Staying in touch with old friends requires effort, not necessarily grueling effort, but effort nonetheless. Evidence? Attend a reunion and see the number of people that you genuinely care about but with whom you’ve not shared a single word for years. It doesn’t mean we don’t care and it doesn’t mean we’re lazy, it means we’re all busy getting on with our lives. They don’t call them reunions for nothing!

But there is something that I’ve discovered that’s doing the trick of keeping me surprisingly and happily connected and engaged with friends with whom I’d not otherwise be in close contact with, I’ve game-i-fied them with turn-based asynchronous games.

These games work because they are turn-based and rather than requiring that both players be on line at the same time, each player checks in to make a move when they can allowing busy people to enjoy gameplay at their own pace. Not only are these games keeping me in touch with friends with whom I’ve been out of touch with, but through the gameplay the games are reminding me and in some cases redefining for me, just who these wonderful folks are in the first place.

Game-i-fying our time together through games like ‘Words with Friends’, ‘Draw Me!’, ‘Scrabble’ or ‘Chess with Friends’ has been the secret sauce of our recent friend-reconnection.

The game is the thing!

The game provides a common activity with which to build other communication around. The fact that it’s on an iDevice enables us to play no matter where we are. The surprising thing is that In the spare communication that occurs through game play and in-game chat, we’re actually making a deeper connection’s than we think. Game play reveals the character of the opponent allowing each player to learn what makes the other other tick, a personality is expressed, a sense of humor communicated and a competitive streak revealed. These attributes, all byproducts of the game play, are what connects players socially, in deeper ways than they might have originally imagined.

So in-game communication isn’t about mundane things like our livelihoods and our families, we have long track records of NOT connecting on those subjects! This communication is mostly about the game at hand (the common shared activity that we’re experiencing). But what starts out as a lighter than air connection enables one to begin see a side of their friends that they might not have encountered before. The reason it works when other forms of communication flounder is that there’s no scheduling conflics. “How about Tuesday night?” “The fifth?” “I’m out of town that week.” etc. And there’s no big issues to wade into “how am I going to break the news that I have a family of 5 with his high school girlfriend!” Asynchronous games are played in our own time, when we want to and are able to engage – and allow for communication light enough to embrace and not too heavy to avoid.

With the huge migration from desktops and laptops to mobile devices, asynchronous game play is going to increase. The more mobile we all are the more our game plays happen at odd and impossible to schedule times.
Since connecting people through play is a big pillar of what makes Brandissimo! tick, we’re busy building in asynchronous gameplay into the NFLRUSH Zone. It’s a big pillar of our huge mobile make-over for the site. We’ve always had head-to-head challenges but now we’re adding in asynchronous game play so that players can play on their own time and always have a challenge game whenever they want. The idea that the NFLRUSH Zone plays no matter what!, is exemplified in this initiative. Moving forward we’ll be incorporating it into our game apps as well.

As game developers often tasked with creating games and other exciting user experiences, it’s usually quite challenging to stay on track and more importantly, keep our heads above water.  Fortunately, we’ve been around the block enough times to have picked up a number of useful tools and techniques that have kept us afloat.  While the following concepts and techniques are by no means original concepts nor 100% sure fire successful work techniques for all occasions, they do prove to be guideposts on the path to success (or at least away from utter failure!).

1. Recycling

One of the first concepts I’d like to share is the strategy of Recycling.  (And no, I don’t mean separating your plastics and paper trash for the off-colored trash bins)  Recycling is a more politically correct way of Copying.  When planning out a new project, don’t paint yourself into a corner by trying to reinvent the wheel for every aspect of your project.  When considering what it is you’re making, look around and see if there are any competing product out there and examine them – see what they do well and what they don’t.  If there are any aspects that are done well, emulate those features and incorporate them into your own project.  Good examples of this include Control Schemes, User Interfaces, and even specific features themselves.  (Note – I’m not promoting plagiarism or violating anyone’s copyrights; I’m saying look at what someone else has done, see if what works well makes sense for your game, and  if so make sure you put your own spin on it for your product)

2. Staggered Development

The next concept to consider is Staggered Development.  I’m defining Staggered Development specifically when it comes to developing technology that will be used in your products.  There are countless examples of developers undertaking a crucible to develop their engines or code for a specific project, only to throw it out and start over on their subsequent project.  Staggered Development, by my definition for this entry, is the building and release of smaller or related products / applications that include core components of your primary tech to offset the development costs and R&D hurdles.

