More Helpful Forms

We love numbers and statistics here at Jawaker, and we love solutions that are derived from studying the numbers. Based on some statistics that we gathered, and based on some research we performed on forms, we decided to revamp our two most important forms: the "Sign-up" and "Log-in" forms. We introduced the concept of guiding textual instructions that come up as the user fills up these forms in order to increase our sign up and confirmed user ratio.

Advertise on Jawaker!

After weeks of hard work, Jawaker is proud to announce the launch of the almost-ready-for-market campaigner. We have integrated the Jawaker campaigner into the website to allow companies to create an advertiser account on their own, buy credit online (via Amazon FPS) and create their very own targeted campaign.
The process has been simplified and automated. The client company only needs to upload one image and Jawaker will resize and crop the images on the back-end to fit on the back of cards and on the game table. Each company will also have statistics on their campaigns and will be able to set an expiry date for each campaign. Open an account and advertise with Jawaker now!

Experimental Features on Jawaker

We are very proud to announce one of our most "structured" deploys. Today we launched two feature sets in an experimental fashion. First, let us tell you about the feature sets.

Profile View
Our new design for Jawaker was based on building for the future. Part of that forward thinking was to make way for versatile and flexible functionality on the game table. We did this through the introduction of "layers" or "views". We initially had only one view, the "Game View", which allowed players to see information related to the game itself. The "Profile View" now allows players to see information about other players, including details about their rank, membership date, tokens and country. It is important to note that the game is fully playable in each and every view by design.

Admin View
This view allows every player to see who the game administrator is and also allows players to change their seat during the game in order to play with a preferred partner. Game administrators can also change the game parameters, such as time to play and game name, during the game. In addition, Game admins are able to kick any player out of the game (and thus banning them from that particular game) at any time.

The great thing about this new feature launch is that it will be opened up on a feature-by-feature basis to a select set of players. We will ask these players to provide us with their feedback and improve each feature set based on player feedback. We are particularly proud of this approach to adding new features, as it marks an important milestone in our goal to host a top-tier professional website.

Updating Ranking System

We have made yet another update to our ranking system. We didn't change anything fundamental, we just added more clarity that is aimed at giving our players more insight into the ranking system and engaging them more.
We added the segmentation of our ranked players into 13 subsets, from 2 to Ace (following the standard rank of cards in a deck). We also split the ranks into 3 levels: Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced. We hope that you like the new changes!

Jawaker 2.0

We made some pretty significant changes on Jawaker last week. It took us a while to write this post because we wanted to be sure that our major revamp was well received. We couldn't be happier with the outcome and the reception that we got from our users, so without any further ado, here are the major changes that constitute "Jawaker 2.0".

A new look and feel for the site
We changed the entire layout and markup of the site, including the home page. The changes are intended to simplify the DOM tree and to a more intuitive feel to the site as a whole.

Improved game table (with new descriptive icons)
The major page on the site, the game table, went through yet another makeover. We simplified and standardized the layout, including the addition of user-friendly and descriptive icons to represent certain important game events relating to each player.

Ability to turn off chat
Sounds simple enough :) Our players can now turn the game chat on and off as they please.

Play a card with one click
Players no longer need to double click on cards to play them. They can now hover over their cards and see the card of interest pop-out, in which case they click only once to play it.

Estimation is added
Seems like this news should be in a blog post of its own! However, the addition of Estimation as our latest game is long over due and we decided to add it to this round of updates.

Ability to search game by game name
It's a good sign that the number of games on the site is increasing, but we felt we had to do something to help users find the game they wanted to play in. So now from the game index players can type in the game name and the games are filtered automatically based on any subsequent letters in the game name that match the typed search.

Improved AI
We are always looking to improve the skill of the automatic Jawaker players that sit in for players. We have been statistically tracking the skill of our AI over time and we have made significant changes that have vastly improved how Jawaker plays during a hand.

Ability to play with one player only
Since we have become more confident in our AI, we felt that the time was right to allow games to continue with only one player on the table. This also has the added benefit of improving the percentage of games that are completed and avoids any backlash from players leaving a winning player and adversely affecting his rank.

Sound is played whenever a card is played
A small change that we feel adds more character to the game. You can now hear a sound of a card being played whenever a card is played on the table :)