So, did we manage to complete the new invite system and take it all the way from idea to finished feature on this camp? The answer is: Yes, almost. It’s not really in releasable shape, it certainly needs some polishing here and there (hence the almost). But we got all pages done and it worked.
When we started working on this the first day of the camp, we didn’t really know if the stuff we came up with would be worth keeping in the end. It’s really an enhanced tempo compared to the daily situation, and you don’t have much time to think about different things (or to make studies etc) – you just have to make decisions on the fly. And code while decisions is being made. But when the time was out and we looked at what we got -we felt it’s definitely worth keeping. And releasing it.
So, all in all it was a great weekend. And in case you’re wondering what we did besides working (and enjoying some nice food and wine); we played games. Surprise, eh? For this trip we couldn’t bring any big board game, but we played a game called Resistance a couple of times. And another game called Poo quite a lot (I guess you can figure out what that game is about…). 🙂
Being back at the office now we want to give this new invite system some polish, to give it the look it deserves, and there are some more functionality we want to include as well. Because not including it now would simply not be a wise decision. So this week we will do just these things; polish it and include the functionality we want to add. And then test it of course. We did actually have other plans for this week, but we feel we better get this done while we’re at it. Because it’s worth it.
This will be a great new feature. Currently inviting new players is somewhat of an afterthought. It’s difficult to sell the idea of playing Hattrick to other people. I have tried it and people are usually amazed at how complete and feature-packed the game is, but also they feel overwhelmed because it seems complicated and obscure and it’s all text based.
I hope you also get around solving other bugs currently affecting the production website. I still get an “unhandled error” message every time I try to see my “Fans” page and can’t check my fans mood.
Good to see the camp was a success! The invitation system is surely one of the most underestimated features in the game, so it was really the time to work on it!
Nevertheless: Please don’t forget to have a look at those nasty bugs these days, i.e. the delayed youth matches, unknown players in the youth matches, the friendly pool and so on. It won’t look good if new users are invited and the first impression of the game are those bugs… 😉
Kepp going!
“When we started working on this the first day of the camp, we didn’t really know if the stuff we came up with would be worth keeping in the end. It’s really an enhanced tempo compared to the daily situation, and you don’t have much time to think about different things (or to make studies etc) – you just have to make decisions on the fly. And code while decisions is being made. But when the time was out and we looked at what we got -we felt it’s definitely worth keeping. And releasing it.”
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Now we know that it was the 3D viewer. 🙂
Haha. 🙂