{"id":118,"date":"2009-10-23T15:51:57","date_gmt":"2009-10-23T14:51:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stevebromley.com\/blog\/?p=118"},"modified":"2019-11-06T17:45:04","modified_gmt":"2019-11-06T16:45:04","slug":"mobile-games-should-start-quickly-lets-get-down-to-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stevebromley.com\/blog\/2009\/10\/23\/mobile-games-should-start-quickly-lets-get-down-to-business\/","title":{"rendered":"Mobile Games should start quickly (lets get down to business!)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Part of a series on iPhone Game Design Issues. For an introduction <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stevebromley.com\/blog\/?p=3\" target=\"_self\">see here<\/a>, or use the categories on the right.<\/p>\n<p><\/em><\/p>\n<p>PopCap, they of Peggle and Plants Vs Zombies, commissioned a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.infosolutionsgroup.com\/popcapmobile09.htm\">survey<\/a> on where most people play mobile games. Results showed that men play more at work (28%) than women (17%). They were also asked when do they play these games. \u201cwhile waiting for an appointment\u201d came first for both genders, although I imagine this is because \u201con the toilet\u201d wasn\u2019t an option in the survey (I\u2019m not judging\u2026 just saying!).<strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<div align=\"center\">\n<div id=\"attachment_121\" style=\"width: 258px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-121\" class=\"size-full wp-image-121\" title=\"lego - waiting for an appointment\" src=\"http:\/\/www.stevebromley.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/lego-in-a-meeting.jpg\" alt=\"waiting for an appointment\" width=\"248\" height=\"301\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.stevebromley.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/lego-in-a-meeting.jpg 248w, https:\/\/www.stevebromley.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/lego-in-a-meeting-247x300.jpg 247w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 248px) 100vw, 248px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-121\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">waiting for an appointment<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>What these results show is that people want mobile games to be \u2018pick up and play\u2019, and use them to fill time, as opposed to committing a large amount of time to playing them. It is therefore important that game designers facilitate this method of game playing, and make it easy to pick up and play games. The main elements of this are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>fast start up time (from app load to actually playing)<\/li>\n<li>low number of extraneous menus to navigate before playing<strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>app resumes from where it left off<strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>app shuts down quickly, but doesn\u2019t lose progress<strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stevebromley.com\/blog\/?p=49\">previous blog post<\/a> touched on the issue of apps resuming your progress after an exit, and so this topic will focus on the user experience starting (or resuming) a game.<\/p>\n<p>The player, when they start the game, wants to play as soon as possible. Initially they have to sit through a load screen, which beyond the abilities to reduce this by programming optimization is a necessary evil. However, as developers interested in ux, steps should be taken to reduce the number of steps a user has to go through after this to reach the game.<\/p>\n<p>There is a trade off that has to be made here, based on our assumptions of what the user wants to do. \u00a0With many types of games we can assume that the user will already be on their right profile, will want to resume a current game, or start a new game. More complex games may have a wider degree of options that they need to present the user (particularly on a first boot). So how do we decide what options the majority of users will require? More effective than experts\u2019 \u2018educated guesses\u2019 would be qualitative testing \u2013 either through a limited release prior to the app store (I believe apple allows you to distribute your app to 100 people, enough for a good sample group), or through \u2018hooks\u2019 in the code of early releases, which will log, and send back, details on user activity. If you then found that 87% of users, on loading a game, went straight to \u2018resume game\u2019, you could make the game do this automatically, and reduce their wait.<\/p>\n<p>The design of an effective \u2018entry method\u2019 into the game is incredibly well suited to large user tests, based on qualitative tests of user behaviour, and can have an enormous effect on a player\u2019s good will and \u2018feeling\u2019 about a game. Put simply, if player\u2019s know that they can load your game quickly, compared to one with a 30 second wait, and 5 menu screens to navigate, they are more likely to pick your game when waiting in a queue or for a meeting.<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\">\n<div id=\"attachment_122\" style=\"width: 401px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-122\" class=\"size-full wp-image-122\" title=\"depression\" src=\"http:\/\/www.stevebromley.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/depression.PNG\" alt=\"&quot;anyone for peggle?&quot;\" width=\"391\" height=\"292\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.stevebromley.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/depression.PNG 391w, https:\/\/www.stevebromley.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/depression-300x224.PNG 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 391px) 100vw, 391px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-122\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">&quot;anyone for peggle?