Horrible visual design, and lack of consistency with OS X interface elements aside, Firefox 3 is an abomination of a release, with an ever-growing list of aggravating usability issues noticeable on day one. These aren’t simply growing pains. These are features that worked fine in FF2 gone completely AWOL, in what Mozilla hoped would be the biggest browser release in history. Whoops.

To illustrate my point, here’s a list of major issues I’ve noticed since installing the new browser four days ago, on “Download Day 2008.” These all crop up using Firefox version 3.0 on my PowerBook G4, running OS X Leopard 10.5.3.

» The new auto-completing address bar displays not just the web address of suggestions, but also the titles of those websites. Good in theory, but it uses both the address and titles to prioritize its suggestions. The result? First suggestions are not always web addresses beginning with what’s been typed in. Sounds benign, but it’s second-guessing what the user is trying to do, which is just bad news in terms of usability. Odds are, if I’m typing something into the address bar, it’s the beginning of a web address — not the end of one. Giving me a Joystiq page on Popcap instead of Popcap.com when I type in “Popcap” isn’t a feature; it’s a bug.

» On a similar note, the address bar suggestions don’t prioritize root directories over sub-sections. If I type in “flickr,” it’s more likely that I want to visit flickr.com, than flickr.com/photos/username.

» FF3 doesn’t appear to log keystrokes between operations. For example: if you hit CMD+N to open a new window and begin typing the address before the new window appears, it won’t log those keystrokes, and will miss a portion of the address once the window appears. This sounds nitpicky, but EVERY browser I’ve used up until now has logged keystrokes in this manner (including Firefox 2). So Firefox 3 has basically dropped an invisible feature that people grew accustomed to.

» Firefox 3 has a hard time recognizing when it’s the active application. If I write an e-mail in Mail, then click an open Firefox window and hit CMD+W to close that window, it occasionally won’t close the Firefox window, and instead closes the e-mail I was just writing. (This might actually be related to the previous problem; it’s possible Firefox 3 isn’t keeping track of commands hit while it’s processing earlier commands. Not a problem if your computer’s super-fast, but most aren’t).

» For no reason whatsoever, the address bar now appears in pop-up windows when it didn’t previously. When you’re talking about a relatively small window launched by a CMS to edit link properties, the address bar takes up an obnoxious amount of real estate. What the hell is it doing there?

» Lastly (at least for the moment), spell check appears to have an itchy trigger finger in FF3. In other words, Firefox now checks to see if I’ve misspelled a word before I’ve finished typing it. This artifacts in text fields as parts of words being underlined as being misspelled, rather than the whole words. No, Firefox, I don’t think “collabor” is a word. It is, however, followed immediately by “-ation.” You think it’d get the hint.

Sweet cheez-its, that was a long rant. Odds are the Mozilla team rushed FF3 out the door, and will hopefully fix a lot of these issues in a pending 3.1 update. Fingers crossed on that.

As always, Dr. Ian Bogost rocked the house at the Social Gaming Summit last week. Speaking on the first panel of the day, Ian discussed the potency of playing a character who is “us, but also slightly not us.”

The comment was made in reference to area/code’s Parking Wars, where players take on the roles of meter maids — a profession not known to be particularly glamorous or exciting. According to Ian, this is one of many reasons why Parking Wars is “the best game on Facebook right now.” It’s the same idea that first drove Diner Dash to mass-market success in 2004: the role of mundanity in game design.

As Ian puts it, “people like having experiences different from their own, no matter how mundane.” The key here is “experiences.” If a game can make a player feel like they’ve discovered the fun in waitressing, or editing Wikipedia entries, then it’s already one step ahead.

The trick to finding the fun in the mundane (or as I’m resisting calling it, “the fundane”), is finding the aspects of the experience that create “flow,” that euphoric mental state of efficiency (I’ve theorized for years that Flo in Diner Dash was actually named for Mihaly Csíkszentmihályi’s theory of optimal experience). Think about a job you’ve worked in your lifetime. Think about the repetitive aspects of that job in which you were able to enter a zen-like trance, the parts you actually enjoyed once you got good at them. This is game fodder.

Here are a few examples (and hey! Free game ideas!):

• Working at Quiznos: Next time you order the Chicken Carbonara, pay attention to the process by which your sandwich is made. It’s the Henry Ford model of food prep, and it’s oddly enjoyable. Think Cooking Mama + Root Beer Tapper.
• Repackaging RAM: I spent two summers working for a major memory reseller. My job? Removing RAM chips from old computers, repackaging and sorting for redistribution. I see a collection game on Facebook based on the rising and falling market value of memory. Players buy junky virtual PCs using the in-game economy, and strip them for their chips in a mini-game. Amassing a collection, players then buy and sell RAM between themselves in order to earn a profit and become the best in the world.
• Looking for a job: Okay, so the fun in this one is kinda hard to see (especially since I’m still in the midst of it), but the repetition is certainly there. Every aspect of the process — checking job sites, optimizing resumes, sending cover letters, interviewing, pitching salary requirements — all of these could be tied into a game experience. Format? I don’t entirely know yet. I’m currently working on a non-digital version. Let’s see if someone can beat me to the social game.

