The mockup portion of Devcathlon is completed the system thus far has gone through peer reviews. UI recommendations will be made by everyone in the class and we will then proceed to the implementation of the code.
The System so far
Devcathlon is a mere shell right now made up of CSS and HTML script. So from a functionality the system does not do anything significant except link to other pages. The class was divided into three groups with each team responsible for creating their own mockup. All three teams have chosen a social networking type of apperance that should be familiar to anyone who has a Myspace or Facebook page.
Each team came up with good ideas and cool features for the game.
- Mockup4: Anthony Du, John Ly, Robin Raqueno laid out a decent badge system and a neat solution to showing a player's score and team information which I will talk about in my recommendations.
- Mockup5: Aric West, John Zhou, Scheller Sanchez nice scoreboard.
- Mockup6: John Ancheta, Daniel Arakaki, Phillip Lau came up a cool level scheme employing a military type system where players earn their "stripes" from earning so many badges. I will recommend a different type promotion system where moving up in level will require point production. Mockup6 team also designed a game adminstration element for Devcathlon called Game Master where an administrator can control the scoring mechanism, badge and level promotion or demotion.
Devcathlon should move ahead and implement the system with the social network appearance. The design will appeal to a large audience and the class seems to have embraced the layout. The implementation from mockup6 which integrates Hackystat ProjectBrowser with Devcathlon is a clever approach in keeping the two systems tightly bound. However, building Devcathlon into Hackystat will be a process which requires a lot of time and thought. The team is restricted by the time aspect with twelve weeks left in the semester.
The team should implement the following items from the mockups.
- The badge hierarchy and drop down design from mockup4 with some modifications to the drop down design to make it more intuitive for the player.
- The military style level system and game master from mockup6. Using a points methodology for players to get promoted in level should be considered.
- The gallery and scoreboard from mockup5 with modifications done to the gallery and scoreboard for organizational purposes.
Implementation of Java code and communications: email and Twitter. The class used Wicket to tie Java and HTML together I expect to use Wicket again for Devcathlon.
Expected issues
I am concerned with how we are going to get the data from Hackystat to communicate with Devcathlon. Another thorn in my side is JavaMail because we do not have a dedicated SMTP server we are going to have issues with sending messages out. Aside from my concerns I think we have good group this semester and Devcathlon will be a entertaining and interesting system.
