Mon, Nov 28, 2011 at 5:04 PM
allllllllllllllllllllright. i’m back. :)

ridic fishing crunch was crunchy so i needed to be away for a bit. i’m back now though. so hmmm… let me catch up here.

re: menus >> alright cool, thanks for the zip. i’ve noticed that the menus aren’t in a standard res. is that because they are being cutoff or is there some reason for that? 960×640 is what i’m working with as a base. i’d like to get a read on what you’re thinking as far as taking the swipe the word to transition to other parts of the menu system. i’d like that to permeate all menu screens.

i guess right now i’m thinking there are some things i’d like to change about the visual details. now that the blocks are 100% i think the colors are clashing/vibrating so i went with this (attached). i think it still allows for enough differentiation and looks much better. Beyond that there’s a good bit more but i want to make sure that you are ready for that phase. it seems like right now the grid that the blocks are on, the size of the blocks and etc. will determine a lot as far as the menus themselves are concerned. so while it might feel a bit like premature polish, i think we should nail down a grid/blocksize and grid orientation that will flow throughout the whole game that we can build the rest of the game menus on top of. it will make both of our lives a lot easier if we sort of polish that vertical slice of the game.

right now, as far as the grid is concerned, it’s a bit awkward. aesthetically i’d much prefer my original grid, with a hefty margin, however i definitely realize the need to maximize real-estate. I’m going to try and work within those constraints some more and we should probably try and work as closely as possible to get something that we’re both happy with.

basically, i’m looking to get the pipeline as a sort of 1:1 thing, where we’re both aware of the exact measurements of things so the details are exposed so we can finalize the base grid, colors and visual rules and move forward using those to build things out. for instance, right now there is a hay-pixel gap between all block rows. I’m not sure what the case is there, but it’s one of the things we should try and figure out. that way, if i cook up a 960×640 mockup it’s with actual pixels that will be used in the game.

finally, this might not be what you were planning, and that’s fine as well. if you’d like me to take more of a direction/consultation roll in this then i understand that, but i strongly suggest that we focus down on the details to make this game special. it matters. apple has taste when it comes to the visuals and they aren’t going to feature something that doesn’t look crisp/professional/polished. we don’t have a lot of ammo to throw at the player so the way we make it look professional is with carefully crafted details.

alright,
so yea, i definitely think showing apple a build would be great. My contact is more of a development contact so she’s actually most interested in alpha/beta builds to talk about new features apple is pushing and so on. it’s a good idea for sure to keep up the dialog as that means we will be in her mind in the months leading up to release. hopefully you can build a direct contact with her about puzzlejuice and keep that up post-puzzlejuice. The hope is that when it comes time to release she can pass the word onto someone that has the power to offer puzzlejuice up as a potential feature.

in general the game is really shaping up and coming together. i can’t wait to keep pushing and making this puppy sing. :)

Mon, Nov 28, 2011 at 5:12 PM
here’s her info to get her setup on testflight: [REDACTED]

Mon, Nov 28, 2011 at 6:31 PM
here’s a 55px grid (actually has 14 rows, just fixed that in the ai file). but yea, there are smaller blocks here but i think it just feels really cramped at 60px blocksize. plus more room for UI and stuff like that…

Mon, Nov 28, 2011 at 9:31 PM
ok cool. you make a good case and i can’t argue with it. 60px blocks it is! :) definitely no hard feelings or anything, i will work within the constraints to make it the best possible that it can be.

i see what you mean about the beige/blue, i will shift things around. i imagine it’ll take some tinkering to get it right.

i appreciate your fervor and pushing for function over form, and i feel the same way, i don’t have near as much knowledge about the pitfalls of the design and where we need to put all our chips, so yea, i will default to you. just know that i’m pushing for certain things in an effort to make the game look the best it can, but ultimately gameplay should be above all else. you’ll get no more friction from me if that’s on the line. :)

finally, don’t worry at all about taking new screenshots. they are just fine how they are, i was just curious about why they were like that due to some of the discrepancies you brought up about unity not being a 1:1 thing. i was searching around earlier and this is all probably all old-news and under the bridge for you but in the off chance it isn’t: http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/82265-Pixel-Perfect-and-Clean-Textures. I’m not sure that applies as you are using 3D cubes for the blocks, yea? regardless, i’m sure we can come to some kind of happy medium and work through it no problem.

