Tag Archives: webapp

Challenge timing out in 3 … 2 … 1 …

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You know, a lot of excitement in our lives comes from the time element. You look at your watch and know that you’re gonna be late for work. And that sparks off a high-speed chase for your bus (look, isn’t that YOUR bus pulling away from that bus stop right now?!) and a mad dash up 22 slights of stairs (because the lifts are so bloody packed … GRAR!).

Or you know that a sale is going to end in a matter of two days but you can’t seem to get any time off your hectic schedule to check it out? Your heart beats faster and faster as each day passes, knowing that you’re missing out on some great bargains.

But you’ve managed it anyway. And you can’t help but experience that “Whoa, I made it! +10!” excitement despite being all tired out, huffing and puffing. It’s an awesome feeling.

Get my drift?

That’s why … you may now add a time element to your challenges!

Expiry dates for challenges
Challenges can now expire, act fast!

Those of you out there who loooooove to add challenges to your to-do list and then sit on ‘em. Don’t dawdle anymore! (;

Challenges that can expire ups the fun element so much, don’t they? Plus, this will also ensure you’ll discover only the most relevant, up-to-date challenges all the time. Whoopie!

On top of that, GameMaki comes packed with more toppings. You can now remove challenges from your to-do list directly, so you needn’t fret any longer when things become too overwhelming. (Omgahhh, I have 99 challenges in my to-do list and I can’t finish ‘em all!) Plus, you can now restrict your challenges to photo-only claims as an option (which means all the jokers who fraudulently claim challenges with random comments will be excluded)!

Oh, and one more thing!

Tag your friends!
Tag your friends

Now, you can tag your friends in your challenges, claims and comments! With tagging, you can dedicate an entire challenge to a friend, or include other users in conversations!

Enjoy, and don’t hesitate to holler at us if you have any questions or feedback!

A shout-out to the existing GameMaki-ians, thanks for the feedback (email + verbal) thus far. We love you guys!

Go on, tell your friends how awesome their claims are!

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So, were you one of those who was stuck in limbo each time you see an awesome challenge claim on GameMaki?

Like for example, when you see something as awesome as this one …

OMGWTFAWESOMECLAIM!

… and it makes you want to jump out of your seat to tell him that “OMG, your photo claim is so cool! YOU RAWKZ!” But then, you realize that there’s no direct way to do it. :( Sure, you can share it on Facebook or Twitter. But it ain’t quite the same as telling him straight, isn’t it?

Well … now you can!

Introducing … da dum da dum da dum … CLAIM RATINGS!

Yay, you can now rate claims!

Awesome, now you can tell people you love their claim by simply hitting the thumbs up button! Well … the reverse is also true, you may also tell the person that their claim is sucky but … definitely, the awesome deserve to be rewarded, right? And if the claim reaches a certain score (we’re not divulging … it’s for us to know and you to find out!), the (awesome) person behind the claim gets a little surprise!

So, head on down and start thumbs-upping away! Give awesome claims the appreciation they deserve.

With our latest webapp release, we also have loads of usability fixes and more (hidden) scoring elements (again, you need to explore around to discover what these scoring elements are! (;).

More importantly, you may now directly attach your claim to your challenge to share with others how you did the challenge and how awesome it really is.

Attach a claim with your challenge!

Happy challeng-ing and discovering, folks! Until then … have a happy weekend!

The key is to keep things simple

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The observant would have noticed that we’ve pulled the ‘claim a challenge with a video’ feature in our latest release earlier this week. (Just a coupla’ weeks ago, we rolled out a massive update to our web application which included the option for users to claim a challenge with a Youtube link.)

Well, it’s gone now. Why? You may ask.

It all boils down to the question of whether the feature is needed. Will users really use it? The team had a huge internal debate over this question.

The idea behind GameMaki is to get people out to do things and discover new experiences. And human beings in general have a certain level of inertia when it comes down to trying something new. Think about it. Trying to get over this inertia is difficult enough. Should we really make things more complex by trying to further encourage people to take videos of what they’re doing too?

Well, one might point out that the same argument can also be applied to photos. But photos are ubiquitous. People take photos when they meet their friends or discover something new or out of the ordinary. People like to take photos to commemorate they have actually done something.

It’s very simple to whip out a camera, point and shoot. Videos on the other hand, take time and effort. (And a hell of a long time – depending on length – to upload to video sharing sites like Youtube.) Additionally, pictures have an innate ability to tell the viewer a story with a simple glance. Videos on the other hand, require attention.

