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TIGSource ForumsDeveloperDesignWord Processor: The Game
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Bennett
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« on: October 17, 2007, 07:25:47 AM »

I write (text) for a living, and I am constantly wondering why writing has to be less fun and less addictive than playing video games. After all, I'm using the exact same hardware, and the exact same interface.

Could we apply the lessons of videogame design to the creation of a word processor that was truly compelling to use?

Here are my ideas thus far:

1) The system would need to be full-screen. Addictive games shut out the outside world.

2) The lesson from Super Mario: Every user interaction should have a visual effect. There should never be a case where you hit a key or click the mouse and nothing happens. There should never be any delay between your input and the visual effect - it all needs to happen at 60 frames per second.

3) The lesson from the Ocarina of Time: A small visual reward should be given when you are doing a repetitive task. When Link runs across Hyrule Field, you can press a button at any time to make him do a useless, but cool, forward roll. Similarly, you should be able to get a small visual reward as you scroll up and down your document, and as you make spelling corrections.

4) The lesson from Everquest: The program should offer 'scores' which tell you how good your writing is. For example, you gain points for each unique word you use. You lose points for writing really long sentences. Your stats are tracked on the side of the screen, and high-scores are collected in an online leaderboard.

5) Animation system: in a normal word processor, letters just 'appear' instantaneously. When a word is pushed over the edge of the line, it disappears and reappears on the next line. This breaks your psychological connection to the 'page'. In my addictive word processor, letters would have some apparent mass. They would slide into and out of view. When you pasted a block of text into the middle of a paragraph, a ripple would emanate out through the other letters as they jostled to make room.

What other lessons from video games could be applied to a word processor? If I get enough good ideas I'm really going to do this. Even if all I can manage is an addictive plain text editor.
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Al King
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« Reply #1 on: October 17, 2007, 07:30:07 AM »

Already done Tongue
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shinygerbil
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« Reply #2 on: October 17, 2007, 07:46:10 AM »

Each menu should be a fun, addictive minigame that quickly begins to grate until you can't stand it any longer. Want to make your text bold? Just rearrange this little picture puzzle. Want a table of contents? Rearrange this bunch of random pipes until the liquid can flow from one end to the other!
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Bennett
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« Reply #3 on: October 17, 2007, 08:05:11 AM »

I guess I need to clarify: the goal is to increase productivity! That won't happen if I become addicted to adding, and then removing italics.  Tongue
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Akhel
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« Reply #4 on: October 17, 2007, 01:07:27 PM »

Threaten to kill the user if he does not write faster and better.
Always works for me! Grin
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Seth
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« Reply #5 on: October 17, 2007, 01:16:38 PM »

Lesson from a typewriter:  Each letter should provide a satisfying sound "thwack" sound as you type, and everytime you hit return you get the ultrasatisfying "chhTING" sound.  Combine this with video game aesthetic, make it so certain keystrokes are more rewarding sounds, especially the period.  Return should always be the best though.

Damn... I wish I had a typewriter right now...
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« Reply #6 on: October 17, 2007, 01:51:33 PM »

Quote
Lesson from a typewriter:  Each letter should provide a satisfying sound "thwack" sound as you type, and everytime you hit return you get the ultrasatisfying "chhTING" sound.  Combine this with video game aesthetic, make it so certain keystrokes are more rewarding sounds, especially the period.  Return should always be the best though.

I already did that. (Sorta)
http://www.camerondmm.com/images/WebTypeWriter.html
 Tongue
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waruwaru
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« Reply #7 on: October 17, 2007, 02:25:21 PM »



I dunno... I don't want to be distracted when I am writing a document or a program.  It would be cool if your word processor could understand the "mood" of what you are writing and changes background/colors/fonts to match.
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Akhel
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« Reply #8 on: October 17, 2007, 03:58:31 PM »


That's awesome.
Useless awesome, but still awesome! Grin
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moi
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« Reply #9 on: October 17, 2007, 04:00:47 PM »



I dunno... I don't want to be distracted when I am writing a document or a program.  It would be cool if your word processor could understand the "mood" of what you are writing and changes background/colors/fonts to match.
Let's go one step further and have the processor automatically connect to google/wikipedia and download and compile texts related to your writing.
That how culture work in 2007 after all, isn't it?
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subsystems   subsystems   subsystems
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« Reply #10 on: October 17, 2007, 04:19:01 PM »

Man, if something like this was actually made, it would be so awesome.
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waruwaru
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« Reply #11 on: October 17, 2007, 05:13:45 PM »

Let's go one step further and have the processor automatically connect to google/wikipedia and download and compile texts related to your writing.
That how culture work in 2007 after all, isn't it?

Programming wise, it might not be a bad thing, it would encourage code re-use.  I suppose it would also meant more bug-reuse...  Wink
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Bennett
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« Reply #12 on: October 17, 2007, 06:01:53 PM »

Lesson from a typewriter:  Each letter should provide a satisfying sound "thwack" sound as you type, and everytime you hit return you get the ultrasatisfying "chhTING" sound.  Combine this with video game aesthetic, make it so certain keystrokes are more rewarding sounds, especially the period.  Return should always be the best though.

Damn... I wish I had a typewriter right now...

