Legality update

So the other day I met with an intellectual property lawyer through my entrepreneurship class, and I discussed the legality of Dangerous Apples with her. Although it was pretty brief, I think I was satisfied by the answers. The good news is that the basic idea of Apples to Apples is not copyrightable, meaning that no gameplay changes are required for my version. The bad news is that the branding must be different enough to make it clear that it's not Apples to Apples. So I'd really prefer to get away from both a name involving "Apples" and the red-and-green color scheme. Guess it's time to go digging back into those suggestions I had gotten before.

Red cards on table

One of the interesting decisions involved with porting any system to a computer for the first time is figuring out whether to completely replicate the old system, down to the finest detail, or to redesign it using the added benefits of a computer. For instance, if you were writing a computer program to call people, you could duplicate the way it's done on a telephone, by entering in the phone number, or you could redesign it specifically for the computer, using an address book or something similar. Do you stick with what people already know and are familiar with, or do you try to correct the flaws in the old design and make something new and better?

I've recently run into this kind of decision for A2A; specifically, I'm looking at what happens when people play red cards. I have a "table" area of the screen where you can see the red cards that have been played, and this is also where the judge picks the winning red card. Now, when anyone plays a red card, it will show up on the table, but what I realized is that, unlike the real Apples to Apples, I can show which red card it is as soon as it gets played. In the real game, you see people as they are playing cards, so revealing a card immediately would also reveal who played it. However, since this is an online game, you do not see people as they play cards, so everyone's identity is protected. This means that I can reveal the exact red cards as soon as they are played. I'm interested in how this change might affect the game play. Will it be amusing to see the cards immediately? Will people rethink their plays if they see what other people have played? Is it worth knowing who has played already? The good news is, it's not that hard to whip up two different versions of the game, one that mimics the original game and doesn't reveal red cards until everyone has played, and one that shows the red cards immediately, so I can test both.

Also, I've renamed the blog to "Dangerous Apples" instead of "Apples to AJAX" since I'm using that name on the current design. I'm heavily leaning towards "Dangerous Apples" for the final project. The blog will stay at the same URL, though.

What's in a name?

I'm back! Sorry for the lack of recent updates, but real life intervenes. Anyway, this post is dedicated to what this project will actually be called. Right now, I'm using "Apples to AJAX" just about everywhere, but I have to say that I don't particularly like that name. For one thing, I think it's a little bit too close to the original "Apples to Apples", and I don't really feel like risking legal trouble. My understanding is that I'll be OK just as long as I don't use the exact name or a very obvious derivation thereof (definitely correct me if I'm mistaken on that), but I'd really like not to push it.

Additionally, I don't like the fact that it has "AJAX" in it. Granted, the game is going to feature AJAX very prominently, but I don't think it's important for my future visitors to know that. When you boil it down, "AJAX" is basically just a web development buzzword that doesn't have a whole lot of meaning to the end user. A lot of people don't know what it is, so I would have to answer "what the heck is AJAX?" from the majority of people who visit the site. I don't think I could even explain it succinctly to someone who doesn't know a lot about how the Internet works, which is likely to be most of my audience. And that's kind of the point - even if you don't have the slightest idea what AJAX is, you can still play the game perfectly fine. So basically, there's absolutely no reason for the word "AJAX" to appear in the name.

Just as an aside though, I do have to say that the shorthand of "a2a" is very convenient. Right now, the project is living in a folder called "a2a", and the CSS and JS files are prefixed with "a2a". Additionally, I think it's appropriate given my current location in Ann Arbor, commonly nicknamed A2 or AA. I definitely didn't know I was gonna wind up here when I started working on this project, but sometimes things just turn out the right way.

So what am I thinking instead of "Apples to AJAX"? I haven't completely decided, but I am personally leaning towards something like "Dangerous Apples". I like the fact that it has the adjective-noun format that you construct during the game, and also a certain non sequitur element to it. You can imagine playing "Apples" as a red card for the green card "Dangerous". That and I just like the rhythm - that whole dactyl-spondee sequence. Virgil was onto something for sure. I'm not sure if it's too crazy of a name though, and I wonder if I'd need to redo any of my artwork - the current apple logo doesn't look very dangerous for sure. (Maybe it's just a facade...)

Any other thoughts?