A good example of this would be when a developer is building a large new game engine for future game development but spins off smaller games using components being developed.   By creating smaller projects and releasing them for sale, the developer offsets some of the costs of the primary project by potentially bringing in income from the spin-off projects.  Also, R&D time and efforts are mitigated by the learnings garnered from the spin-off projects.  The game developer Rockstar did this, releasing Table Tennis while developing their RAGE game engine which was subsequently used to develop Grand Theft Auto IV, Red Dead Redemption, and Max Payne 3.  Brandissimo is also using this technique, building off of the games created on the NFL Rush Zone web site in developing new HTML 5 games that are pushing the technology to the bleeding-edge limits.

The only major downside to this strategy is that it’s much more difficult to hit a specific or short-term time deadline, as time and effort need to be allocated for the spin-off projects, making the primary project longer in development.

3. Future Planning

The third development concept to consider in smart software development is Future Planning.   This is mostly for development team building and strategy planning.  Obviously technology is perpetually changing and evolving, and sometimes it’s really hard to predict what the next big thing will be or the medium that next big thing will be on.  Fortunately, platform evolution tends to be slower and currently the platform of popularity is the mobile platforms (phones & tablets).  Future Planning is seeing what the current and potentially future trends will be and planning development to be able to succeed in that environment.  A good example of this is in team hiring; hire and build up a development team that has or can easily ramp up their skill sets to accommodate the mediums that you intend to develop for in the next 24-36 months.

Granted, there are easily 50-plus more techniques and smart strategy concepts that can be shared, but alas, time is short and this entry is just the tip of the iceberg of what the talent Brandissimo Inc. utilizes every day in developing and designing products, both internally and for clients.  Feel free to check out some of our latest titles, such as Luna Kettlebottom and the Magic Cauldron Society now available on iTunes, or dashing over to the  NFLRUSH Zone and seeing some of the great technology in action.

There are two problems with kids’ book apps today: one on the consumer end and one on the business end.

From a consumer perspective most do not take advantage of the medium.  The vast majority of kids’ book apps are simply the physical book slapped into the digital medium.  Sure these books will probably read to you, and maybe there is some light interactivity like ringing a bell, but for many that’s it.  It’s a huge waste of the medium.

From a business perspective the model for kids’ book apps is limited.  The vast majority draw revenue via pay-per-download and some try to make money via advertising.  That’s about it.

Problems equal opportunities in our minds, so we’re taking on these issues and trying to revolutionize the kids app business.  Our initial foray is the Luna Kettlebottom And The Magic Cauldron Society books series.

The first challenge is to provide a better experience for the kids.  The electronic medium offers so much more possibility than just reading the book!  Luna uses interactivity to engage young readers with the book, allowing kids to participate in the story and help the characters progress through the story.  The reader might, for example, have to choose in which shoe Vlad should hide or whether to cross a chasm via dragon, trebuchet, or Rapunzel’s hair.

What this does is pull the reader into the story by making him or her an active participant.  Active participants become emotionally involved in the story, reading page after page of the book.  Active participants care about the characters in the book, developing deep brand-affinity.  Active participants enjoy the reading experience, making them want the next book in the series.

The second challenge is finding a way to make money from kids’ book apps.  When we began developing Luna last year, our business model was to charge for each download.  We would launch Luna for free in order to drive as much awareness as possible and then charge $2.99 after the first few weeks.  Future volumes of Luna would do the same.

This concerned us because as a small player with a new brand, how were we going to get parents to take a leap of faith and pay us their money up-front?  How do we compete with the Disney’s of the world on that front?  The pay-per—download model seemed like a huge hill to climb and advertising seemed like a long walk for a short drink of water.  What to do?

Thankfully a funny thing happened on the way to the App Store: the model for game apps evolved to the point where, at least currently, the freemium model has begun to dominate.  In the freemium model the basic app is free but players can make In-App Purchases for goodies that enhance their experience.  We began to wonder how we could make this model work for kids i-books.

Books, you see, are different from video games.  The book reader has a different experience than the game player, who is often managing resources ranging from health to time.  It can be very enticing to spend a little money to get more of those things.  Readers, however, are traveling through a story.  And even though Luna offers great interactivity — gameplay, if you will — that interactivity does not involve the type of gameplay mechanics which are often required to make In-App Purchases successful.