This is a really good idea - it's been tried, though. The freeware text editor Q10 does it. And yeah, it's a small auditory reward which makes things a bit more compelling (but annoys coworkers).

http://www.baara.com/q10/
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marshmonkey
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« Reply #13 on: November 14, 2007, 01:32:22 PM »

How about Super Mario Galaxy: StarWords

Each letter pops in with signature super mario galaxy dust poof particles, and star bits sit on regular places on the lines where they are collected with a glittery spark once you type that far.  When you collect 100 star bits you unlock a new font!
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« Reply #14 on: November 16, 2007, 12:28:39 PM »

I'm thinking, to texture the page, ought to keep particle system smoke always rolling in the background, threaded all through the spaces between letters. New words push out the smoke as they're laid, and the faster you type, the bigger the cloud billowing up in your wake. That'd be cool.


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Bennett
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« Reply #15 on: November 16, 2007, 12:45:50 PM »

I'm thinking, to texture the page, ought to keep particle system smoke always rolling in the background, threaded all through the spaces between letters. New words push out the smoke as they're laid, and the faster you type, the bigger the cloud billowing up in your wake. That'd be cool.

Nice idea. It would motivate you to type massive run-on paragraphs. Maybe the smoke could even turn to fire if you were on a roll...
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« Reply #16 on: November 29, 2007, 05:00:55 PM »

Any effects would have to be very concise, and not slow the program down.  If the main goal of the game is to type, then the user shouldn't be too distracted by superfluous effects.

I think the 'ripple' effect for inserting text would be very cool, if it is executed quickly and does not inhibit further typing.  I also like the typewriter sounds.  There is something very satisfying about typing on a manual typewriter, and I feel that it is the loud sounds (as well as the amount of pressure required to press the keys) that adds to this atmosphere.)  For using backspace/delete, you could use an animation of a brush of white-out smearing across the mistakes.

As for scoring, I think it would make more sense to score based on spelling accuracy.  You could have some sort of spell-check that only runs at the end (no red squiggly lines!) and scores based on word accuracy percentage.  You could lose points based on how many times you had to press <DELETE> or <BACKSPACE>.

Good ideas, though!

~ Theta Games
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Montoli
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« Reply #17 on: November 29, 2007, 06:25:08 PM »

I like your idea of having scoring based on things like spelling.  (Since then, as you get better at the game, you also get better at real-world skills related to making documents.)

I feel like making the player wait until the end to check for misspellings would be a mistake though.  You wouldn't want to make the "game" text editor any harder to use than a regular one, and there's a reason that normal text editors do auto-spell-checking as you type.

I also like the idea of making backspace and delete cost you points though.  Maybe it could have a guitar-hero-like streak-meter, where the more correct words you type in a row, the higher multiplier you get.  (Possibly also modified by typing speed?) 

Hmm.  I was also going to suggest that the scoring should reward you for using bigger, more interesting words, (words' base scores = # of letters in the word * how fast you typed it) but maybe that would lead to just as much weird behavior.  (You'd type weird, stilted sentences filled with large words, instead of weird short sentences filled with short ones.)

Actually, I'm realizing, the more I think about this, that maybe making a game around word processing is too broad.  It's like making a game about a hammer.  It's a tool.  I feel like you need some context to make a game, or you run the risk of it being overly general.  You'd never make a game about just a hammer, or try to make a game with a hammer in which you could use it for anything.   Games tend to have more specific (narrow) contexts.

So maybe the same is true with word processors.  Maybe it needs to know more about what you're doing.  It certainly seems like it would be easier to make games about certain types of word processing (taking dictation, copying documents, editing, etc) than about word processing in general...

Hmm.  Now this has me thinking about what sorts of language-based games you could base around a text editor.  First one that comes to mind is "Haiku Hero", but that's probably because I'm just strange.

(It could be so cool!  It could give you a word or two, and you have to make a haiku involving them!  It could use online tools (dictionary.com or something) to figure out syllable count!  Grammar checking might be weird, since Haikus (and poetry in general) tend to play fast and lose with it, but you could have a streak bonus for lack of typos, and a constantly ticking clock, that you get a little bonus to every haiku!  Leaderboards online!  It would rule!

...  I may have to write that, one of these days, actually...)


Potential alternate ending - Substitute "Iambic Pentameter" for Haiku.
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« Reply #18 on: December 22, 2007, 06:29:42 PM »

Ha, funny ideas.  However, a syllable counter would be very hard to implement.  You'd probably have to have some massive list of every word in the English language, each with a different syllable count.

Back to the main idea, such a typing 'game' would have the same appeal as Guitar Hero, with streaks, and error counts, etc.  You could call it 'Word Hero,' 'Text Hero,' or something like that.
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Montoli
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« Reply #19 on: December 26, 2007, 12:54:26 PM »

Ha, funny ideas.  However, a syllable counter would be very hard to implement.  You'd probably have to have some massive list of every word in the English language, each with a different syllable count.

Back to the main idea, such a typing 'game' would have the same appeal as Guitar Hero, with streaks, and error counts, etc.  You could call it 'Word Hero,' 'Text Hero,' or something like that.


Yeah, I was thinking of calling it "Haiku Hero", just because it rolls nicely off the tongue.


Also, regarding syllable counting, a quick google search reveals several online syllable counters that could probably be hooked up into a game with some minimal python scripting.

Obviously for a full release you'd probably want something more robust (and unlikely to go down, block you, or change input/output formats) but I figured they would work pretty well for a simple prototype.

(For a longer term solution, there are enough free dictionaries laying around that you could run a script on and import data from.  A friend and I were looking into this, and concluded that getting a dictionary together would not be a problem.  You'd still need to cope with non-dictionary words, so you'd probably want an algorithmic counter to fall back on, but massive lookup lists aren't that hard to come by or generate, and it's not like space is much of an issue any more, so storing it wouldn't be much of a problem.)
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