The Windows Phone 7 Fable

Steve Ballmer announced Coin Golf for Windows Phone 7 at CES 2011. This game will apparently let you earn Fable 3 gold on your Windows Phone and let you transfer it into the main game on your Xbox 360. Great. Gold is the least of my problems on Fable 3. I have mountains of the stuff.

But Fable 3 gold is not what this thought is about. It did, however, make me think a bit about Fable 3 and it's gameplay experience. Since the first Fable, Lionhead Studios have had a very simple but incredibly effective way of movement, battling and interacting with in game characters. It's so good that I thought "Why doesn't Microsoft use more of these methods in other places - other games and even the UI of software?" I noticed in Ballmer's CES keynote that the Kinect UI for Xbox has inherited aspects of this Fable UI. Namely "gesture and hold".

When interacting with elements in the Fable game the "A" button symbol appears on screen to denote that you can interact with an item or person. You press A to perform the interaction. But it's not just a single button press, you have to hold the button down until a timer circles the on screen "A" icon. What a lovely, simple way to interact with something. You don't accidently interact because a single press is not enough, you need to hold the button for a moment.

Various blog posts and annoucements about Windows Phone 7 have lauded the 'tap and hold' feature of the UI. But in the one place I think it's drastically needed - it doesn't exist. This place is one of the things that is absolutely paramount to a phone - especially a mobile phone and especially one with a predominantly touch screen experience.... answering an incoming call.

I lost incoming calls because of the silly way you have to answer a call on Windows Phone 7. When the phone rings you have to slide the lock screen up and then press a button. It sounds simple, but believe me it's awkward and sometimes difficult to achieve with one hand in time to answer some calls. The swipe up and then tap button action is just not 'modern', not simple enough and doesn't make use of UI that Microsoft has within it's portfolio. Microsoft Game Studios own Lionhead right? Well why not use the "A" button interaction from Fable to provide the method of answering or rejecting incoming calls. Just have an 'answer button' on the screen (rather than the lock screen to swipe up) and use the tap and hold method to answer the call. Simples.

 

 

Posted via email from gazcoop