Mon, Nov 28, 2011 at 11:03 PM
here’s a 60px grid, i think it’s working. :) pretty happy with this…

Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 1:10 AM
:)

yea she be din. i pushed the fonts bigger, i think it works better for sure. i still attest that DIN black is the way to go. :) i also tweaked the colors here on my brightest setting of my monitor, i think there’s more contrast now between all the colors.

i understand wanting to see the score all the time but i worry having the HUD go over the blocks would look weird, i could try and design within that idea though. sounds like the word could go at the top too, i will take another stab at that whole HUD-at-the-top thing next round. :)

Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 3:56 PM
here’s lookin at the word at the top and the HUD actually going under the blocks… perhaps it could go over the top while you’re spelling a word? i think making it context based is a good route for sure.

Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 5:51 PM
yea definitely, sounds good. here’s a bunch more mockups to give you an idea of where we could take the menu system…

Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 7:44 PM
here’s another option for the objectives, changed after working on the pause/post-game menus. attached as well.

Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 8:12 PM
ok, gonna call it a night, wait for your feedback on these new guys. :)

Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 4:32 PM
ok cool, i agree that i’m not sold either. it’s forced and is looking really clunky. the title screen works as is, but we can and should simplify the buttons, they should not be taking up 50% of the screen space. i will refocus and look at some new button and menu conventions.

as for the type size, i’m working with a retina display for testing (iPhone4) so it’s definitely different. I will pump things up a bit, but i think that it might be more a factor of clutter and oversized swipey-buttons than the type size itself. if we can find a convention that works for us then type size and such can be a refinement issue after we’re satisfied with the general layou/system of the menus

Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 4:47 PM
no for sure, they are appreciated and well reasoned and also very helpful. so don’t worry at all about that.

Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 7:04 PM
what about if each one you swiped on the screen made for different juice splatters. so this is from core (because it’s got a blue gem) and so on for the title screen. so you explode a huge series of blocks and so on and then the blue juice rains down and makes for the bg of that menu for the most part. or it could not even be specific but menus would be covered in juice or something? i dunno…

Thu, Dec 1, 2011 at 1:34 AM
random idea. it might be cool to keep this 125 (and counting) email thread as our only form of contact. if we can somehow manage to keep contact to this very space, then we can like… publish this as a process thing. like this is the entirety of every communication that we’ve had, includes screenshots and so on. i could put it into some kind of form with attachments to make it more readable and nice etc. think about it. in the future-now people are reading this and being like, wow. i’m reading the email about the thing i’m reading about about the game i played earlier and he’s writing things about me reading this very thing. what makes me, me? what is consciousness? what is is? o_O—————-_____

Thu, Dec 1, 2011 at 1:56 AM
haha cool.

we will cross ‘er when we come to it. so yea, i went ahead and tried like six versions of things for the menu system tonight aaaaand i’m kinda back where i started, though in a good way. and in a different way. so here’s what i got so far, i’m still working cuz i’m kind of on a roll here…

Fri, Dec 2, 2011 at 1:34 AM
:) cool! so i’ve worked more and have replaced the zip you gave me with this system. they should all be there, as well as the transition screen and the game mockup. :)

i think next is probably actually doing the powerup icons and exploring that whole deal.

Fri, Dec 2, 2011 at 7:31 PM
yea i think that’s a really good idea. the score definitely seems to be a bit more cryptic than it probably should be. the multipliers are cool though, it gives me a sense of urgency for sure.

glad you’re digging the new system :) i wil continue to hone it as time allows but you probably won’t see a lot of me next week, unless prompted. looking forward to see those new guys in there. :) for some reason gmail is hanging like a mofo, so i’ll keep this short.

Tue, Dec 13, 2011 at 4:33 PM
i think it would work similar to the metal sliding door hatch thongy that you have inthere now.

i will get you the file when i get home, clean it up too.

ps thanks! glad tou are digging it. i kinda felt like i touched on te solution with this iteration so it was a lot more fun to work on as well. :)

Sent from my iPhone

Tue, Dec 13, 2011 at 6:46 PM
ok, she’s in the dbox now, all organized and whatnot. let me know if something doesn’t make sense.

just a headsup on these, too. i don’t consider them 100% final, like i might change some of the details like type size, tweak the colors or make the win screen more celebratory feeling, but in general i think the structure is sound.

Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 4:15 PM
one thing. you’ve got 1/25 as the release date and usually it’s a good idea to set releases for thursday (mignight + 1m) since that’s when apple rolls out its weekly change to the features. so technically 1/26 might be good? i dunno if [apple] is just assuming you are setting up for a thursday feature or what-have-you.

wednesday might be a good strategy as well, to give some time to get the buzz-machine rolling. just a headsup in case you weren’t aware. :)

Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 4:20 PM
also, sound/music. if you need some recommendations, i have some that i could throw your way.

Fri, Dec 16, 2011 at 1:32 AM
hmm, i’m still getting the crash, though i do see the sexy new splash screen. i threw in a new icon-72.png in the dbox with the updated colors and whatnot. it’s not final, needs tuning but it’s a thing… :)

Fri, Dec 16, 2011 at 3:02 AM
yea i hear you on the icon i am gonna give it an honest go soon. i dunno, i deleted the profiles, there were a handful, and i get the same result. on iPad. :/

Sat, Dec 17, 2011 at 2:35 PM
hmmm, still having trouble with the latest build. i tried deleting my profiles, for some reason there were like 5 this time… and reinstall fresh, but still the same problem… :(

Sent from my iPhone

Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 1:22 AM
- New Multiplier Bar
-> really good idea.

- New Dictionary
-> didn’t fully test. got to aardvark and stopped.

- New Easy Mode
-> easy mode? is that why there were three-long rows and other three-pieces?

- New Tutorial
-> cool. personally, i hate tutorials. but i understand that they can
be a necessary evil at times. i think it’s a bit excessive, but i’m
not so sure you should listen to me there. i would probably throw the
person in a game and hope they poke at it and do some light context
stuff they could turn off with a dialog box. maybe we could offer
people the option to skip the tutorial? i know that can be a bad idea
sometimes as well. regardless, as far as stop-n-tell-em tutorials go,
it’s a thorough one that makes good use of the actual game to
visualize the rules. i don’t think we’ll have many players who won’t
get it after playing through the tutorial. maybe they won’t pick up on
the nuances of the punishment for 3 letter words though (i know i
didn’t), but that’s probably because i skipped through all the text as
fast as possible. :( that’s just me. take me as i am.

i did see the “short word” thing come up, but i didn’t necessarily
count it as a negative. maybe that’s because i know short words can be
the lifeblood of my multiplier? i’m definitely not a fresh kleenex
here. also, i noticed the chime is a bit different, what if it were
even more… flacid. not necessarily a tuba “ruh-roh” or anything but
something less celebratory than what’s currently in there.

- New punishment for 3 letter words
again, is the punishment that it’s just the text displaying? or is
there a real gameplay effect going on now? is the three letter thing
becoming all people do and so you’re trying to taper that off now? i
heard you tweet about how it’s disrupting the core mechanic or pushing
one kind of strategy (that is imba?) but i’m not a puzzlejuice
grandmaster… yet.

in general:
i love the new thumb-under display. super rad. i can design something
sexy for that. and the multiplier timer is super awesome great fun
times 1000. as i was playing i was thinking “this pup is really coming
together”. so fuck yea!

ps. i know it’s not set in stone but i’m gonna strongly urge we shoot
for a thursday release. thought it might not be our only shot at
getting featured, i think it gives us the best chance, from everything
i’ve heard and gone through with apple and other devs that have as
well. if we release 12:01AM Thursdays, then we get launch buzz (we
could probably get touch and a few others to boost us on launch so
that when the afternoon rolls around our sales are looking decent to
them, since launch tends to be the highest day of sales).

Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 11:21 PM
yea, i noticed the black gems initially, but i didn’t know why. i
still didn’t until you just told me. so i guess that’s the disconnect
right there. i thought that maybe the black gems were powerups that i
didn’t make icons for maybe or something. i have a unique perspective
since i’ve been developing and so on, but i’m not sure a fresh player
would have noticed that.

i’m all for just doing it in euro, i found it to be pretty damn hard.