Some kids’ book apps use in-app purchases to allow kids to purchase another story, but that’s really pay-per-download disguised as in-app-purchase.  We decided that we would offer more than that.  We loved the idea that reading Luna would always be free; We want your kids to read!  However at the end of each book we will present kids and parents with the opportunity to buy a fun, age-appropriate Luna game for $.99.  Did your child like the (free) book?  For $.99 they can get a great game with the same characters and continue their Luna experience.

Will these innovations revolutionize the kids’ app business?  Vlad And The Beanstalk, the first book in the Luna Kettlebottom And The Magic Cauldron Society series, launched in May 2012 and reviews and customer feedback have been fantastic.  Books two and three are in production now and the interactivity and engagement are only getting better.

On the business front the next book, Luna Red Riding Hood, will launch in late June 2012 and include the in-app purchase for the game.  Will we revolutionize the kids’ book app business model?  It’s a lofty goal and it inspires us every day.  We’ll either succeed and be happy or fail and learn a lot in the process.  Either way, we can’t lose.  And if kids are reading more, then we’ve all won.

There’s never been a story that couldn’t be made better with some play added to it.

Don’t believe me? Heck, we can go back to the first great work of literature ever written to prove my point. So grab your leather man-skirt and battleaxe – because we’re off to the 8^th century where sobriety is a crime, and where we can snuggle up to a smelly mead-sopped warrior who hasn’t bathed once in his life, retelling Beowulf. As you are dodging the meat and mead flying out of the storyteller’s toothless mouth, aren’t you thinking: wouldn’t this be better on an iPad? Right you are! On an iPad you could nail Grendel’s arm to the great hall door yourself, and with a swipe you could lop off Grendel’s mom’s head! You’d be so into the story, you wouldn’t even mind the stench –in fact it kind of adds to the story.

So, back here in the present day, a good story still brings a kid into the world the author has created, but now, play connects them to it in a way never before possible.

When well done it’s a thing of beauty.

When poorly done it’s like adding spinners to a Carrera GT.

So how do you effectively bring play into an ebook story with out destroying the story?

1. Play should always be used to help the user/reader participate in the story. Play can be discovery, imagination, and creation, but in any case, it should lead the reader deeper into the storytelling.
2. Play should always lead the reader in the direction you want the reader to go. Kids get sidetracked too easily; so don’t risk losing the reader with a gratuitous activity.
3. Play should be a choice. Most of the time kids like to play, but not always. The expectation is this is a book, not a game. When you start forcing kids to play, you box them into an experience they may not want at that moment.
4. Use play to get the reader involved in an emotional way. For example; when the reader participates in helping a character get out of a dangerous situation they become more emotionally vested in the story.
5. Play is particularly good for non-readers or early readers, because play is their language. Play can help explain a situation or a mood that would be difficult for them to grasp otherwise.

Play, when well done, is something kids like to repeat. Play can definitely be the thing that encourages re-engagement with a book.

Play makes storytelling better; we think we’ve settled that. Now we’re looking forward to the day Apple releases iSmell for the iPad, so we can develop Beowulf for the iPad with some real 8^th century stink.

I am exhausted!

Why am I exhausted?  Because as it turns out, the creative process is much harder to define than it sounds. I’ve produced roughly 120 games and around 300 episodes of TV (not to mention two children), so I jumped at the opportunity to blog about being creative.  “No sweat, I’ll whip this right out” is what I thought… but as I sit down to explain how awesomely adept our studio is at the creative process, everything else seems more important.  As a creative executive at a games studio, coming up with engaging content is one of my super powers… or at the very least, it’s something that I’ve been lucky enough to do professionally for 14 plus years.  As I sit down to divulge the secrets of my creative process, the first thing I can think of is… I haven’t checked Words with Friends in a few hours.  I wonder if Elsbells has played her turn yet.

Reset!  Rule number 1 – Staying focused in the creative process is very important.  Creative work can be seriously taxing!  I mean –  it’s not hard work like working on a road crew in Death Valley or nuclear fusion, but the creative process requires a tremendous amount of time, focus, and… cookies.

