This is a super cool idea. I think the whole, "just pull out your phone and join the game" aspect of the Apple TV is awesome for making inclusive games.
How was the experience of designing and testing a game for Apple TV?
@eighttwo_three I totally agree! Awesome to always have a controller with you. I'd be interested to know about designing for the Apple TV as well! @walkerdavide
@jakecrump@eighttwo_three designing for Apple TV was great! And given some of the early quirks (and limitations) of the kit, our devs did some amazingly creative work especially with phone connectivity.
We had somewhat of a UX challenge in that we were taking a pre-existing card game, and porting that experience to Apple TV. So from that standpoint, thinking about how a card game (with it's unique set of game mechanics) translates to the phone interface was a fun challenge. Games like Hearthstone are built mobile-first, so all the mechanics are designed with the phone in mind.
The other big challenge in designing was creating the cues that let the user know *which* interface to be looking at at the right moments. That wasn't as easy as we had anticipated. Any good designer wants to avoid too much coachmark UI, and I'm pretty happy with how we tackled that.
TL;DR it was fun as hell and really rewarding.
We at Carrot built Devil's Advocate to be the best party game for Apple TV. In short, the group is fed a provocative statement, they debate it, and then individually guess whether the moderator agrees or disagrees with it; wagering points accordingly.
Rather than using the iPhone's sensors to recreate Wii-like interactions, the device is used for input, much like a deck of cards. Yet fear not! The game is intensely social so you don't have to worry about friends getting lost in their black rectangles.
We're really excited to build it out further to incorporate new content, different kinds of gameplay, and support for Android among other things.
@bradenhamm here's guessing you'll have some fun. We ate the dog food a *LOT* during user testing and QA, and I can say without hesitation that it's a good time.
We're working on Android app for handsets so soon enough it won't be so exclusive. Please send me some feedback once you've played!
@walkerdavide downloaded it on the TV and our phones and we were sad when we realized it was only for 4 players. We were one player short :(
Can't wait until we have more people over though.
@bradenhamm yeah, it's one of those games where it *totally* suffers unless you have a minimum of 4. We're gonna look to increase the max number of players in the future, but tackling connectivity is a huge task. Baby steps.
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