Fri, Dec 23, 2011 at 1:55 AM
alright, got a few things done

icon-72 in dbox in new, better proportioned, more pixel-perfect (deleted old 512 version)
new folder in /screentests called tutorials with a bunch of tutorial images
new 60px[...].ai file is updated with corresponding tutorial screens
also, threw those same screens in the .psd (now called [...]PostGreg.psd just cause that’s how i tested it initially
let me know what you think of the powerup icons (and the powersup being black gems instead of gray). i think that’s about it. #20 tutorial probably bucks tradition most because i had to use a white bg to let the dark gems stand out, but we could do something with the gray gems (untouched) and use the white/rounded corner arrow convention for that as well. as it stands it’s just kinda acting like you’ve touched it.

at some point in teh near future, i want to make a pass at the fx and secondary stuff like “short word” and “LEVEL UP” and so on. if you have a list of that stuff, and images to go with would be even better, even if it was just the raw asset in an image in a folder, i would recognize where it was supposed to go in the game and could swap something in.

Wed, Dec 28, 2011 at 2:45 AM
here’s a few quick FX typography things (levelup, multi, shortword) not much different but just polished up. i’m all hands on deck for getting things done by the 7th.

i had a handful of people play it over the holidays, the iPad version definitely stuck with everyone who touched it (with me being silent) so that’s very good i think, but the iPhone version didn’t as much I don’t think. what are your thoughts on making it a bit easier, or offering up a third mode? like no black blocks and three-letter words busting up blocks around it. i found that a lot of people that played it enjoyed their first playthrough a lot more if they could bust up some blocks fairly easily. bombs were good for that when they got them, but in general, clearing the board gives that sense of control to the player, like cleaning up the cutting board for the next piece of meat to cut up. if players got to that point they were like “whoa, i want to play that more, please!” but if they didn’t, then it was sort of a “ah, cool (being nice)” and passed it over for the tv remote.

also, i did fiddle with the colors (yellow) and i will continue to. i understand your point about the white/yellow clash, it’s valid. also, i’ll try and get something together tomorrow night for the inert block.

hope your guatemalan respite was as badass as i’m imagining. :)

Thu, Dec 29, 2011 at 1:29 AM
here’s the multi bar, a couple inert block ideas, a group burst and a color shift. i know it’s not the r/g/b but i just couldn’t get that to work, played around with a ton of different options but i think this new yellow and new colors in general are bolder and shouldn’t contrast weirdly with the light colored letter blocks.

Thu, Dec 29, 2011 at 9:11 PM
awesome! i would have done the same exact thing. in the end it’s more productive to completely shut off from everything and come back fighting twice as hard anyway.

particles: yea they could be white/gray for the letter juice. basically, they just get colored based on the color of the block. i think it’s a good default, then if we have time i might propose something more specific for the letters.

colors: alright, i understand, attached a guy. just keep in mind though, the venn diagram of Colors That Look Good Together that overlap: saturated colors, fruity/tasty candy hues, three hues that are different enough to be quickly separated at a glance, and three colors that don’t vibrate when set next to each other, are very very slim. i know the green in this attached ss is gonna feel faded, but if i sap a bit of blue out of it and move it closer to 0x00FF00 then my art brain pukes a little. i’m keeping everything you are saying in mind but i just want to make sure the end result has harmony and meets my criteria as well. i think this yellow has enough saturation to feel edible, but also differentiate itself from the white of the letter blocks.

modes: sounds good, i understand the balancing act for the difficulties. it’s not a simple dance. i don’t think you should feel like you’ve been defeated, a pop-up is perfectly natural with a game of this pace, maybe even welcomed.

play sessions: now that you say that, it might have been that the difference was mostly due to iPad being co-op and iPhone being solo. perhaps it was mostly the co-op, nonetheless, certainly not a scientific test… regardless, i still think that co-op or not, it was the clearing of a line with a bomb or some large word that gave players the most satisfaction for continuing to play, once they did that, it felt like the hook was set much deeper than it was before.

Thu, Dec 29, 2011 at 10:44 PM
cool! yea all your concerns/metrics were perfectly valid, no worries. also, i’m keen to hit the ground running on whatever you’ve got for me to do. i’ve got that FX list that i’ll knock out tonight hopefully. anything else, even minor stuff, let me know. the 7th will be here soon and i’d love to wrap it up by then, it’d feel awesome. i haven’t released a game since solipskier so… blue balls.