I’ve ridden the unicycle of creativity, balanced the plates of writer’s block and juggled the flaming chainsaws of delivery deadlines many times.  Sometimes creativity comes very easily.  The sequel to Wedgie Toss http://www.urbaniacs.com/games/wedgietoss was conceived in about 5 minutes… and thus Wedgie Toss 2:  Back in the Crack was born.  http://www.urbaniacs.com/games/wedgietoss2    Sometimes it’s not that easy.  We work long hard hours, sweating over minute and what may seem like silly details until it feels right.  The character designs for Kuna Kettlebottom http://lunakettlebottom.com/ went through dozens of iterations.  In fact, we had 11 different designs before they became monsters!  Ultimately, all our work paid off.  In our focus test, kids love the characters. We don’t just sit around in fancy Aeron chairs coming up with awesome ideas that we toss into a Magic Cauldron, stir, and pull out a finished product.  No that’s not the way it works.  We don’t even have a real cauldron, or Aeron chairs!  We do a lot of typing and drawing, then we argue, scratch our heads, have some cookies, fight for what we believe in, go get coffee, accept input from others, and iterate until we have exactly what we need.

Where does it all start?  Inevitably you have to start with the most intimidating, scary, daunting element on this or any other planet.  No, I’m not talking about another Kardashian series, I’m talking about a blank piece of paper… or in most cases, a blank screen.  The blank screen, with all its menacing flickering, must be tamed, tamed like one of those warrior women who run with tigers… and spears!

It’s easy to lose your focus and get distracted in the creative process.  It’s OK to allow a little time for inspiration, but lets not kid ourselves.  Googling “Warrior Women” to try and find just the right image to help someone understand your vision, when you’re supposed to be writing a blog about being creative is purely a waste of time… I know this from experience.  Revert back to rule number 1 – stay focused.  (By the way “Elsbells,” if that is even your real name…  if you are reading this, it’s your turn!)

Rule number 2 – Dig in!  The most helpful tip I ever received on getting started is this: jump in and get started.  You may wind up throwing everything out, but that’s OK.  Bad ideas can quickly lead you to good ideas.  Stay at it and eventually you get rid of the lame and find your way to the good stuff.  Sometimes I create presentations with the full knowledge that my first, second, and eleventh pass may not be the one that is right, but with each draft I get closer and closer to realizing the concept, story, design, game… or even blog post.

Having ideas isn’t the same as being creative.  Most people have ideas.  Ideas are easy! (Although good ideas are a little harder to come by.) It’s the people who spend their time working and refining their ideas into detailed games or game concepts, scripts, artwork, presentations, products, etc. that are the real, hard-working, and generally successful creative people.  Nothing puts a twist in my britches worse than when someone says “I’m really creative, I just need someone else to write down and organize my ideas.” To me, that’s pure laziness… and now I need to stand up and adjust myself and wonder why I’m even wearing britches.  While I’m standing, I notice that my plant needs to be watered.  Maybe I’ll water it and while I’m up I can go get a coo—STOP!  Stay focused.  Don’t allow yourself to get distracted… remember rule number 1.

A tip that I find useful is “say the idea out loud.”  Sometimes just hearing an idea pitched out loud can help you decide if it’s a good idea or a bad one.  Try this out at home: “How about a game where you’re a bird, and some pigs have stolen your eggs, so you need to dive bomb the pigs in these structures and destroy them all!”  (then try an evil laugh afterwards.)  It sounds crazy, but crazy in a good way… it just might work.  Now try this one “You’re a lump of cheese and you have to sit in the back of the fridge until you grow hair.”  (no evil laugh)  See!  That one, when you say it out loud, is missing something… and it’s not just the evil laugh.  But maybe with a little work, a cheese lump game could grow and flourish into something AWESOME!  (or maybe not.)  All ideas are worth exploring.  I’ve found it extremely useful to dig in and explore any idea, even if it’s an idea that I didn’t like or don’t think works.  Approaching an idea from different angles helps it take shape…especially when you say it out loud first.

If you are just scrolling down to the bottom looking for a recap, here it is:  Being creative is hard work and it requires thick skin, maybe even some spears, and a warrior woman in a bikini… and cookies!   Once you accept the challenge to be creative or the blog assignment to be creative, don’t make excuses.  Throw some words and pictures at that evil blank page and see what sticks.  Warrior women, cookies, and Words with Friends will all be there when you are done.

Brandissimo! is in the middle of producing a massively-multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) in HTML5, scheduled to launch this fall. This universe will have HTML5 games, a dynamic scoring system and virtual economy, chat, avatars, and just about everything else you can imagine. Our goal is to build a world that is accessible on desktops, tablets, and smartphones. We could not be more excited about it.