&quot;<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u00a0<strong>Who does it well?<\/strong><\/p>\n<div align=\"center\">\n<div id=\"attachment_123\" style=\"width: 223px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-123\" class=\"size-full wp-image-123\" title=\"textropolis\" src=\"http:\/\/www.stevebromley.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/textropolis.jpg\" alt=\"Textropolis\" width=\"213\" height=\"320\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.stevebromley.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/textropolis.jpg 213w, https:\/\/www.stevebromley.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/textropolis-199x300.jpg 199w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 213px) 100vw, 213px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-123\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Textropolis<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><strong>Textropolis<\/strong>, the word guessing game by Ian Marsh. Click on the app, and after a short load screen you\u2019re playing the game \u2013 no menu options (obviously you can get back to the menu, but the game assumes, correctly, that most players will not need this). The nature of the game (no time crucial element), lend the game to a quick start, so this is also a fine example of a game design being suited to its platform. The game isn\u2019t lacking in features too \u2013 the ability to sign in as separate user profiles exists, the game assumes that you will be less likely to want to do this than just play. Textropolis\u2019 quick start up time would make this game a suitable choice for the sort of quick gaming that Popcap\u2019s user survey says mobile gamers are into.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>NB: I was going to feature <strong>Geared<\/strong>, the puzzle game by Bryan Mitchell here, as it loads quickly, and I cant remember having seen the title screen (it throws you straight into the game). However when writing this, I realised it doesn\u2019t save your progress on a puzzle when you exit\/re-enter, and hence it loses user experience points!<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<br \/>\n<strong>Who does it badly?<\/strong><\/p>\n<div align=\"center\">\n<div id=\"attachment_124\" style=\"width: 482px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-124\" class=\"size-full wp-image-124\" title=\"sparta\" src=\"http:\/\/www.stevebromley.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/sparta.png\" alt=\"hero of sparta\" width=\"472\" height=\"320\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.stevebromley.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/sparta.png 472w, https:\/\/www.stevebromley.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/sparta-300x203.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 472px) 100vw, 472px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-124\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">hero of sparta<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><strong>Hero of Sparta<\/strong>, the (rather epic) hack and slash game by Gameloft (Think those PS2 Star Wars\/LOTR games).<\/p>\n<p>So, we\u2019ve got five minutes before the meeting starts, lets play. App started. A load screen, then a one minute cut scene, ok, I\u2019ve seen it before, so I\u2019ll skip this. Another load screen. A title screen. Touch the screen to continue, ok, I\u2019ll do this.\u00a0 New game, or Continue. Obviously I want continue, so I select this. Select a chapter. Well, I\u2019ll select the one I\u2019ve been playing on. Great. Another load screen. And I\u2019m in.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s a lot of stuff to get through between deciding I want to play, and actually getting to play. Probably one of the reasons why I haven\u2019t devoted much time to playing this game.<\/p>\n<p>How could it be improved?<\/p>\n<p>After the first load, I\u2019ll be unlikely to want to watch the opening cutscene again (despite the flashy graphics). The title screen adds needless clicking to my experience. Although I haven\u2019t verified this with testing, I believe the player is likely to select \u2018continue\u2019 rather than \u2018new game\u2019 after they\u2019ve started playing. And th<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Part of a series on iPhone Game Design Issues. For an introduction see here, or use the categories on the right. PopCap, they of Peggle and Plants Vs Zombies, commissioned a survey on where most people play mobile games. Results showed that men play more at work (28%) than women (17%). They were also asked [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[117],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-games-user-research","grve-entry-item","grve-blog-item"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v15.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Mobile Games should start quickly (lets get down to business!) - Steve Bromley - User Research<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.stevebromley.com\/blog\/2009\/10\/23\/mobile-games-should-start-quickly-lets-get-down-to-business\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mobile Games should start quickly (lets get down to business!) - Steve Bromley - User Research\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Part of a series on iPhone Game Design Issues. For an introduction see here, or use the categories on the right. PopCap, they of Peggle and Plants Vs Zombies, commissioned a survey on where most people play mobile games. Results showed that men play more at work (28%) than women (17%). 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