Fri, Dec 30, 2011 at 3:04 PM
hmm, well the text seems to be a bit larger than what i have in the mockup. i’m not sure how to normalize the scale here. the details are really important. this is sort of mockup v. mockup and it’s clear to me that the black weight fills out the blocks much better and is consistent with the chunky feel of everything.

Fri, Dec 30, 2011 at 5:01 PM
do i just need to give you an updated .ai?

any of these strike your fancy?

Fri, Dec 30, 2011 at 6:06 PM
yea, i’d want it to be a sweeping change. ok the .ai has been updated. get at dem colors! :)

interstate is pretty cool looking, pretty similar to DIN but probably a bit wider on the whole since it’s a little less condensed. i’m pretty firmly against any malformation of the letters, so yea, you were right about my bleeding brain. :P

Fri, Dec 30, 2011 at 7:41 PM
yea it concerns me too, i just went in and looked at a few menus with it and they’d need to be tweaked at the very least, but really should be redesigned, at least to some extent with Interstate in there… sooo maybe just DIN?

Fri, Dec 30, 2011 at 8:46 PM
if we used something wildly different, like lubalin or something like that then yea i could see that. but interstate and DIN are super close, they are both fairly bold sans-serif faces and the difference doesn’t look intentional enough. i think DIN is really legible/readable, just as much as most other sans-serif fonts. i can read it at like 25% size no problem and the face itself is really clear and concise. i don’t want design-by-committee working against us, these details are important and they all feed into the game looking professional. when Apple takes a look at it they will notice those details all at once and get the feeling that this looks like a solidly produced game (and is) and will hopefully promote it.

honestly, i think lubalin looks pretty cool, or governor has a neat personality to it that would be a bit lighter/happier. but those fonts are more for display and they don’t work on the blocks as well readability/legibility wise, i picked DIN for its clarity and tight forms so it’d be as big as possible on the block since we need to give it room to breathe within the block.

buuuut, i do like the look of interstate on the blocks, and the numbers looks nice, but in the menus it’s a whole different story. since the text is more conventionally displayed in there and i designed the menus text-first. here’s interstate on the blocks with a specialized numbers font for the HUD stats and the pause menu comparison between DIN and interstate. it’s clear that DIN is more economical spatially and allows for a larger typesize in smaller spaces. it’s not crazy different, but it definitely feels off.

Fri, Dec 30, 2011 at 9:20 PM
no worries :) fwiw, if you want to go with DIN bold for the letter blocks and DIN black for everything else, that’s fine. probably our best option at this point.

Sat, Dec 31, 2011 at 9:11 PM
cool, i took that into account, here’s what i got. also changed up the colors to reflect the new changes. updated the AI too, with this new game over screen. i can go through the rest of the menu stuff and switch over the colors as well, if that’s helpful. let me know, it’s not a huge amount of work but it is sort of monotonous.

Sat, Dec 31, 2011 at 10:23 PM
yea centered, must have nudged it left a bit

Mon, Jan 2, 2012 at 11:23 PM
ok let me know what you think of these, i threw them in and updated the ai as well :)

Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 12:21 PM
i was planning on animating them. would a sprite sheet suffice?

is the freeze effect itself ok? i remember i mocked it up like that awhile ago but have forgotten what we decided.

re: slammer. totally agree. was pretty wiped and threw that in while crashing. i’ll go back in and cook up something much better (same with the tornado, not too happy with that one).

sweet! ok, also. a website? i figure i should make one, yea? just something simple and attractive with a spot for a demo video, big link button to app store, some screenshots, a short description, price and perhaps spots for reviews once they roll in. maybe we could shop for some of those while we’re waiting for the game to be approved. if you have a domain purchased already, maybe you could throw me the ftp details eventually, meanwhile I throw together a single-page mockup and we finalize it there then i build it out on your space. let me know. since it seems like i’m on piecemeal duty, i could get the whole site done, even before the 7th and we can chug coronas on the beach.

Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 3:02 PM
ok sweet. the drill is… well i’m pretty fucking happy with it! here’s the animation test in a swf. :)

here’s a shot of maybe doing the multiplier bar in blue so it stands out more against the black. i was looking at the colors of the text of the hud and i thought “this is kinda drab”, since they were informed from the secondary shades on the blocks. so i used the colors from the powerups and recolored the numbers on the hud and i think it pops a lot more, plus it sort of makes the powerups tied to the score or the “good stuff”.

i’ma go see about a website… http://poc.ramp.com/thumbnails/cached_media/0005/0005535/0005535776/images/thumb.jpg

Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 3:37 PM
sweet! yea it’s in the AI, on the top few layers (powerups and i modified New Colors layer as well) let me know if you need stuff cleaned up, it’s not as orderly as normal since i’m just kinda working directly in that AI nowadays.

Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 4:35 PM
wow, looks awesome! man, just about every menu is in there. !!! you’ve been busy. i’ma keep on with the wwebsite, let me know if you want an audit or something, i’m full-on yours until the 7th, so use me and abuse me.

Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 5:14 PM
yea, i’ll do an audit here.

here’s the site design, i think it’s pretty solid. i’m pretty sure vimeo can handle custom dimensions on a video like this, not sure what you were planning but if it would be a quick (look and tap on the phone) demo, that would work pretty well i think. still needs a spot for quotes if you want them, but that’ll just go below just like the screenshot section with another buy button. just need to extend the canvas there.

Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 7:37 PM
ok, here’s the longer version, a little more updated on the bottom and yea, think it looks pretty good. :)

and here’s the audit, in text form with hexes and whatever else you need. try to do it chronological, starting with the tutorials. also, not gonna pull any punches so i’ll try to prioritize each screen with what’s maybe the lowest hanging fruit at the top of the list and so on…

actually, i just put everything in a txt doc. colors though i’m gonna reserve for this email. it seems that the tutorial is pretty good as far as highlighted words and various line stuffs.

green = C0E673
cyan = 73D3E6
magenta = FF3389
violet = B32491
faded yellow = FFFFB3

that is pretty much what makes up all the colors for the powerups and that’s what we’ll use for the HUD/Menus and so on. using the block colors just comes out muddy against the bright white text.

most of the txt file deals with specific positioning and other stuff. i figure it’s easier to just kind of talk generally about color changes than it is to specifically point out each one piece by piece.

Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 12:56 AM
haha! nice, . fake reviews are the best reviews. :)
if the squish is easy enough then let’s do that for now if you want to try it out. what i was thinking was something like what i’ve attached (just unpressed/pressed states).

I hear you on the video, here’s the page with the video bigger. at 100% it’s pretty commanding and everything is still above the fold, at least all the important parts (video, title, description and buy-it-button). put a bg behind the text, not exactly “button” but they do stand out a lot more as links. if you’re still worried, i can up the size by 100% and then i think they will be unmistakeable, but they are kind of footer material so i try to make them more texture then “hey look over here”.

cool! glad the audit is useful. :) things are really really shaping up. man. so pumped! :)

Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 1:57 AM
not sure if you got my last email, since we just transitioned to the 3rd email thread. let me know if you didn’t see it (with the updated site and button example).

update: looks like you did.

feels good. i’m riding the wave! yeehaw! here’s a mixed powerup snippet to show off active/selected/inactive. it’s in the AI in a layer (now visible). i can make a couple new layers to round out the inactive for all powersup (as well as selected, if needed).

Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 1:52 PM
whoa! awesome!!! :) :)

Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 3:39 PM
so i’m looking at purchasing DIN licenses for the site (web fonts) and for us and so on. I want to make sure i buy the right types/licenses for us.

Unity can read .otf font formats, yea? our other option (cheaper) is .ttf, though TrueType is a little less widely supported, it’s still good.

we can save some money if we go with the “standard” version over the “pro”. Pro gives us every language on earth pretty much, while Standard gives us all the western languages. it leaves out a lot of eastern/specialized alphabets. if you were planning to localize a ton of countries eventually, it’d be smart to go with the Pro.

so i’m thinking i get DIN OT Black, DIN OT Bold and DIN Web Black (500,000 views/month license) and that should cover us as far as type on anything we wanna do. it’s not a bad bottom line, all of that is $185 and i’ll go ahead and cover that.

let me know what you think about pro/standard and the file formats and i’ll check out and finish up the site. meantime, i’m going to be building the site, use a dummy sans and just swap in DIN when I buy the webfont.

Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 4:32 PM
ok, cool. welp, i didn’t check out .ttf before but i guess they pack fonts up and it ends up being more expensive and annoying: https://www.fontfont.com/fonts/din/packages#32864 if you go to that site, pick Office->Pro->5 licenses. To get both bold and black with those options it’s like $450. kinda bullshit, wish we could just pick individual fonts like we can with .otf. we could get the .otf and convert it to .ttf but that sidesteps the license and makes the whole thing pointless anyway…

Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 6:22 PM
ok cool, i uploaded all of the licensing info and font files to dropbox. i’d keep a copy somewhere puzzlejuicey for our records. :) the webfont took some coaxing but it’s working now. onward!

after this i think i’ll focus on the icon, some promo banner stuff in case apple requests that (they usually give crazy short notice)… let me know if there’s other stuff you’re thinking i should tackle.

Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 7:33 PM
alright, here’s da site: http://aeiowu.com/puzzlejuice/ it needs the splash image for the video, but i figure i’ll do that when i put the video in proper. also, the screenshots are still placeholder.

Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 12:27 AM
I think flat is good, the torn 45 triangley thing would look cool, but that doesn’t appear anywhere else in the game so i think flat is just fine. it should move fairly quickly anyway so it probably won’t be that visible.

i could see how the orange would be a problem. i changed the hover color and added some letterspacing to the review text. it’s not my favorite but options are limited with this kind of typography.

this promo banner might be too “in your face”, and the puzzlejuice logo is less dominant than the art itself. also i put in a 512 and new 72px size icon in the dbox. i’m also working on the screenshots, sort of a border system that is kind of popular today where we put in some helper text on the screenshots to help with variation a bit more and make them more attractive.

i’m kind of working against my own deadline of trying to be completely wrapped by the 7th/8th so that I can finish up ridic fishing with the time left in january before i meet up with mike last week of january to do some hardcore crunching on our game and hopefully release that in february. so that’s why i’m doing a lot of this stuff now so i can kind of psychologically release from pj and refocus back down the line once our deadline hits. it’ll feel that much better anyway… :)

Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 12:48 AM
haha awesome!

i added some dots just now to make it more explodey, i think it pops better, feels more like a puzzlejuice level deconstructed.

Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 2:23 AM
ok cool, i toned down the dots.

1)definitely! this is something i’ve noticed and wanted. i don’t think a popup every 5 letters is bad. maybe you could do a smaller just-the-word popup with “+1 Objective” with each one you did. I definitely found myself not understanding if i was doing the right thing to complete the objective, it’s probably a large part of the reason that i never unlocked more than three powerups in the game on any play session i had. another idea would be a dropdown notification, towards the top of the screen. this could show up for longer than a second or something and then curl back up. bottom of the screen works too. there’s room as long as it doesn’t stay for too long. i mocked it up just now, also had an idea where a much larger banner sits behind the blocks, since it’s non critical, that way it could stick around for awhile. also, could put it up further so if the player had a bunch of blocks that were obstructing the banner, it wouldn’t really matter since they are more worried about not losing at that point…

2) is there a special sound effect for the chain bonus? i mean, i don’t think doing something like “CHAIN BONUS!” the first time you do something quickly would be bad. it’d be kinda cool. people dig feedback as long as it only shows up for a half second or something. then each one after the first chain can continue with that sound effect? or just some kind of 3X! next it, sort of how i mocked up SHORT WORD. just spitballing…

Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 3:09 PM
cool! yea i think it’s kinda a cool solution, could be the way to go :) i think i screwed up on that last mockup and the banner wasn’t locked into the grid, so just know that wasn’t intentional. i’m still a grid-crazy fool.

could it have a +1, +2 next to it that rises and fades off?

i think i liked it because it darkens up the bg and makes for a little more POP on the colored blocks in the foreground. i’ll keep poking and see if we can’t reach a compromise of some kind.

also, here’s 1st draft of all the icon sizes. i’ll re-pixel the small ones, and i’m not totally sold on the black-depth-bar-thingy on the bottom of the 512 (and the rest). i also switched up the color placement on the P. there’s some vibration on the dark shading of the reddish block and the top part of the green block. it’s probably a good idea to tune the block colors a bit so that doesn’t happen. it’s not just a tiny tweak though i wish it was. i’ll poke at that stuff as a last priority for in-game assets.