How does a team even begin to build such a thing? We didn’t wake up one day and suddenly become HTML5 game experts. While HTML5 at its core is simply markup language — just like HTML — creating HTML5 games and entertainment experiences is much more complicated than that. So we spoke to a lot of people and we read a lot of material and now we know just enough to be dangerous.

Here are five great resources that have helped us:

1. The Reality of HTML5 Game Development

   The best place to start is Rich Davey’s unparalleled treatise on HTML5, The Reality of HTML5 Game Development and Making Money from It. You can think of Davey’s essay as a sort of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy … of HTML5. (He really should put “Don’t Panic!” in large red letters at the beginning.) Rich explains everything — and I mean everything — you need to know about the current state of HTML5 game development. And he does so in plain English, so even your CEO will be able to understand. (That’s a huge bonus to us geeks.)

2. Slynk’s Revenge

   The article Beginning HTML5 Game Development – and its several sequels — are a good starting point for someone just trying to learn the basics. Slynk covers most of the basics, like using the <canvas> tag, adding sound, rudimentary drawing techniques, and how to bind simple events to functions for input handling. His clearly-written blog posts are very easy to follow and should be required reading before you start building the next great web app.

3. Speedy Sprites

   Bruce Rogers and Cory Ondrejka wrote HTML5 Games 0.1: Speedy Sprites, and in-depth analysis of the results of their HTML5 game benchmarking tool –JSGameBench – and the data they uncovered when comparing the various methods for high performance sprite-rendering in browsers.

4. SixRevisions

   Developer Alex Kessinger has written a fantastic step-by-step tutorial on How to Make an HTML5 iPhone App. Alex discusses all the key elements of creating an HTML5 game, including the application cache, notes about differences in available screen real estate in development mode, setting Apache headers, offline caching, and a slew of other important details you will encounter when building your first HTML5 game.

5. HTML5 Rocks

   The “gaming” section at HTML5 Rocks contains dozens of tutorials, articles, and case studies related specifically to building HTML5-based games. Some of the recent entries they’ve posted are:

   • Getting Started with Web Audio API
   • Improving HTML5 Canvas Performance
   • and Simple Asset Management for HTML5 Games

These five resources have been instrumental to us as we produce HTML5 games, and we frequently reference them still. Like any emerging technology, many of the specific details are going to evolve as more and more developers get involved. But the core concepts presented in these articles should remain fairly stable and useful for anyone looking to get started. If you have any favorites that you’d recommend, please drop us a note!

If you’ve ever been in a creative brainstorming meeting, invariably someone (hoping to inspire participation from the silent group of creative people) declares ‘there are no bad ideas.’ And you think: licking a frozen pole, alcoholic energy drinks, mullets. These are bad ideas. There are a lot of bad ideas out there and you know it. But, no one ever set out to create a bad idea.

So how can a creative company tell a good idea from a bad one?

It is tricky sometimes, and so if you’re not confident by just looking at what was created it’ll help to look at how it was created.

Good ideas grow on a good foundation. To give you an idea of what I mean, here’s the sort of foundation we’ve built many a good idea on:

When I look around our office, do I see creative people that follow the rules? Execute assignments to the letter? Universally accept and respect management’s ideas and direction? No way! Like many managers it makes me want to cry. But unlike most managers, mine will be tears of joy.

Here’s why. We hired these people because they good at what they do, so let them do that. Let them go a little. Let them enjoy the process and the work personally. So if that means letting them break a few rules, ok. Maybe you’ll even want to encourage your team to feel a little rebellious once in a while, to drive right past those guidelines you laid out. Because it’s those little side trips that often bring back really nice souvenirs … like good ideas.

Looking around the office again, did we hire all the best experts in the field? I’d have to say no. Again the tears of joy flow. We hire experts, but not necessarily in the field. We believe good ideas come from recombining existing ideas and people who see something differently—and the so-called experts sometimes are in a rut. If you want to create something people haven’t seen before, cross-pollinating with staff is a good idea.

Are you set on doing something completely new, without precedent and not contingent on any other work, people or idea? Yikes, I’m not sure I can help you. That’s risky business. But if you are doing something new with old ideas, that’s a good foundation to build on. In fact, that’s where the really great ideas come from.

And of course you need to know your audience better than they know themselves. It’s the only way you’ll be confident you’re delivering something meaningful to them. Think like your audience and if you are excited by it, given all you know about your audience will they be excited by it.