And I mean that in two entirely different ways. Last week I attended the Social Gaming Summit, the latest event to focus on a growing sector of the game industry. The term “social games” is actually a slight misnomer — referring to games built on social networks (eg: Scrabulous, Parking Wars), rather than those played in person amongst groups of peers (eg: Mafia, Red Light Green Light). But for the 400 publishers, developers, and investors gathered in San Francisco last Friday, social gaming meant very large user bases, and the potential for big, big returns.

So yes, social games are big, in the sense that it’s a brand new market a lot of people are excited about right now. But they’re also big in another way. I’ve mentioned before that Facebook is a unique platform for game design, but neglected to mention its biggest feature: size.

If you’re designing a deep social game, you need to think about scalability on an entirely new scale. This isn’t “five to ten players”; this is “five to ten thousand” (or if you’re lucky, many more than that). Infrastructure aside, the design itself can’t buckle under the weight of unexpected growth, or wilt when too few are playing.

I’ll talk more about scaling for design in a later post. Needless to say, I’ve taken a keen interest in the social gaming space. Interacting with the APIs of social networking applications can yield tremendously potent results, and the relaxed, asynchronous nature of such sites lends itself to tabletop adaptations and casual games — which just happen to be my strong suits. I think I’m going to like it here.

Over at LinkedIn, former PlayFirst lead Chris Bennett posted the following question:

Those of you who use Facebook regularly; think about the games you have played. What has been missing from those games to make them a rich and meaningful experience for you and your friends? How could a Facebook game actually deepen the relationships with your friends?

My response, rated best out of the eight received, follows:

As a platform, Facebook has its definite strengths and weaknesses, and solid game design will always play to the strengths of a platform. For the sake of brevity, I’ll go with a numbered list:

1. Passive Experience: Like casual games, Facebook games should be able to be played in relatively short sessions, but offer enough depth to keep users engaged for the long haul.
2. Non-Simultaneity: Facebook is a vast network of people in different countries and different time-zones. Multiplayer experiences that require players to be logged in at the same time go against Facebook’s casual, passive nature. Turn-based games are the way to go.
3. Don’t Let it Lull: Scrabulous’s biggest flaw? There’s nothing for players to do when one player is sitting on their turn. You can blame the source material for this, but players should be able to perform “sub-actions” or “sous-actions” while other players linger. Otherwise, lingering on a turn for too long should come with a penalty.
4. Unique User Recruitment: Everyone hates the friend invite system, especially when applications require a minimum number of harassed internet acquaintances before they become playable. Still, a good social game requires other players, so you need to find other ways to recruit. Have the game publish updates to the player’s feed to get the attention of their friends, or integrate Facebook walls into gameplay and encourage the player behavior of posting game content to friends’ walls. Invites mean nothing anymore; the *true* endorsement of a game is knowing that one of your friends is actually actively *playing.*

For more on designing games for Facebook, or any other social network, check out my previous post on the topic: Game design for Facebook is a very different beast.

Last week was a busy one for me over at Escapist Magazine. Not only did my latest game get published, but my first feature column for the site did as well. I’m pleased with both (thought admittedly more excited about the game).

Now available to play is You Have to Lock the Entry!, my Wikipedia-themed card game. It’s a riff on the free encyclopedia’s “edit wars,” and the act of locking down controversial articles. It’s one of my favorite games so far — not just in designing, but in playing as well. Surprisingly, the internet makes for good non-digital game inspiration…

Also up is my feature article, Simplified Systems: Why 2008 May be the Year of the Board Games. I had a little help on this one, with input from Eric Zimmerman, Brenda Brathwaite, and Frank Lantz (Frank’s comments on the topic sadly got cut due to length; sorry, Frank).

Busy month. It feels like I just returned from France, and in two days I’m moving to San Francisco (that’s right, potential employers, moving to San Francisco). In between those major transitions, I completed two non-digital games and a pretty nifty Off the Grid. It’s probably why I haven’t started packing yet.

First up is Gygaxian, developed in response to Brenda Brathwaite’s challenge to design a game in memory of the late Gary Gygax. It’s an inverted game of Dungeons & Dragons, with multiple Dungeon Masters (here called GGs) battling for narratorial control.

May’s Escapist game (which actually went up a week early) is myNo, a fun, fast-paced dice game I promised myself I’d work on as a break from headier designs like Gygaxian and Petrol Panic. I’ve been using a lot of dice in my designs lately. Maybe next month I’ll do something a bit different.

Over at Joystiq, my latest Off the Grid column deals with Hasbro’s limited-edition Risk: Black Ops, which is ten times hotter than the commercial re-release of the title coming this Fall. As I write this, only five copies of the game are up for auction on eBay, and each is going for over $400. That has to send a pretty strong message to Hasbro re: the demand for the game.