Tick Tock And Joining Games In Progress

Here at Jawaker, we work to solve the issues of our players. Game play is of paramount importance to us. The number of games that are filling up with players and starting in on the increase, but our users have told us that there are players that cannot commit to complete a full game and are therefore leaving before the end of the game. This is frustrating for many players. We have also had feedback from people who admittedly state that they cannot commit to a full game, and would like to play for a little while only. Some of these users would not mind continuing a game in progress. So we decided to deploy a solution that would cater to all players.

First of all, we introduced a timer during which a player must act. If players don't act within the specified time, a card is played automatically on their behalf. This has the effect of speeding up the game play. If a user decides to leave the game, or if a card is played automatically on their behalf too many times, then that user is kicked out of the game and a computer takes over. The player's seat becomes empty so that he (or any other player) can continue the game and take over from the computer.

Play While You Wait

Today we deployed Solitaire on Jawaker as our first single player game. We are still focused on providing users with the more entertaining and engaging multiplayer card games, but we don't like to leave them waiting until the games start. We therefore added Solitaire as a game for users to play on the side.

You will notice that while playing Solitaire, the box on the right (where you would normally chat) will now get updated with information about the current games and allow you to directly join the game from within the Solitaire game. Your Solitaire game will, of course, be saved for you to go back to and complete at a later time if you wish.

Unmuffling Jawaker

Jawaker now has sounds! We hope this will make the games more entertaining :D.

We have, for the time being, attached sounds to the following events:

- A player joining a game
- Cards are shuffled and dealt
- The current hand is ready to start
- A new message is received on chat
- Someone has passed his turn (in a Trix hand)
- It is your turn to play
- An important card has been played (such as the King of Hearts in a King or Complex hand, or a Queen in a Queens or Complex hand)

To include the sounds, we have chosen to use Adobe Flash. A small hidden 1-pixel Flash movie is included in the page, and is used to dynamically load and play sounds. The Flash was built to be generic, which allows us to add more sounds without having to edit the movie itself.

One nice thing we did is make sure everything works OK if you don't have the Flash plugin installed. Well, you won't be hearing any sounds, but you will still be able to use all other aspects of the website without any problems. This complies perfectly with our goal of making Jawaker work without the need for any downloads.

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.