More GameTap Goodness

It's been a while since I've posted about GameTap, and I feel the hard work the GT people have been up to has finally warranted another post.

There have been great improvements to GameTap since the last time I wrote about it that I could hardly list them all even if I tried, but I'll name a select few that really stand out in my mind.

Major Improvements

GameTap Recommendations
The "GameTap Picks" section now contains multiple lists, which change fairly regularly and provide a much greater variety of criteria. For example, this week they're featuring lists for, among others:

• Fun for Kids
• Gruesome Games
• X-Treme Sports
• Staff Picks
• Two Player Picks

I especially like the "Two Player Picks" list. It's great to see GT thinking more and more about multiplayer play through their service. After all, it *is* the internet.

These lists are in addition to the usual "new games" and "upcoming games" lists.

I realize that it may be too messy of a situation to deal with (in terms of relations with publishers), but if possible I think it would be great if they had a LONG list of games on the way and games that are possibilities to be added with a voting system where subscribers could approval-vote for games to be added.

Favorites Lists
This one was just added this week: you can now make your own favorites lists in a manner very similar to YouTube (only less buggy). So far, there's still no sharing system that I know of, but it's great to be able to see my own favorites lists displayed for me just the way the ones the system makes are shown.

Save State!

Many games now have a save system where you can essentially do a save and load state ala ZSNES. It's pretty well done, and makes some old toughies much more fun and actually possible to play through within a reasonable time frame. Specifically, I'd recommend Comix Zone as a great example of a game SAVED by this feature.

UI Enhancements

In addition to these major improvements, there have also been a bunch of relatively small interface improvements that add up to a much nicer interface.

Scroll wheel support
I'm very happy to say that they've added one of the features I recommended to them early on via the built-in suggestion system, which is to allow you to scroll through lists with the mouse scroll wheel. It's a wonderful way to peruse at your desired speed and makes the ever-growing library much more reasonable to sift through.

Improved Search
Speaking of perusing through the 832-title strong library, the search box now has a button you can press to have the display fly to a random game within the (alphabetically ordered) list of all games.

I've been thinking it would be nice if they implemented a "live" search where the results fly by as you type, but this new button helps achieve the same benefit of helping people find games they didn't know about.

Miscellaneous

They've also improved the quick-view widgets at the bottom of the screen to show download status in a much nicer way. It also allows you to see more than just the last 5 games you've looked at, with scroll buttons to see others now included.

Performance

Finally, I was amazed to find out today that apparently they've programmed GT to take almost no system memory when minimized. Even when it took 40mb of memory when being used, as soon as I minimized it it dropped down to 4mb, which is almost non-existent as far as I'm concerned. I don't know how exactly they did it, but I applaud this great improvement.


I think the GT people are doing a great job with continually updating the GT UI and adding key features. All they really need now (as I see it) is better savegame handling for PC titles and the ability to download updates when the program isn't running to save on startup time. Oh, and seriously, guys, release Fallout & Fallout 2! With Silent Hill 3 in there, you can't seriously tell me that Fallout is too graphic or mature! =P

Game Jammin' in Boston!

Better late than never -- I'd like to talk about how great it was being a part of the Boston Game Jam, which took place over the weekend of January 20th and 21st.

Fifteen professional (well, 14, plus me) Boston-area game developers got together under the great gold dome at MIT to try and create a variety of working, usable games in less than 36 hours' time. We worked our butts of in the MIT Education Arcade lab, which they so generously invited us to use for the weekend.

As far as resources went, the usual suspects were present: desktop PCs, laptops, a projection screen, pizza, coffee, and doughnuts supported us as we worked. Each morning, coffee, doughnuts and (sadly underrated) muffins were brought into the lab to ensure no one was running on empty.

The games turned out very well, in general. My favorites were Shift, Slidewalk, and Nightshifted. Shift is a really cool almost-game simulation of people in conflict over resources on a player-spinnable world. Slidewalk was the result of Kent Quirk and son's work that features impressive (for the time frame) 3D graphics.

The game that David Ludwig and I made, which we ended up titling Buddha Quest (it was meant to be a humorous game), turned out pretty well given my lack of experience with Python and the fact that he and I had never before worked together.

We ended up having to scope the game down a lot, even though we'd already chosen a fairly attainable goal. In the end, I think it was the first half day where I had to re-aquaint myself with Python that took away critical time. I think we learned a lot from the experience, though. I know I gained a good amount of confidence from it and as it turned out Dave and I ended up working together quite well, I thought.

If/when we work together on a project like this again, we figure we'll try to start with a technology that we're both quite comfortable with and go from there. What I do know for certain, though, is that it will be a good time and well worth committing a whole weekend to it.

There's nothing quite like getting a bunch of developers together and banging out some games to get the creative juices going. Seeing the quality of developers there and given that it was our first even and that some people had to back out at the last minute, I'm also encouraged to know that the company will always be great. (Speaking of company, here are a few more accounts of the event, from Duncan Watt, our wonderful sound guy, and Dan Roy).

Here's to games, development, and fun!