A More Usable Jawaker

All the games, one page

User feedback over the past few weeks has helped us in improving the navigation of the website in order to drive players to the most important pages of the website in fewer and easier steps. After creating a new account on Jawaker, you will now only be 2 steps away from entering the game table page where you can enjoy playing any one of our games.

We now only have one page where users can create a game, join an existing one or go back to a saved game that they didn't finish. We categorized the listing of the games rather than having each set of games on a different page. We believe that the people who are visiting Jawaker to play a game are looking to do just that, and they wouldn't enjoy any confusing navigation between pages in order to figure out how to start playing.

An improved game table

We are focused on having a browser-based gaming experience without the need to download anything. You will notice a few subtle changes on the game table page that will go a long way towards improving user experience. Mixing attractive design elements, solid CSS and creative JavaScript were all part of the magic recipe that resulted in a new, improved and cross-browser compatible game table.

Jawaker Tokens

We have revamped our ranking system today to incorporate tokens. Jawaker tokens are different from points in that players will eventually be able to exchange them for different things on Jawaker. They will also be used for ranking purposes across all games on the site.

We have decided to use tokens in order to simplify the incentive to play on the site. Having tokens allows us to reward players for playing longer, rather than just rewarding them for finishing a game. Of course, players will get a bonus for finishing a game and will get even more tokens for winning.

Our plan is to introduce different virtual and real prizes that users can exchange their tokens for. We are excited with this new feature and we plan to work hard on pushing out all the new and exciting things that you can do with Jawaker tokens.

Bringing Jawaker Closer to Home

Recently Amazon announced the availability of european data-centers for their EC2 service. At Jawaker, we happily received the news; now our users (mostly from the middle east) will have access to our service over links with much lower latency (no trans-atlantic links to traverse).

Jawaker has been smoothly running in the EU availability zone for almost two weeks, and is now even faster and more responsive.

Enjoy :)

Jawaker Facebook Application

Jawaker is very social by nature; cards games are more fun to play with your friends. This is why we decided to emphasize the social aspect of Jawaker by creating a Facebook application.

Facebook was our social network of choice because of the great amount of traffic it gets from Arab countries, which means that our audience likes it! Also, Facebook provides a very nice API, which allowed us to integrate Jawaker with Facebook both easily and beautifully.

Now, how does this work? It is pretty easy, all you need to do is have a Facebook account, and add the Jawaker application to your profile. Don't forget to bookmark the Jawaker application to be able to easily access it in the future.

Once you have the application added, you can link it with your Jawaker account by logging in with your Jawaker credentials on the linking page. This allows us to know which Jawaker account is yours. If you don't already have a Jawaker account, you can always register for free. You can also invite your friends to add the Jawaker application.

Once you and your friends have added the application and linked it, you can start creating private games from inside the Jawaker application. Your online friends will be notified about the new game, and they will see it in the Network Games box, where they can click on it to join you.

Don't forget, the more of your friends join, the more it is fun for everyone!

If you have any ideas or suggestions to make our Facebook application better, please leave a comment.

Trix Complex Is Launched

Jawaker is proud to announce the launch of its first new game; Trix Complex. Jawaker was originally launched with only one game and has now added a new game called Trix Complex, which is a popular variation on the original game Trix. This means that players will now have the option to play either game and will also notice that we have included separate gaming rooms for each of these two games. If you don't see your favorite card game on Jawaker yet, don't worry, because we plan on launching other card games in the near future to cater to every subset of our card playing audience!