Friday, December 2, 2011

Heading to Development Server + Canvas Board + Facebook disclaimer

Vectorial resizable anime-like Go board.
Hey guys. With Gabriel back in the city, our agenda is being renewed and we're running fast towards the Development Server where founders will be able to enjoy our features like playing games, watching replays and testing the sandbox. We'll be sharing some info about dates and details soon.

This time I would like to show you a picture about the actual state of my research in Canvas and the board I've designed inspired in the anime Hikaru No Go. As you can see in the picture, it's fully re-sizable.

It would be useful for me if those who like this kind of details comment down about the board style and what do you like or dislike. Of course it's not even near to be definitive, and we're planning to support many themes for the board, but there will be a default theme and that one must be really beautiful :)

Oh, I nearly forgot. For the relief of all the Go players out there without a Facebook account, let me tell you that I'm one of yours. I hate those sites all covered with blueish panels full of don't-touch-me-because-i-will-ask-you-to-sign-up-into-facebook buttons. So... believe me that integration -if we decide to do so- will be as less intrusive as it can be.

There are a lot of things to do and we are full of enthusiasm, power and will. We can't wait to have the server out there with all of you playing and commenting.

I hope you like the board. Stay online, we're working on some big news!

9 comments:

  1. That sounds like great news! All of it :D

    I love the look of you anime-like Go board and I do look forward to play on it!

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  2. Greatest board I've ever seen. I love the details!

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  3. Looks very nice :)
    Do you know jgoboard (jgoboard.com)? I use it on DGS through greasemonkey and it'd be really great to have it on kaya too.

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  4. Seems like really good news, I'm relly looking forwart to test the first server.

    Your board theme is great. Only one think I'm wondering about: I'm not a master of light effects but if I look at my stones with one source of light, the shadow doesn't become less in the middle of the effect and with another source of light at the other side there is also a shadow on the other side of the stone... Only a little detail which jumped into my eyes ;)

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  5. its a great theme, i love it! And i cant wait either to get to try out the first playable server-version! Great job so far!

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  6. This is a very nice board. I am getting quite tired of the semi-realistic look, because it tends to look cheap, and even more tired of the "put some heavy gradients on it and pretend those stones are round" kind of look. A more stylised approach like this would be very welcome.

    I also would strongly suggest not to focus too much on themes for a very long time, as the default look and feel is more important by an order of magnitude. And if you pull it off well enough, there will be very little demands for themes to begin with. For instance, you might want to add special tweaks or effects to the default appearance, which would be harder to do with various themes.

    Of course it can be hard to say no to themes, because to most people it always looks like a win/win situation, which it isn't. In my experience as a UI developer and UX enthusiast, I have rarely seen an instance where a fully customisable design was able to compete with the quality of a single fixed design.


    @Celebrir: The lightsource on the left could simply be bounced light from the main light source (e.g. bounced off a white wall next to the board), which is not hard enough to cast a shadow of its own. It may be difficult to recreate that exact lighting situation, which makes it look a bit less believable, but IMO it suits the stylised look of the stones quite well.

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  7. c00l l00k! :)

    Danigabi, what do you think about some random-inacurate (a bit) placement of stones? is it possible to do? i think it will be a good additional feature too, kinda realistic and funny

    Ж

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  8. Why not have a more than semi-realistic option? Panda Tetsuki did a fantastic job on the board itself. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iLSeHu9itA

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  9. I forgot to say that I think the black vector stones look great. The white ones are a tad too bright in the center.

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