vague. Do you just throw a switch (“Congratulations, you’re the strongest creature. Do you want to enter tribal mode now?”)? Will a new round of commands suddenly become available? Or will players be gradually introduced to new phases when they’ve reached the appropriate level?

Regardless of how these elements are implemented, there are two elements that pique my interest (and set Spore apart from Brawl):

1. Different elements and modes are integrated through a consistent interface. You could make the argument that there’s a lot going on with Spore, such as the capability to post your creature to YouTube. And that point is certainly valid. But all of it is centered around the creature builder. There’s even been an announcement of a Spore: Creatures game for the Nintendo DS.
   
   Image taken from the Joystiq article linked above
   This consistent entry point to all of the content helps disguise the fact that there is so much going on. Unlike Brawl, you don’t have to navigate a complex menu to do what you want. You just play
   the game.
2. Elements are exposed gradually, creating a difficulty curve that advances at an even pace with players understanding of the game. If there were one video game quality that software should try to emulate, this is it. Both video games and software often come with an instruction manual or help document, but video games that capture this element well don’t need one. Players start with only a few choices, and as their understanding of their choices grows, so too do the number of choices.

I haven’t seen enough details about Spore to say that it’s the game that UI designers should aspire to when they do their own designs. But early indications suggest that it’s making some good design decisions, and these decisions are based on principles that are generic enough to be applied universally.

Imagine software that supports exactly the right task at exactly the right time. Imagine if that software knew how users would enter the system, and if their initial experience was built around a simpler system with just those parameters. Video games have been designed this way for ages, yet the same can’t be said for software. Why is that?

Conclusions?

Both of these games look phenomenal, and you can bet I’ll be in line to buy them both. (Incidentally, Spore releases just before my birthday this year… if any of you are so inclined…) This article probably won’t dissuade you from getting either game, and it’s not meant to. Instead, I really wanted to see what two of the most anticipated video games of 2008 had to say about UI design.

From a very high level, video games and software face a similar problem of getting users / players to the content they want. In simple cases, this is straight forward. Start heaping more information / content / gaming modes onto the pile, and suddenly it’s a tough problem.

The answer lies in rallying around a common area or theme. For Spore, its the creature builder… but you don’t need something fun or even remotely video game like to apply this to your design. Figure out the core of your design, and ask yourself: If I’m adding something, how does it relate to this core element? Can I integrate it with that core element? When that starts happening with software en masse, I think we’ll finally start to see the benefit of software behaving like video games.

I’ve been a long time Dragon Quest fan, well before I was even aware of the Final Fantasy franchise, which has led me to buy any Dragon Quest game that comes along, even the blatant Pokemon ripoffs. But there’s plenty to be excited about with this game.

This will be the first Dragon Quest game released on the Wii, and they are taking full advantage of the interaction style. It’s entirely first person, so the remote is your sword and the nunchuck is your shield. While that style isn’t at all new or innovative, what I like is the way it’s been integrated with the standard role-playing genre. Much better than past first-person RPGs. On top of everything, the conventions that make the DQ series so gripping will persist in this game, making it that much easier for the game to draw you in.

Check out the video of the demo to get an idea of the controls and game flow for yourself. As for me, I can’t wait for next Tuesday!

Wow… it really took Nintendo over 8 months to come to the conclusion that some sort of Virtual Console update would be a good thing? As a Wii owner, I’ve got to say, I’m a fan of the Virutal Console. However, after 3 weeks of checking every Monday, just to be let down because random games from TurboGraphx got added to the mix, checking Virtual Console updates manually became my least favorite part about the whole system.

So what’s a lazy technophile to do? Find a blog feed that showcases the Virtual Console additions every Monday so they’re easy to check.

Nintendo should have been on top of this from day 1, but after being convinced that they didn’t have any location to browse VC releases, I gave up and went feed hunting. It turns out that the email above had a link to all currently-available VC releases, each one with a link telling more about the game. That’s pretty cool, but still pretty obscure. Not to mention the fact that these update emails (which seem to be happening weekly now) come three days after the console updates. Nice, but still not a step up from the immediacy you get from a feed like N-Philes.

Nintendo, I say you’ve gotta step it up with your VC messaging. Shout it from the rooftops! Be your customers’ number one source for all things Virtual Console! And… release Dragon Warriors I-IV to the VC while you’re at it.

Update 12/17/07: I’ve been getting these emails for a couple months now, and I’m reversing my position. Their timing is variable – sometimes they arrive at the start of the week, sometimes at the end, and other times in between. But they are a great deal more visual than the other sources, and they link to a pretty stellar site that maintains a full list.

Using one of these emails, I realized that Ghost & Goblins was a game I had in my childhood, after repressing it for my Toolbox assignment in Game Design. After buying it and playing for 5 minutes I realized why – It. Is. Extremely. Hard.

You see the incorrect values in red. You can go through the row / column / square checking or you can take my word for it – that solution is correct. However, the sidebar gadget seemed to think that this alternative, similar solution was the right one:

In fact, they’re both correct. Which brings up an interesting question to ponder: Under what circumstances are Sudoku solutions unique? When can multiple solutions exist?

Continuing on the train of deep Sudoku thinking, I noticed that the Sudoku games in this gadget don’t start off symmetrically (if you look at Sudoku puzzles in the books or newspaper, the starting values are symmetric along the diagonal). Is there something important about this symmetry? Is the symmetry at all correlated with unique solutions?

I call on some really smart math whiz (Eric) to solve this problem immediately.

One thing that I find interesting about checking the Digg headlines is the interest that the “mainstream” audience takes in knowing geography and history (especially given how poorly America tends to stack up in those areas). You may recall that a few months ago I mentioned the Geography quiz as a fun way to pass the time when you’re sick. These days I’m to the point where I can find any country on the map… except in Africa. Africa’s tough, but I’m getting there.

Anyway, another quiz surfaced recently on Digg asking you to identify our presidents. You have 10 minutes to enter the last names of all 43 Presidents. The nice (yet not-so-accurate) part comes in with Presidents who have the same last name – since typing the name once gives you all Presidents with that last name. I remember Harrison quite easily (it helps when you grow up in a neighborhood with streets named after Presidents), but I associated it with William Henry Harrison. I got Benjamin Harrison for free. Not that I remember him, but it looks like I did. Lucky me.

My favorite part comes in when you’re done – you can check out who the most forgotten President is. The winner? Chester A. Arthur!!

Yet another dubious honor. These results aren’t permanent – in fact, the percentages are always changing. Personally, I don’t see how people can forget the administration which gave us the Tariff Act of 1883. You should take the quiz and try to make a different President more forgettable. Franklin Pierce is close on Arthur’s tail…

Uh oh, you found the princess! -=Beeehhh=- She’s in another house, go away.

Season 2 recently launched, and while I do enjoy solving puzzles, I seem to recall from childhood that collectible cards are a good way to sink a lot of time and money.

However, I’m very impressed by PerplexCity’s new Japanese Channel. Aside from having Sudoku puzzles (who doesn’t these days), it has a variety of other puzzles, some I haven’t seen before, and some that I have, including Kakuro. I haven’t seen many online implementations of Kakuro, but I think PerplexCity does a good job.

If you’re looking for a challenge, be sure to try a Ponturu puzzle. It takes me back to the good ol’ Graph Theory days of building connected bridge systems. Fun times!

This is exactly how I feel about Mario Party. The only exception is that the comic doesn’t mention the joy that I get watching Quinn try to play. She’s tops at jumping into pits repeatedly.