Do you share ideas with friends in the industry? Not the NDA breaking kind of chit-chat but a good healthy (and legal) exchange of ideas. That’ll you keep abreast of trends and shifts in the industry and may keep you from falling head of heels for your (bad) ideas.

A couple of cautions:

Don’t beat the idea to death. Don’t talk it into bland oblivion.

Avoid the knowing-doing bog of doom. At some point you know you have a good idea if you’ve done the above, so go do it. No more chit-chat: execute it, get ‘er done.

If you build a good foundation on which good ideas are encouraged and allowed to flourish, you’ll never have to wonder is ‘this a good idea?’–you’ll know it is.

There is a great classic SNL skit, starring Gilda Radner, Dan Akroyd and Chevy Chase, called “Shimmer.”  It’s a floor wax AND a dessert topping: http://www.hulu.com/watch/61320/saturday-night-live-shimmer-floor-wax

In addition to simply being funny, “Shimmer” illustrates that the same thing can have different meanings to different people … and so can your brand.

Thus when you are distributing your brand across different media, keep in mind that it will mean different things to different people.  As such, your brand can be presented in a distinct manner, across each medium, in a way that is optimized for each medium.  The key is that your core brand essence remains consistent in each instance.

Brandissimo! built the NFLRUSH Zone brand, for the National Football League, from scratch.   We started off as an online virtual game world.  Here we utilized the NFL brand attributes of competition and teamwork to foster an environment where kids play video games, competing against one another and representing their team just as NFL players do.  That’s our floor wax.

NFLRUSH Zone has been a great success—over 150 million gameplays in four+ years—and is expanding into other media.  Season one of an animated NFLRUSH Zone television show—Guardians Of The Core—aired on NickToons last year. Guardians Of The Core follows a kid named Ish on an adventure where he battles the evil robotic Blitz Botz and helps return each NFL team’s shard—its power source—to the team’s home stadium.

Guardians Of The Core is about overcoming fear, fighting the good fight and being a hero—slightly different than the competition and teamwork attributes of the NFLRUSH Zone online virtual game world.  That’s our dessert topping.

Same brand, different medium, different brand attributes, same core brand essence.  What we did was tailor—optimize—the brand to each medium and each audience but we kept the core brand essence consistent across each.  Visually that was easy—the NFL and its teams have very distinctive marks.  Emotionally, that essence is team affinity.  Online, team affinity manifests by kids playing for their teams and wearing team gear.  On TV, team affinity is represented by celebrating team Rusherz (fictional guardians) and team stadiums.  It works and it works well.

Got more media?  Then we’ll have more—different—dessert toppings!  We brought NFLRUSH to the world of apps, producing the NFLRUSH Pick ‘Em app for iOS and Android.  Here fans are engaging in the real world NFL, guessing which NFL teams will win each week during the season.  Pick ‘Em utilizes the NFL brand attribute of competition—there’s a leader board, leagues and prizes—but in a different manner than in the NFLRUSH Zone virtual world and different than Guardians Of The Core.  Meanwhile, the app gives kids the chance to pick their own team, highlighting the brand essence of team affinity.

Same brand, different media, slightly different brand messages tailored to the medium, consistent brand essence across the board.  It’s a floor wax…AND a dessert topping.

I’m not saying that brand consistency should be abandoned…absolutely not!  But flexibility is sometimes required when you’re expanding your brand experience to different audiences in different media. You’ll wind up growing your brand, building your audience and ultimately increasing the value of your brand equity.  And like Gilda Radner, you too will look at your brand and say “look at that shine!”

Companies or people who develop technology products generally fall into three categories in terms of adoption of new technologies:

Mature Only – These are the folks who will only develop for technologies that have stabilized and been proven to work on multiple platforms exactly as the published standards require.

Emerging – These people take more risk – doing work using technologies and tools that are reasonably understood, deployed and supported – but are not fully mature yet.

Bleeding Edge – These are the renegades – the ones who look at a technology, don’t know exactly what the standard is going to look like or what the adoption rate is going to be – and they develop for it anyway.

That last one is where all the fun kids play.   But why?  Very simply, it’s to get a jump on the competition.  When the App Store for the iPhone was originally announced, nobody knew just how popular it was going to be – but that didn’t stop people from developing for it.  There were no standards yet, no idea of the reach really, and no metrics for how much money could be made.  Fast forward to 2012, and there are over half a million apps out there, and growing.  It was a good idea, and anyone with even a small amount of vision could see that.