The key is to keep things as simple and natural as possible. We want to help people focus their attention on things they can do in real life (and claim challenges easily), rather than struggle with the technicalities of trying to validate that they have actually done something.

Originally, we went ahead to implement the video claim not because we felt it was needed, but fun to have. (Ooh, we can nao watch vidz of peepz pranking their friends or singing weird songz! Or videologz of peepz relating their experience of doing somethingz! Coolz!)

Then, we realized it was introducing unnecessary complexity to the claim process.

Even then, we know for sure that we cannot eliminate videos from the equation altogether. People will still want to share related videos in response to a particular challenge or as part of a challenge (i.e. a related video that well illustrates what the challenge is about).

So, where do videos fit in the GameMaki experience?

Videos as a method to validate claims is definitely out of the question. So, we focused our attention on making it easier for users to share and consume videos shared by others on GameMaki. Now, our engine detects any video links in challenges and comments and auto-embeds them instantly – a crucial first step with many more to come as we continually strive to simplify and streamline things.

Phase 1 of the spankin’ new GameMaki

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After the excitement of Echelon 2011 and having gathered loads of feedback from the people we spoke to, the GameMaki team worked fervently behind the scenes in order to bring you the best experience possible.

After slightly more than a week of hard work, phase 1 of the revamp has been rolled out … complete with a sleek new front page.

The new GameMaki!
New landing page for GameMaki.

GameMaki’s UX duo had settled on a slightly bolder look and feel for the landing page. The major challenge was also to make it as informative as possible and yet maintain a sleek, clean look.

The new GameMaki!
Informative footer for GameMaki’s landing page.

There were three design interations in the past week alone, and that was after tons of research on landing page design and user psychology.

Let us know what you think.

Design aside, here is a run-down of the new features and tweaks we’ve made to our GameMaki web application:

1. Location retrieval, with challenges in your vicinity
2. Claim a challenge with a Youtube video link
3. User experience and usability improvements
4. A number of bug fixes
5. Minor optimization

Continue reading →

We’ve dished out some new goodies, check it out!

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Because we always seek to make life more exciting and awesome, we’ve dished out a bumper crop of new features for you to sink your teeth into!

The purpose of GameMaki lies in suggesting exciting things to do or places to go. But why just stop there? The features we’ve added mostly revolve around ramping up the social element of GameMaki, among other things.

We’ve quietly introduced Makis a few weeks back. Makis are large, juicy rice rolls filled with yummy delicacies. In GameMaki, Makis allow you to group related challenges together, or to just create your own collection of challenges for your friends. Compete with others by claiming challenges in the Maki to earn points and inch your way up the Maki leaderboard.

The photo upload function for claims has also made an appearance in the past couple of weeks. Uploading a photo when claiming a challenge gives you more points, and also provides visual proof that you’ve actually done a challenge. Browsing photos uploaded with other people’s claims was great fun too. We love this feature and we hope you love it as much as we do!

What else is new in GameMaki this round?

Recurring Challenges
Some suggestions just cannot be claimed once. After all, we don’t just do a particular activity just once, don’t we? Live a little, do it more than once! Recurring challenges are challenges that you can claim over and over again, every 24 hours. Earn more points each time round, and this also means more opportunities to share your photos too.

Recurring challenges on GameMaki.
A recurring challenge will be indicated as above.

Invitations
Wowee, now you can share the goodness of GameMaki with your friends! Merely sharing challenges on Facebook or Twitter is so passe. Pull them in with you, because GameMaki is even more awesome with your friends around! We have nicely integrated with Facebook so you may now easily send GameMaki invites to your friends. Spotted a challenge or a Maki which reminded you of a particular friend? Directly challenge that person too. Let’s get social, social, social.

Challenge a friend from your Facebook account!
Challenge a friend from your Facebook account.

More Options for your Maki
We’ve heard your call. The hollers of dissent when our soccer-freak founder and CEO Keith Ng decided to flood the list of latest challenges with English Premier League-related stuff while creating his EPL Maki. So, you can now hide challenges in your Maki from the public challenges list! On top of that, you now have the option to create exclusive invitation-only Makis just for your friends. Sweet.

All that, and loads of usability fixes.

The GameMaki team would like to take this opportunity to thank all who have participated in our usability testing sessions conducted in recent weeks.

Our mobile webapp has also been brought up-to-date with the web application’s latest features (although you can’t create a Maki on mobile), so hop on down to http://m.gamemaki.com on your mobile phone today!

Any bugs, ideas or just want to tell us something? Holler at us at our community support page!