by Josh Knowles
This isn't techie at all, but getting a good, solid kick on a soccer ball is super-satisfying. I'm not that great at the game, and I'm mostly used to exploiting my height and long legs to play defense and trip up other players, but every once in a while the ball comes in at just the right angle for a good slug. Scoring a goal is great, but the pleasure of the interaction comes from the moment of contact, regardless of where the ball ends up.
I don't play many other ball-striking sports on a regular basis (no baseball or golf or anything like that). But I imagine the feeling is similar. Has something to do with the feeling of all of the parts of a system working fluidly and in concert for maximum effect. Or something like that.
For my project, I want to improve what I've (clumsily) got going, here, to make a little game that has interaction between users over the web. The details I haven't settled upon, but there area couple of options:
A Lode-Runner-type game where users can make levels and save them onto the website for anyone to play. High scores would be tied to each custom level. From the phone, you could see a list of all playable levels and choose one to use.
A MMORPG! But really, really small and underused. Instead of having much direct interaction through the website, players would be able to interact in the game (although probably pretty slowly, depending on how fast data transfers). And then save scores and game info on the site.