Sounds dangerous you say?  Not really – assuming you play by the key rules:

1. Do your homework.  Understand where the pitfalls are, and don’t commit to developing heavily for a part of the standard that isn’t nearly complete.
2.  Talk to people.  Learn about what others have managed to do while staying within the already understood standards.
3. Be creative.  This is the time to figure out how to do something awesome with a technology that people haven’t yet seen.
4. Be smart.  Don’t implement a new technology for the sake of doing it.  Make sure it is solving a fundamental problem.
5. Create value.  It might be a game, or a utility, or a website for productivity or fun – but as long as it is something that people NEED, it will have an audience.

HTML5 is an excellent current example.  The standard isn’t done, the support isn’t there, and different browsers implement it differently.  Building a website or a game in HTML5 is absolutely a difficult task.  Is it impossible?  Definitely not.  There are plenty of examples, and those examples come from people who are looking to be EXPERTS with this technology just as soon as it becomes the standard for websites and applications across the web.  And that has value.  And that’s really the name of the game.  Over here at Brandissimo we’re jumping right in – building a massively multiplayer online game world, entirely in HTML5.  Crazy?  Biting off more than we can chew?  Taking too big a risk?

Do we sound nervous?

When Joey helped Ross make a list of pros and cons about dating Rachel, it was an epically bad decision… but of course we all watched.  We wanted to see the fallout.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0583625/?

From a character saying “I’ll be right back” in Friday the 13^th to Nemo going to touch the big butt, making bad choices makes for great film and TV… but in a game it’s a little more tricky.

As a game designer, you want to encourage players to make the right choice, or at least make the right choice for the game (unfortunately, we have no control over who our players date or the hairstyle choices they make).  When designing casual games—whether it’s iOS, Facebook, or online—our job as game designers is to get our player to make the smart choice that leads to deeper engagement.  Let your character make a bad choice in a TV show and your ratings can soar; do the same in a game and it’s game over.  You gotta suck it up and purchase that power ring if you want to defeat the boss in Infinty Blade.  One medium rewards bad choices while another medium fails through bad choices.  That’s the big challenge with transmedia story-telling.

But all is not lost.  As developers, there are a few tools we can use when solving this unique problem.

Be creative.  Your end goal is user interaction. You want them to click the button, go down the path, fight the monster, nurture the egg.  The key is finding a good motivator that works for your particular story.  In our work with the National Football League, we rely on team affinity as a motivator.  “The Broncos are down by 1 and your team needs you!”  Find the right creative story that makes the user feel like it’s up to them to be the hero.  Turn the simple act of clicking the button into a satisfying experience. For the NFL’s game world, we wanted to encourage head to head social gameplay, so every Tuesday all our PvP games reward twice as much XP as single player games.  It’s really helped increase our PvP games.

What, you don’t have time to call your mother?  We all know that guilt can be a big motivator.  It’s also a key component when creating an emotional connection, and emotional connections are what keep players engaged. Give the user something to feel for. “If you don’t click this button, something bad is going to happen…”  Pressure works.  If your user is inactive, something negative will happen.  “You don’t want your baby zebra to go hungry… do you?” (Zynga’s Dream Zoo has nearly perfected driving engagement through little bits of guilt and encouragement.)

Time is on your side, yes it is.  (No, really, it is).  Offering a limited amount of time to complete an action drives a player to pay attention to the action.  If I have a ticking clock of 30 seconds in which to perform my action—no matter how mundane the action—I’m going to think twice about passing up that opportunity.  Use time as a way to help motive your players to prioritize their actions. Adding a ticking clock gets the heart pumping and causes players to lean forward and pay attention.  The countdown we have for NFLRZ Training games makes this one of the most popular games on the site.  http://nflrz.nflrush.com/play/game/training

While it’s not true for all games or all linear content, the common thread that runs through each medium is redemption.  For the most part, it’s our basic human nature to want a happy ending.  The reason we love watching our heroes fall is the delight we feel when they redeem themselves.  In a game, we want the opportunity to dig in, play hard and be rewarded for our efforts.  In games, we can have failures… as long as we are also rewarded for victories.  Losing makes winning all the more sweeter.  As game designers, it is up to us to find the right balance.  That’s all for me for now.  I have to run.  I only have 3 minutes left to click that button or something terrible is going to happen.