Hello,
We have started to work on a new feature. This feature takes screenshots of
your world map and/or the
final state of a game (score + final position). It is also conceivable to make this feature available to other parts of the platform (like ranking tables).
We would like to discuss the subject with you and see if you come up with interesting ideas. The way that this feature will be done is still quite open. No doubt that you can come up with some very useful comments to help us shape that feature.
Main goalsThere are 2 main goals:
- inside Happy Meeple, other players can see what you have done in your world directly from your profile page.
Your world image is available there.
Click on anyone's profile to see what they achieved.
Also, the final state of any archived game is accessible from your profile game history.
- outside Happy Meeple, screenshots can be used to show what you are doing.
The world screenshot can be shared as a JPEG image or as a dedicated webpage (the webpage has links to Happy Meeple which helps you get more friends to the platform and therefore get the gold rewards associated with it).
Similarly, you can show your best games, for example when you reached a high score.
ChallengesThe main issue with the screenshot feature is that it takes some time.
On a recent iPad, it takes about 0.4 second.
On a powerful desktop PC, it takes between 1.5 and 2 seconds (Chrome and Firefox).
On a slow iPhone 6, it takes between 5 and 10 seconds.
For the world map screenshot to be really useful, it would need to be sent to our servers regularly, ideally every time the player makes a change. It is difficult to do this in the background as the operation of taking a screenshot makes the browser semi-responsive. It would therefore need to interrupt the natural flow of the interface, but how and when? How often? This not clear.
For the final state of a game, the problem is probably easier to solve. We have not tried yet, but we suppose the screenshot of an endgame situation will be much faster than for the world map. Moreover, it is clear when it needs to be done, only once at the end of the game. It may still slow down the endgame process though.
Let us know your thoughts!
